Mouse gestures

Mouse gestures were first seen in the Opera web browser. They have since been added to Mozilla-based browsers by Mozilla.org and to Windows generally, including Internet Explorer by StrokeIt. Opera is advertising supported, Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox are free and StrokeIt is free for personal use.

What are mouse gestures? You press mouse button, draw a gesture, and release mouse button (you can choose which button to use in advanced preferences). For example, in your email program you might draw a B to open the address book and an M to check for new mail. If the gesture drawn is recognised the appropriate action is triggered.

If the idea appeals to you, check these websites for more information.

http://www.opera.com

http://www.mozilla.org

http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/

Scroll wheel

If you have a mouse with a wheel between the left and right mouse buttons, you can use it to scroll up and down the page. If you click the button, you can scroll in any direction simply by moving the mouse. To stop scrolling, click the button again. As many webpages require scrolling, this is a very useful browsing aid.

Zooming

The scroll wheel can also be used as a zoom wheel. Hold the CTRL key down and, in any application whose view can be zoomed in and out, you can zoom in and out simply by turning the wheel. When browsing the Internet, this is a useful way to increase or decrease text size. It does not affect graphics.