Using Your Mouse.
There are many different styles of mouse. Most will fit into your hand
and have a left and right button.
Some are cordless – these need to have a receiver that plugs into
the PC.
The mouses with cables are of two types - normal and USB.
Normal cables have a specific circular plug that goes into the back of
the PC. You are probably using one of those today.
USB cables have a rectangular USB plug at the end, which is more versatile
and can fit onto more machines.
All mouses have at least a left and right button.
Some have a middle button and others have a wheel in the middle of them.
The middle button or the wheel is for scrolling down and up pages. You
cannot get a “left handed mouse”, except for maybe the shape
of it. A mouse can be reset to be left handed. See my Control Panel notes
for how to change this.
The mouse works by moving the cursor arrow on the screen when you move
the mouse. Yours probably uses a ball in the base of the mouse to track
this.
Other designs use a laser which tracks the mouse movement.
Laptops have a little button called a trackerball, or a pad that you move
your finger around to move the cursor.
Click
Double Click
Highlighting is when you click and then roll the mouse left and right,
and it turns blue or black. We will look at this in Word and My Computer.
Next we want to look at highlighting programs / icons.
Find the My Computer icon on your desktop. It will have 2 parts –
the little picture of a Computer (the icon) and the words “My Computer”.
Left click on words or icon – this highlights the icon. You know
this as the words go blue.
Left Click
Left click to highlight, then left click on icon – nothing happens,
you have simply highlighted the icon again.
Left click to highlight, then left click on words My Computer.
This allows you to edit the words, or Rename the icon.
Left click to highlight, then right click on the icon or the words.
This gives you a list of options, including Open and Rename.
Double click on the icon or words.
This opens My Computer with the program explorer.
Within this, now highlight some folders, documents etc and rename some
by clicking in the right places. The same rules as above apply to the
clicking.
Shift highlights everything between two clicks.
Control highlight specific things you click on.
Clicking in Word
Open up Word.
Start > Programs > Word.
You don’t have a cursor arrow, you now have a blinking vertical
line and a I shaped pointer.
Type out any old letters into the document. Please make sure you have
at least 2 paragraphs.
Firstly click anywhere in your text. The blinking vertical line now moves
to that place. If you click outside the text is moves to the nearest available
spot in the text.
Now left click in any word. The cursor should now be in the word.
Double Click in the same spot – you should highlight the whole word.
Triple Click in the same spot – you should highlight the whole paragraph.
This time left click in the word and hold down the left button.
Roll the mouse right and you highlight the letters as you roll along.
This is another way to highlight text.
Shift works in the same way that is did for files.
Lastly click on the white space to the left of the document.
What happens? The whole line should be highlighted.
Please mess about with your mouse to highlight different text..
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© Greg Chambers 2005
These notes may be reproduced and used for all non-profit teaching and publication.
The Author reserves all other rights.
Next we want to look at highlighting programs / icons.
Find the My Computer icon on your desktop. It will have 2 parts – the little picture of a Computer (the icon) and the words “My Computer”.
Left click on words or icon – this highlights the icon. You know this as the words go blue.
Left click to highlight, then left click on icon – nothing happens, you have simply highlighted the icon again.
Left click to highlight, then left click on words My Computer.
This allows you to edit the words, or Rename the icon.
Left click to highlight, then right click on the icon or the words.
This gives you a list of options, including Open and Rename.
Double click on the icon or words.
This opens My Computer with the program explorer.
Within this, now highlight some folders, documents etc and rename some by clicking in the right places. The same rules as above apply to the clicking.
Shift highlights everything between two clicks.
Control highlight specific things you click on.
Start > Programs > Word.
You don’t have a cursor arrow, you now have a blinking vertical line and a I shaped pointer.
Type out any old letters into the document. Please make sure you have at least 2 paragraphs.
Firstly click anywhere in your text. The blinking vertical line now moves to that place. If you click outside the text is moves to the nearest available spot in the text.
Now left click in any word. The cursor should now be in the word.
Double Click in the same spot – you should highlight the whole word.
Triple Click in the same spot – you should highlight the whole paragraph.
This time left click in the word and hold down the left button.
Roll the mouse right and you highlight the letters as you roll along.
This is another way to highlight text.
Shift works in the same way that is did for files.
Lastly click on the white space to the left of the document.
What happens? The whole line should be highlighted.
Please mess about with your mouse to highlight different text..