Re (2): [Oberon] 3 Buttons to 2

[muller at inf.ethz.ch]

Felix Friedrich <friedrich at gsf.de> wrote:
> Actually it was not really me, who changed the response of the mouse 
> buttons but it is contained in ETH native Oberon for Windows. As far as I 
> understood, Emil Zeller has done - at least part of - the job.

The history of this from my viewpoint:

Windows Oberon was the first to address the 3-button mouse issue.
Emil (or maybe already Hannes?) changed the Windows Input module 
(or a lower-level Windows-specific module?) that basically checked 
the gadget under the cursor and acted differently depending on that.

When Bernhard Egger was making the "Programming for Dummies" book 
distribution (see http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/dummies/) we looked for 
a better solution and saw that changing all the basic user-interface 
objects for the two-button case was not that much trouble.

http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/WebBeta.html shows this change was 
done on 24.11.00.  (BTW If a change in this page or WebAlpha.html does 
not have a name tag (prk, ejz, be, etc.) on it, it was made by me).
Emil and Günter then ported this to the Windows and Unix versions.

http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/mouse.html documents that F8 can be used to
toggle the new behaviour on and off.  Peter Easthope mentions this is 
also documented in Oberon-0.

peter_easthope at gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca wrote:
> I wonder whether the command 
> functionality of ML,ML can be turned
> off permanently.  The mouse configur
> -ation viewer in Oberon0 mentions 
> that F8 toggles this capability but
> it appears not to remain off in the 
> fully installed alpha 23.06.2002.  
> I don't see the question mentioned 
> in configuration strings.

What is apparently not documented anywhere is that in Native Oberon
you can turn it off permanently and revert to the old operation
by setting config string "MB=3" (mouse buttons = 3).  André, could
you please document this?

-- Pieter

--
Pieter Muller, Computer Systems Institute, ETH Zurich / MCT Lab, Zurich
Native Oberon OS: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/