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Switching over to left-handed mousing: My Experiences

Started by aetios, February 20, 2016, 04:46:13 PM

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aetios

So I've been thinking about switching my mousing over to the left for a really long time. Why, you ask? My #1 reason for switching is ergonomics. Most keyboards (including mine) have those really bulky numpads and "EXTRA KEYS" on the right of the keyboard. This causes the mouse to be out of your comfortable reaching zone causing repeated stress on your shoulder and wrist. However, on the left side of your keyboard you have a good 15 centimeters less to reach! This is quite significant. Now you might say 'Y U NO BUY 10KEYLESS KEYBOARD M9???!?!? XDXDXD XD LOLOL"; However, I like having the numpad and in fact i use it quite a lot. When not in use so, it's a bit... bulky. Now I'm a leftie myself so I finally pulled the trigger and I'm going to try switching to my left hand for browsing (thank god I have an ambidextrous mouse... ;D)

My experiences so far:
T+00:00:00 Okay, let's do this thing!
T+00:00:00.00000000000000000000001 OH MY GOD THIS IS SO AWKWARD
T+00:00:05 Accidentally closed window instead of maximizing it.
T+00:10:00 This is actually going quite well.
T+01:30:00 Going slooow but stead -- DAMMIT I CLICKED ON THE WRONG THING AGAIN
|
|FAST FORWARD A COUPLE HOURS>>>>
|
T+24:00:00 Accidentally switched my mouse to the right.  Woops!
T+25:00:00 I'm at work and I notice a lowered attention. I'm not sure if this is because I pulled an all nighter, or because I have to focus on left handed mousing, or a combination of both.
T+26:00:00 My whole body is crying and I get the idea something broke.
T+27:00:00 I see :walrii: flying all over the place. (...) The lab boys are telling me this is not caused by the left handed mousing, but rather due to the use of /walrii in WIRC. Whatever. Continue testing.
T+28:00:00 Getting more muscle memory. Sometimes it almost seems like I'm starting to get used to this.

(To be continued)
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Snektron

Are you ambidextrous? because i'd never be able do that :P
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+
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aetios

Quote from: Cumred_Snektron on February 20, 2016, 04:48:21 PM
Are you ambidextrous? because i'd never be able do that :P
It's really a matter of getting used to. It's SO awkward at first. (In fact, I tried multiple times before and failed)
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Dudeman313

I actually tried this once, then gave up because I couldn't shake the habit of using my right hand. Hopefully, you'll get farther than I did, and maybe I'll try harder to be ambidextrous.
  • Calculators owned: TI-84 PCE
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Snektron

QuoteI fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times
i'll stick to right
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Yuki

I did that sometimes, when my desk was on the left side, watching my TV on the right side, and was too lazy to handle my mouse on the right side. I wasn't that bad. I even attempted to use my mouse with my feet once, now it was kinda weird. Also note that I'm a rightie.
  • Calculators owned: TI-83+ (dead?), Casio Prizm (also dead???)
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catastropher

You'd be surprised what you can do when the need arises. When I got tendinitis is my right foot, I had to drive with my left foot for 3 months  O.O
  • Calculators owned: TI-83+, TI-83+ SE, TI-84+ SE, TI-Nspire CX, TI-92+, TI-89 Titanium
Creator of X3D, a 3D portal rendering game engine for Nspire, 68k, and PC

Ivoah

Talk about awkward mouse placement, My desk's keyboard slidy tray only had enough room for my keyboard, so I used my mouse on the far right side of the desk.
  • Calculators owned: TI-86 (now broken), TI SR-56, TI-Nspire CX CAS, TI-84+ SE, TI-84+ SE, TI-85, TI-73 Explorer VS, ViewScreen, TI-84+ CSE, TI-83+ SE

catastropher

That's terrible, it would totally kill my wrists. Could you get a smaller keyboard without the numpad?
  • Calculators owned: TI-83+, TI-83+ SE, TI-84+ SE, TI-Nspire CX, TI-92+, TI-89 Titanium
Creator of X3D, a 3D portal rendering game engine for Nspire, 68k, and PC

Ivoah

Quote from: catastropher on February 20, 2016, 05:08:42 PM
That's terrible, it would totally kill my wrists. Could you get a smaller keyboard without the numpad?
The mouse was actually further over to the right, more where the GBA is. I would frequently grab other objects without looking, like my iPod or a calculator.
That was the only keyboard I had, plus I liked that that one had a builtin trackpad, handy when I just need to click the mouse if my hand isn't on the mouse. I got used to it pretty quickly, it wasn't too bad.
  • Calculators owned: TI-86 (now broken), TI SR-56, TI-Nspire CX CAS, TI-84+ SE, TI-84+ SE, TI-85, TI-73 Explorer VS, ViewScreen, TI-84+ CSE, TI-83+ SE

novenary

I don't use my keyboard tray because my legs keep hitting it so I took it off. I also find myself too far from the desk with the tray.

Araidia

I could probably never use the mouse left-handed...
Did you make the right mouse button the main click and the left mouse button the secondary?
  • Calculators owned: TI84+ CE

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Travis

#12
I actually experimented with switching to left-handed mousing (or a trackball, in my case) quite a few years ago, just to see what it would be like. (This was probably around the time I learned and started using the Dvorak keyboard layout just to see what all the fuss was about. :P) I don't remember everything very clearly, but I did get adjusted to it after a while. I would use it that way for a while and then switch again for a change in pace. :P Today, I just use it right-handed for now—my current desk layout and current type of trackball doesn't really support anything else, and I no longer seem to be the type of person to change things for change's sake as I once was.

As for ergonomics, though, the perfect case is a pointing device like the IBM Trackpoint which allows mouse usage without even removing the fingers from the home row keys. I once bought a Unicomp keyboard with such a thing thinking it would be great, but they screwed the design up so it works more like a joystick than a proper Trackpoint, so it's hard to use, and the buttons are crap and double-click all the time with a single press. Durability is also really poor. (Also, they lack basic scroll wheel and middle-clicking!) If they had designed it properly, it would have been perfect. Then I might not curse at poorly-designed GUIs that force me to constantly switch between keyboard and mouse so much.

Trackpoints were once common in a lot of laptops. Sadly, these days they almost all seem to be touchpads. I don't understand why. I hate them! I'm pretty sure they slow me down a lot more with their consistently rubbish accuracy and glitchiness than switching my desktop mouse/trackball back to lefthanded use would.
  • Calculators owned: TI-81, TI-82, TI-85, TI-86, TI-89, TI-89 Titanium, 2 × HP 50g

Dudeman313

Touchpads slow you down?
Only an old-timer would say that. :P

Also, maybe you should look for an old Lenovo x61, a pretty cool business-made laptop created when Vista was the latest Windows OS. It features a neat little fingertip sized joystick with an easily gripped surface. The actual clicking buttons are where a touchpad would be.
  • Calculators owned: TI-84 PCE
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aetios

Quote from: Dudeman313 on February 21, 2016, 03:49:13 AM
Touchpads slow you down?
Only an old-timer would say that. :P

Also, maybe you should look for an old Lenovo x61, a pretty cool business-made laptop created when Vista was the latest Windows OS. It features a neat little fingertip sized joystick with an easily gripped surface. The actual clicking buttons are where a touchpad would be.
I disagree. A touchpad is pretty crappy. And not only old Lenovos have the clit mouse. New ones do, too.
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