mice mice mice
I used to keep a mouse for years. I don't know if it is something in the tropical polluted air I live in, but I suddenly found Logitech mice (ordinary, optical mouse) lasting maximum six months before the
double-click thing started. Having got through three, managed to make a working one by soldering parts from two non-working ones (I can't solder: it was a mess but it worked) and contemplated buying in bulk, I decided to go up market and, for ten times the price, buy a Roccat Kone XTD.
One consideration for anything other than a regular 3-button mouse is Linux, and Roccat, although I can't find many good words about their customer service, do support open-source development of drivers for Linux.
After one year it starts in with the double-click thing. Hmmm, technically, it's in warranty, but hey...
It made me research the whole double-click phenomena, and I found out that the little Omron switches are not sealed units, and that Deoxit can work wonders. I have Deoxit; I have switches from dead mice to practice on...
By the way, the switches inside the Roccat look exactly the same as the 1/10-price Logitechs.
I opened up my Kone and the left-button switch and Deoxited the contact points --- with good result. I wish I'd known this a long time ago. I need to attend to some of the other switches soon, some, I think, will be what I learned are called
tact switches. I think this means
tactile, rather than that they try to tell us things nicely. They can't be taken apart, or not in a way which is easy to reassemble. Again, I have practised on components from dead mice.
I don't game (except for Soitaire!) --- but the programmable mouse buttons make for, as someone else said, lazy one-handed browsing, and I would find it hard to go back to an ordinary 3-button mouse.
I'd like something that works by touch, rather than physical switches, but the problem with such advanced products is --- linux.
I've had two or three Logitech keyboard failures over the past years too. I've gone back to an old Compaq keyboard that is so old I can't even remember what machine it came with and when. It doesn't have a "windows" key. It has quite a good touch and it is just ...reliable. It's a bit noisy.
The main message here is don't throw your mice away because of the double-click error. I'm sure many members here have Deoxit on the shelf. Check out the net for howtos and use it.
Oh shit, I just admitted that I play with bits of dead mouse
