What's a good mouse to use with Designer?

[R C-R]

23 minutes ago, GarryP said:

@R C-R You're making trackballs more and more like something I want to try. Maybe I can find somewhere I can get a decent demo.

Please keep in mind what I said about developing the muscle memory needed to use them to best effect. That won't happen in the brief time afforded by a demo. It will also take some time to try out the different pointer speed & acceleration settings to find the one(s) that suit you best.

For graphics work, like a mouse they are not the best choice for freehand sketching, so if that is important to you a better choice might be to spend your money on a graphics tablet instead.

[GarryP]

Understood.

I would like to be able to sit down - not stand up, like in a shop - and have 10-15 minutes or so of just trying things like selecting text, using menus and drop-downs, browsing the web, dragging files, etc. Boring day-to-day stuff but the sort of thing I do thousands of times each day without giving it much thought with a mouse.

If, after 10 minutes, it still feels totally alien to me then I can probably give the idea up. On the other hand, if I start to think "Yeah, I could get used to this", then it might be worth putting more thought into it. And if, as you say, they are generally long-lasting and sturdy I could even look at getting a second-hand one to try and keep the initial outlay down, for example: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kensington-Expert-Pro-Trackball-Mouse-64213/273261156507?hash=item3f9fa2589b:g:KaAAAOSwCmRa2Jf~

(I don't do freehand sketching so that's not an issue for me but it's worth pointing out for anyone else reading this.)

[R C-R]

13 minutes ago, GarryP said:

And if, as you say, they are generally long-lasting and sturdy I could even look at getting a second-hand one to try and keep the initial outlay down...

The eBay one is an older model & as the description says, its extra buttons won't work unless you can find an old version of the Kensington software to use with it. The second image on the page also shows that it is an older design that suspends the ball on stainless steel rollers instead of synthetic ruby bearings. On those older models, the rollers are connected to a pair of rotary optical sensors inside the case, similar to the way older mice use rollers & sensors to sense mouse ball movement, while the newer Kensington ones read movements directly from the ball with a single optical sensor that shines a light on the ball itself.

The roller method is still quite sturdy & long lasting but not quite as smooth as the optical only one, & a bit higher maintenance because when the sensors inside the case get clogged with enough gunk, you have to take the thing apart to clean it. The case opens easily enough for that -- there are just a few easily accessible screws that have to be removed -- but it is something to be aware of.

[Gear maker]

I started out with the Magic Mouse almost 10 years ago.  Quickly found I hated that creature.  I thought it was the poorest design possible for getting any accuracy.  Just before I'd click a button the cursor would end up moving.  I then bought what I believe is a Logitech M620 which I have loved.  But lately I find in AD that sometimes when I drag several layers all but one end up being dropped somewhere I don't want them.  I'm assuming the left button's switch is wearing out.  But after 9 years plus with heavy usage that's not bad.  The resolution is great.  It has 3 extra programmable buttons that I find I never use.  Every few years I get a wild hair and set up the buttons to do something but 2 days later quite using them.

I didn't feel that cordless was a big issue until I got this one, now I love cordless.

A big plus was that the Magic Mouse needed new batteries every month or so and the M620 needs batteries every couple years with heavy usage.  In 9+ years I bet I've replaced the batteries (2 AA batteries) about 4 times.

[GarryP]

@R C-R Thanks for the tips about the older models of trackball. Useful to know.

Thanks also @Gear maker
The MX620 doesn't seem to be available anymore in the UK, unless someone wants to pay over the odds: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Logitech-MX620-Cordless-Laser-Mouse-Black-910-000240/152935886454?epid=92384992&hash=item239bb06e76:i:152935886454
The current MX Master seems to be similar spec' but with different styling.

I think my choice is now between:
* LOGITECH M330 Silent Plus - no bells and whistles but it really is almost silent in use;
* LOGITECH G402 Hyperion Fury - some bells and whistles but not sure how it will feel in my hand.

Thanks to everyone who has chipped in with suggestions and information. I've got a coin to toss now.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Gear maker said:

I started out with the Magic Mouse almost 10 years ago.  Quickly found I hated that creature.  I thought it was the poorest design possible for getting any accuracy.

