Mice: programmable buttons?

[JohnJSal]

I'm confused. When a mouse says it has, for example, 8 programmable buttons, is it counting the left-, right- and middle-click buttons? Because I've seen this before and I swear I don't see three buttons anywhere else. But if this is the case, why in the world would these be counted as "programmable"? How could you use them in any other but their normal way?

 

[PC eye]

The software for the mouse provides an options menu for assigning the funtion of each button. You can have the left button set to right click, for the enter key, space bar, double click, etc. when looking at a screen with each button highlighted individually. Once you select the function from a list of choices you simply click the apply button. The screen shot here will show how that looks for the MS Trackball Explorer no longer avaialble just for illustration.

 

[JohnJSal]

The software for the mouse provides an options menu for assigning the funtion of each button. You can have the left button set to right click, for the enter key, space bar, double click, etc. when looking at a screen with each button highlighted individually. Once you select the function from a list of choices you simply click the apply button. The screen shot here will show how that looks for the MS Trackball Explorer no longer avaialble just for illustration.

Eh, that's kind of retarded. When I think of "programmable" buttons, I'm thinking of dedicated buttons to launch programs or that kind of thing. I guess it's a marketing gimmick.

 

[PC eye]

With programmable keyboards you can assign a program to the additional keys seen on those. With the Digital Media Pro model from MS in use for the time being I press a button to see Outlook Express or Windows Mail(Vista) open up. I can also assign some other program to the same key to see that startup.