Help! Accidentally selected "Primary Mouse Button ->Right" in OSX Mouse settings

[mr_a500]

I'm really starting to hate OSX. I was looking in the mouse settings for a way to use my 3-button trackball correctly and changed "Primary Mouse Button" to "Right" - just to see what would happen. I didn't "save" the settings or even leave the window, but suddenly I lost the ability to Left-click anything! (All three mouse buttons are acting as Right-click)

I thought, that's OK, I can just escape and it'll revert. That didn't work. Then I thought, that's OK, I can just select the radio button with the keyboard. What the hell?? I can't find any way to use the keyboard to select anything!

I researched (with extreme difficulty - having no Left-click) and found that keyboard access can be turned on through Accessibility - BUT YOU NEED THE MOUSE TO DO THAT!! God, how stupid. So, innocently clicking a radio button - without saving anything - can totally **** you up.

Can anybody help?

[hcry4]

Don't have OSX but found this. Hope it helps.

[kps]

Open a Terminal window (Command-Space to bring up Spotlight, type "Terminal", and press return) and paste the following to reset the mouse settings:

Code: [Select]


defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse Button1 1
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse Button2 2
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse Button3 3
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse Button4 4
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse ButtonDominance 1

(You don't actually need all of these but I'm not sure which way the mapping goes.) You may need to log out (with Command-Shift-Q) to have the changes take effect .

[mr_a500]

Don't have OSX but found this. Hope it helps.

Yes, it helps! I found it way down the list. You have to open a Terminal and type:
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain com.apple.mouse.swapLeftRightButton -bool no

...then restart. Unfortunately, OSX refuses to shut down if an application won't let it. I had to screw around and force quit a few programs. (with me shouting "Die! DIE! YOU BASTARDS!")

Thanks very much!

[mr_a500]

Open a Terminal window (Command-Space to bring up Spotlight, type "Terminal", and press return) and paste the following to reset the mouse settings:

Code: [Select]

defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse Button1 1
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse Button2 2
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse Button3 3
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse Button4 4
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse ButtonDominance 1
(You don't actually need all of these but I'm not sure which way the mapping goes.) You may need to log out (with Command-Shift-Q) to have the changes take effect .

Yeah, that looks like it'll work too. Thanks!

[mr_a500]

Apple User Friendliness lab forgot to check for that possibility.  Or more likely Steve Jobs told them to do it that way.

Big bad Windows is a simple toggle.  Easy to correct by turning the mouse upside down.  Try it!

Apple User Friendliness lab forgot a hell of a lot - but Apple Marketing (and Apple Psychological Warfare and Mind Control Division) force people to believe that any limitations are actually bonuses. (though I'm certainly not saying Windows or Linux are any better)

I wish all modern operating systems would copy some Amiga features - such as settings only saved if you deliberately want to (cancel completely reverts) or using settings (saved in RAM for current session only), window size/position "snapshotting" (permanently save & backup window sizes and positions), RAM disk that acts like a hard drive - but is for temporary use and doesn't affect hard drive, filetypes recognized without having to use extensions, easily added support for new filesystems, etc.

[elef]

Bloody hell, that's some impressively dumb coding from Apple... There is a reason why screen resolution/mode settings autorevert unless you confirm them - and anyone with a modicum of common sense knows that something similar must be done in mouse settings dialogs.

BTW linux does have "filetypes recognized without having to use extensions", at least to an extent. I hate it. People building OSes should realize already that extensions work better than a computer second guessing my intentions and usage scenarios, and they always will. When you double click a .txt file, Ubuntu asks you if you want to "run" or "display" the file. IT'S A TXT FILE, YOU IDIOT, OF COURSE I WANT TO DISPLAY IT. If I wanted to run it I'd have called it .sh or .pl or whatever.

[mr_a500]

When you double click a .txt file, Ubuntu asks you if you want to "run" or "display" the file. IT'S A TXT FILE, YOU IDIOT, OF COURSE I WANT TO DISPLAY IT. If I wanted to run it I'd have called it .sh or .pl or whatever.

I hate that Linux .txt file "Run" or "Display" thing too. There should be a checkbox that says, "Always ****ing do this, no matter what".

People building OSes should realize already that extensions work better than a computer second guessing my intentions and usage scenarios, and they always will.

It's not about "second guessing" intentions. If an operating system - in 2011 - can't recognize a filetype without putting an extension on the end, then it's a pretty stupid operating system. A text file doesn't automatically morph into an image file just by changing extension. If you remove an extension, the OS gets confused and can't open the file. Why is it so hard for an operating system to know what files it has? It should automatically detect it using the first few bytes of the file (like Amiga and BeOS does), but still be user configurable if you want to override it. (always open with this application, always open all similar files with this application)

On my Amiga, I could set up double-click to open a JPG in a viewer (automatically detected without extension) and left-right-click to open it in a graphics program. These same actions were configured - if file was detected as text - to open a smooth scrolling text viewer on double-click and an editor on left-right-click. I never had a problem opening the file I want with the application I want. I never had the problem of the file not being recognized because it had the wrong extension or no extension. (or fake extension to trick the user into thinking it was something it wasn't)

Maybe you want to always open JPG files made by a certain application using a certain viewer - different from the viewer you use for regular JPG files. Detected filetype would be the same, but you want different actions. In that case, you could use an extension - whatever you want to make up. You configure files with this new extension to open in the viewer of your choice - overriding the filetype. This was also easily doable on Amiga.

Trying to get "modern" operating systems to operate as nicely as my old Amiga has proven to be an impossibility.