I also hate the Magic Mouse (& Magic Mouse 2), but for poor design I think nothing comes close to the old 'hockey puck' Apple USB mouse. Because it is round, it is very easy to not notice it has rotated & is being moved at a different angle than intended, so for example trying to move the pointer straight up the screen instead sent it off in some other direction.

Apple makes a lot of very well designed products but computer mice is not among them.

[GarryP]

The mouse - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Mighty_Mouse - that came with my iMac in 2008 was horrible. I never knew which actual button I had pressed until it was done. I used it for a couple of days before getting something else.

And just for fun: This was my first mouse: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/36624/BBC AMX Mouse/
Not particularly ergonomic but it had three buttons and the art software was amazing for its time. You could even use it in your own programs if you read the manual.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, GarryP said:

And just for fun: This was my first mouse: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/36624/BBC AMX Mouse/
Not particularly ergonomic but it had three buttons and the art software was amazing for its time. You could even use it in your own programs if you read the manual.

When I was looking for a mouse to use with a BBC Model B, the seller recommended this one (which, as you can see, also has three buttons): http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/4618/Nidd-Valley-DigiMouse/

[GarryP]

Nice, although the cable coming out of the back - rather than the front - seems a bit strange compared to nowadays.
(And the software coming on a standard C12 with a sticker over it. Those were the days.)

[Alfred]

15 minutes ago, GarryP said:

(And the software coming on a standard C12 with a sticker over it. Those were the days.)

Oh no, not just a standard C12 but a “home computer cassette”! 

[GarryP]

A special kind of media indeed. That obviously stops people from using it for anything else. (I hope they knocked the record tabs out. "We lose a lot of good software that way.")
I was going to say blank C12 but guessed that someone would probably point out that, if there was software on it, it wouldn't actually be blank.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

The mouse - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Mighty_Mouse - that came with my iMac in 2008 was horrible. I never knew which actual button I had pressed until it was done.

I did not have that problem with the Mighty Mouse but what I found problematic with the design is eventually enough gunk got trapped inside the case under the little scroll ball that it stoped working reliably. The standard 'rub briskly on your pants' cure for that Apple recommended only worked for a while. After that, the only fix was to disassemble the thing & clean out the little chamber around the ball. That was almost impossible to do without breaking the case -- I have 3 of those rodents in my junk box & only one of them survived that procedure intact.

Even so, it was an improvement compared to the round "hockey puck" rodent it replaced. I have one of those too, which I eventually found a use for by removing its ball, disabling the sensors, & using it as a 'slam button' with a MacBook to trigger cues in an audio app called "QLab."

[GarryP]

One thing I didn't realise about the Mighty Mouse, until I read the article, was that:
"The mouse emits a sound when the scroll ball is rolled, but this is not a direct product of the ball moving; the sound is actually produced by a tiny speaker inside the mouse. There is no way to disable this feature other than physically disabling the speaker inside the mouse."
I thought this was a wind-up until I booted up my old system, and it's actually true.

[Gear maker]

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

(And the software coming on a standard C12 with a sticker over it. Those were the days.)

Oh that brings back memories.  Not necessarily good ones either.  My Apple II used a standard audio recorder, I still have 3 as the first 2 almost didn't work.  The third worked and only took 2 or 3 tries to get the program to load.  And used standard audio cassettes.  I wonder if a DATA cassette would have worked better.  Luckily with, initially, 16k of RAM in the computer the programs were short.  I thought I'd gone to heaven when Apple brought out their 5.25" single sided floppy drive.  Luckily didn't have to worry about a mouse, squeaking or not.

[R C-R]

11 minutes ago, Gear maker said:

My Apple II used a standard audio recorder, I still have 3 as the first 2 almost didn't work.  The third worked and only took 2 or 3 tries to get the program to load.  And used standard audio cassettes.  I wonder if a DATA cassette would have worked better. 

