[Etoys] 2 button mouse confusion

[Bert Freudenberg]

For typical Etoys usage it makes much more sense to get the halo with  
the secondary mouse button. There are very few places in the Etoys UI  
that even expose a context menu. That's why we configure the VMs to  
bring up the halo on the secondary button (the swapMouseButtons  
preference is generally disabled in Etoys images). The strange thing  
is that apparently on a Windows PC with a two-button touch pad there  
is no modifier that brings up the context menu. On Linux (the OLPC XO  
specifically) ctrl-leftclick brings up the context menu, similarly on  
the Mac option-leftclick. Wonder what we need to do to make Windows  
behave ...

- Bert -

On 04.02.2009, at 04:54, Andreas Raab wrote:

> Hi Simon -
>
> Try the following: Launch the eToys image, press F2 or go to the  
> system
> menu and to the "VM preferences" submenu. In there, go to the "Mouse
> Mapping" section and select "3 button mouse" (yes, that is
> counter-intuitive ;-) This should fix your problem in such that you  
> now
> get to use Alt-Click for halos and right button for context menus.
>
> [Background info: The Windows VM has from its inception remapped mouse
> input to have the context menu on the "right" mouse button (in both
> meanings of the word ;-) When people on Mac and Unix finally realized
> that the right mouse button is the right button for context menus, the
> preference got added in the image which -when turned on as in etoys-
> "re-confuses" the Windows VM. Checking the 3-button mouse preference
> turns of that mapping in the VM].
>
> Note that the preference is "sticky" which means the VM will  
> continue to
> act that way for the future - this can be a bit confusing if you mix
> this with images which don't have swapMouseButtons enabled but is
> otherwise a one-time fix for your problems.
>
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas
>
> PS. I can probably be convinced to change the default VM behavior.
>
> Simon Guest wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Have just switched over to a recent EToys image (about this system
>> says EToys 3.1 latest update 2177).  I have a 2 button mouse (well, a
>> touchpad with 2 buttons underneath), and I want to access both halos
>> and context menus.
>>
>> Something has changed in this area since the last images I was using.
>>
>> By default, right button now gives me a halo.  So does
>> Alt-left-button.  I don't know how to get a context menu up now.
>>
>> If I swap buttons 2 and 3 in the preferences, (and this is the new  
>> and
>> confusing bit), while right button now gives me a context menu, so
>> does alt-left-button.  This alt-left-button menu used to always give
>> halos, I think.
>>
>> So, how can I get a context menu up with the default mappings?
>>
>> cheers,
>> Simon
>>