My thoughts are the following.

This matter is not urgent in my opinion, but a change would be helpful for newcomers. So, I will support a bit more my point. But, I am not willing to push too much, so this is my last mail on this subject:) 

Executive Summary. We should copy the way CAD programs name pointer actions: Left+Center+Right+Wheel. 

For a few reasons [1] they have a vast audience [2] They have exactly our same problem: rich interfaces requiring complex interactions. [3] Professional of CAD drawing usually own a special pointer device which is quite more expensive than a normal mouse, so the problem for them is also amplified. 

=> If the CAD people chose to use Left+Center+Right+Wheel to refer to actions (If I remember well they do, I learnt to use a few CADs in last years) it means it is the best way they found to communicate => we should stick to their solution. 

We have more complex things ahead, mouse button names for us is really the tip of the iceberg. We must try not to confuse people too much when they approach Squeak. 

Please, don't be misguided by the left handed example (@John example). I am left handed myself. Consider these few cases. Guitar playing, if your are left handed and you want to play like that you need to remove and reposition all the strings. You can still do it. Piano playing, you adapt or give up, the hardest part is most often for the right hand. Consider pen writing, problems, your wrist runs on fresh ink making a mess on the page with very high probability. In short, we left handed are used to live in a world for right handed, don't worry, we can make it:)

Mice with 3buttons+wheel are the most cheap and widely available. (I don't have statistics, this is just an my impression). 

If we use the Left+Center+Right+Wheel naming, people who have other stuff and are really really in trouble, can buy a normal mouse with $10 and then map the equivalence to their own pointing device of choice by themselves. 

If you have a wired pointing device you know it. Apple guys, you know, the company changes the pointer behavior when it does not have anything better to do. The first thing I do when I get a new Mac is to "fix" the touchpad to behave in the "standard" way. The first thing I need to get started is to find the equivalent of LeftClick, RightClick, and ScrollUp, ScrollDown ... don't you do the same ? So, I keep thinking in mouse actions, even if I have a touchpad.

If you use another naming scheme: which can be alfa-beta-gamma, or halo-menu-world or else, you will make the thing not-obvious not only to the minority of programmers who do not own a standard mouse, but to the totality of new potential users. 


bye
Nicola











-] I am left handed myself. I understand your cocenrns. On the other side, failing to stick to a particoluar convention will confuse not only the left handed, but all of the people. Let me explain

Many years ago I started to play guitar, guitar strings / books are written for, right handed people. So, if you really don't want to 



> On Dec 24, 2019, at 8:19 PM, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
> 
> Nicola is probably right about sunsetting our beloved Red/Yellow/Blue; it's certainly ancient and archaic. Mind you, it *is* still enshrined in a fair bit of code. It would however be reasonable to try something more helpful in documentation and I am reminded of the RISC OS approach of referring to Select, Menu, Extend (which were left/middle/right buttons). That kind of naming has a decent clue as to function in the name and it isn't hard to explain that three-button mice have A/B/C, two button mice (do they still exist? a stupid idea that I hope has died) are A/B and shift-key-B for C, trackpads are... a bit more complicated because so many different types, and so on. Could we perhaps settle on Select/Menu/Halo and explain that you can choose from a variety of settings for which button/key/gesture/voice-command maps to each? JRM pointed out how the whole left/middle/right can get messed up by a left-handed-mouse option in some OSs. I've never used that despite being left-handed!
> 
> Does Select/Menu/Halo seem suitable?
> 
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building
> 
> 
>