I could not justify the cost of an Apple back then but I used a Commodore cassette 'drive' with my Vic 20 for a while. It was not an audio recorder but I did not see any difference between using standard audio cassettes with it vs. the data kind, other than that the latter had much shorter tapes in them so if you accidentally wound much past where the data ended it was easier to get back to that part of the tape. It was literally a "less is more" kind of thing! 

[Gear maker]

9 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I could not justify the cost of an Apple back then

The day I walked into Computerland in March of '79 and discovered the Apple II I just couldn't leave without buying one.  I couldn't even wait until the next day.  I didn't care if I had to go a year without eating I just had to buy one now!  Which is really odd as I have never done impulse buying.

[Alfred]

31 minutes ago, Gear maker said:

I thought I'd gone to heaven when Apple brought out their 5.25" single sided floppy drive.

I seem to remember that the capacity of those 5¼″ floppies was a massive 170 KB.

[GarryP]

@R C-R I remember being told that the shorter length of tape in data cassettes meant less "stress" on both the tape itself and the machine which gave a better chance that the recording would have more fidelity which is more important when you're recording and playing back encoded bits rather than just music. I have no idea if this is correct or not. Maybe someone was just trying to get rid of a job-lot of C15s they were stuck with.
"@alfred"40- or 80-track? Single- or double-density? We had to worry about so much back then.

[kaffeeundsalz]

On 6/26/2018 at 6:50 PM, - S - said:

The only one I haven't needed to replace is an MX518, but that's probably because I stopped using it after about 6 months as I didn't really get on with the shape or the scroll wheel. 

Razer joined the boycott list after they decided you needed to connect to the internet and create an online Synapse account with them in order to configure your mouse.  That was a while back and maybe Razer have changed since then, I don't know as I boycotted them.

 

Hi @- S -,

it's interesting for me to see how different our experiences are in this regard. I started using gaming mice for productive work many years ago and the Logitech MX518 is in fact the one that I've used for the longest time by far. I even grabbed a second one from remaining stock long after Logitech had discontinued it just so I could put it aside for when my first unit would break. I occasionally tried out newer mice in retail stores, but I was so familiar with the MX518's design that there were times when I thought I could never use any other model again, ever. After my second unit had its days and there wasn't any change to get another one, I bought a Logitech G403 Prodigy, and getting used to it really wasn't as painful as I originally suspected.

What this tells us is that the choice for a computer mouse is probably an extremely personal one and it all depends on what works for you and what doesn't. In this context, I'd also like to cast my vote for Razer devices. You're right: Forcing the user into the cloud just for configuring a mouse is a terrible design choice. That being said, I'm currently with a Razer Mamba Tournament Edition and have only good things to say about it. Very well crafted, precise, highly configurable and just the perfect weight, size and shape for my hand. After the initial configuration, I've permanently put the Synapse software into offline mode so it won't annoy me any further.

[firstdefence]

On 6/28/2018 at 2:45 PM, R C-R said:

I could not justify the cost of an Apple back then but I used a Commodore cassette 'drive' with my Vic 20 for a while. It was not an audio recorder but I did not see any difference between using standard audio cassettes with it vs. the data kind, other than that the latter had much shorter tapes in them so if you accidentally wound much past where the data ended it was easier to get back to that part of the tape. It was literally a "less is more" kind of thing! 

I can remember waiting for a slot machine game to load on a ZX82 spectrum and it squealed away for 17 mins before failing to load, so we had to do it again lol I remember selling the Commodore 64 from Dixons and literally a sale every 2 mins at Christmas, every time I sold one I was entered into a raffle, I won in excess of 200 bottles of wine and I don't drink alcohol  

Re Mice, back in the day, when I was on windows, I used a Logitech mouse, I agree totally that a mouse is a very personal thing and that mouse fit my hand like it had been made for it. Like kaffeeundsalz, I bought a couple of spares because once you hit that sweet spot you just don't want to change. When mine died I buried it lol!

[SrPx]

I had a 48k Spectrum.... I had one guy knowing his way in electronics to hack a real arcade machine joystick and plug a hand made chip-interface for it into my spectrum. Worked like charm, even if looked like the delorean from back to the future, from that point....

