DIY Photography: If you are reading this blog, you know that we are big fan of keyboard short cuts, but for some programs, working with a mouse is unavoidable. I was talking with an editor friend, Ariel Hadar from Kaveret, and he showed me quite an awesome was to utilize a gaming mouse and keyboard to get the benefits that you would get when working with a keyboard while working with a mouse. The best of both worlds.
5 comments:
This seems like a great idea to me. It makes me think of how stuck we are with the QWERTY keyboard configuration even though it was designed to be inefficient enough to prevent keyboard keys from jamming. But, now it is what we are all used to, and typing becomes muscles memory so quickly that trying to learn to use a new keyboard would be very difficult, and even if one did, you’d need to be able to toggle back and forth between two keyboard types. The same seems true of this mouse method. It obviously makes more sense to have as many buttons as realistically usable on the mouse for a lot of programs, yet I don’t imagine many people will switch over. However, I do think transitioning to this mouse would be easier than switching to a different keyboard, so maybe it will catch on more. Though I don’t have much use for this mouse right now, I’m glad I know about this option so I can keep it in mind for when I reach a day where I realize this would make me more efficient. Honestly, I think there are pretty good odds I will at least try out a cheaper gaming mouse at some point in the near future.
It is probably not a good idea to say this on this blog, but I’m going to do it anyway, I love my track pad!!! I am an avid mac user (my CAD professor would mark this as problem #1) and I am a fan of the track pad that mac install in their computers (problem #2). Now this doesn’t mean that I don’t mind a nice mouse, and this is one of them. I don’t understand why I see a cord on a mouse these days, but that is beside the point. I think my favorite feature of the mouse is probably all of the customizable features that it has, everyone is going to have a preference of what commands they choose to have. In this day and age people rely on the speed that things get accomplished, sometimes more than accuracy and precision. This is a product that will allow you to pump out draftings at an even faster rate.
I have to agree with the Friends clip, we have opposable thumbs for a reason, to draft autocad better. A typical mouse does not utilize our thumb enough. My trackball mouse utilizes my thumb, but what if I had a mouse that had a button on it that controlled OSnaps or a button that started a line. That would be amazing and I would totally buy that mouse. I do not know if this gamin mouse could do that, but I am sure there must be a way. There are so many buttons on that thing. I would think about what functions I use on AutoCad the most and program each button to control one function. I could go pretty long without having to click a function on the screen or use a keyboard shortcut. Now I am thinking I may want to borrow one of my friend’s mouse and try it. He is a big time gamer and spent a lot of money on his mouse and I never really understood why until this article (mostly because I didn’t realize it had so many buttons.
For a long time with computers tacking the word “gaming” onto a product meant that you could build it out of cheaper plastic and charge an extra 40% for some flashy LED’s. Over the last few years however this has really turned around and has led to a phenomenal suit of tools that, because they are developed for individuals not corporations have seen revisions on a yearly basis making incremental improvements. My recommendation for anyone looking to use a “gaming” mouse would be the Logitech G502. Last year’s model is a mere $50 and despite being regarded as the best gaming mouse, period, if it fits your hand differs only from this year’s model with some lighting features. The potential to change your workflow is huge and while it might take some getting used to I think using macros on your mouse might be one of the best ways to become a faster drafter.
The concept of using additional buttons on mice or keyboards is appealing not just for editing movies and pictures, but also in the aid of drafting and design. I think that what this article fails to mention is that a lot of these shortcuts need to be created. The most commonly used shortcuts are built into the programs – save, copy, paste, etc. These can easily be assigned to new keyboard keys or mouse keys and will be the same across all programs. For other commands, like drawing a line in AutoCAD or Vectorworks, one might have to create a keyboard shortcut using one of the modifier keys (control, command, alt, etc.) before assigning it to a button on the mouse or keyboard. Also, I can do everything I need with my $20 wireless mouse. I’m not sure I want to spend much more than that. Besides, isn’t everything going to touch screens and gestures?
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