[- S -]

On ‎6‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 5:50 PM, - S - said:

…The only one I haven't needed to replace is an MX518, but that's probably because I stopped using it after about 6 months as I didn't really get on with the shape or the scroll wheel.

4 hours ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

Hi @- S -,

it's interesting for me to see how different our experiences are in this regard. I started using gaming mice for productive work many years ago and the Logitech MX518 is in fact the one that I've used for the longest time by far. I even grabbed a second one from remaining stock long after Logitech had discontinued it just so I could put it aside for when my first unit would break. I occasionally tried out newer mice in retail stores, but I was so familiar with the MX518's design that there were times when I thought I could never use any other model again, ever. After my second unit had its days and there wasn't any change to get another one, I bought a Logitech G403 Prodigy, and getting used to it really wasn't as painful as I originally suspected.

Yeah, each person is different, so it does indeed come down to a personal choice at the end of the day.  It's difficult to show in pics, but I'll try anyway.  In the below pics the Logitech MX518 looks similar in size to the Microsoft mouse, but in reality—in the hand—I just didn't get on with it.

I use the scroll wheel middle mouse button quite literally all the time, as I use it to launch links in new browser tabs (and obviously scroll pages), so my index finger spends most of the time resting on the scroll wheel.  On the Microsoft mouse the front of my index finger naturally sits on the scroll wheel, whereas on the MX518 the scroll wheel is too far back, so my index finger sits on the DPI '+' button instead.  It doesn't look like much in the photo, but in reality I found it uncomfortable either having my finger constantly scrunched up or having to constantly move my finger back about a centimetre all the time.

Next, the MX518 scroll wheel is quite narrow and smooth (narrower than it looks in the photo) and the scroll wheel became stiff after using it a while.  This meant the scroll wheel was too slippery.

Lastly, I found the mouse just overall too small (which you can't really tell by looking at the photo); my ring and pinky fingers would be heavily planted on the mouse mat rather than gently touching the mouse mat.  This meant I was constantly lifting them, which made the whole right side of my hand ache after a while and became unbearable.  My hands aren't big, more thick than anything—like builders hands, so I'd imagine anyone with large hands would find it even worse.

 

[Uncle Mez]

Hello here, it's very interesting to read this content. 
Well i'm not killing the mouse  story as I still have one from lenovo that I use from time to time, but, personally I now make a lot of use of my Wacom One Pen Tablet with Designer/Photo and many softwares installed on my mac and my pc and it works very well, also I have noticed my tablet works even better with the latest beta of Designer and Photo so I expect better with coming release and keep on increasing sync between eyes, brain and hand. 

A vertical mouse is recommended as it helps to lessen the risk of tendinitis which seems to be high with normal mouse. 

That was my contribution guys

[Alfred]

On 6/29/2018 at 9:20 AM, GarryP said:

"@alfred"40- or 80-track? Single- or double-density? We had to worry about so much back then.

Yes, I remember there could be problems if you were sharing discs between the different types of drives. An 80-track drive squeezed more onto the disc by writing a thinner track, so sometimes the coarser heads on a 40-track drive couldn’t read the data reliably.

7 hours ago, Arnaud Mez said:

A vertical mouse is recommended as it helps to lessen the risk of tendinitis which seems to be high with normal mouse. 

Anything that helps you look after your tendons is a good idea, but what do you mean by a “vertical” mouse?

 

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, Arnaud Mez said:

A vertical mouse is recommended as it helps to lessen the risk of tendinitis which seems to be high with normal mouse. 

I originally switched to the Kensington trackball because I was experiencing increasingly serious RSI problems in my wrist from using Apple's rodents. The trackball prevented those injuries from getting worse but even now, nearly 30 years later, they are still there & capable of causing pain & numbness if I put too much strain on my wrist for too long. So yes, this is most definitely something anyone who spends a lot of time using computers should consider.

@αℓƒяє∂, a vertical mouse is one that is designed so you grip it from the side instead of the top, which decreases the stress on your wrist from rotating it to grip the top of the mouse.