ATMac

One of the numerous obstacles those of us with physical limitations face is how do we perform a right-click with a one-button mouse? Those that are able to use a physical keyboard can simply hold down the control key while clicking and that will emulate a right-click. But what about those of us who can’t use a physical keyboard or have trouble using one? There’s actually several solutions out there to this problem and in this brief article I thought I’d touch on a few of the simple software solutions.

AssistiveWare’s excellent KeyStrokes make good use of “dwelling” technology that allows people to do this. With dwelling turned on you can right click and perform a wide variety of other actions without having to click your mouse button. Just open the Dwellix floating window, select what you want to do (like right clicking for example), then just hover your mouse cursor over something for a short period of time (specified by the user in the preferences panel) and the action that you have selected will be performed.

But what if you want to right-click without using KeyStroke’s dwelling technology? Well there are some solutions for this as well. One Finger Snap by Old Jewel Software allows you to perform a right-click by dwelling your mouse cursor in the same spot for a short period of time (specified by the user in the preferences panel) with the mouse button pressed down. Right-clicking is all that One Finger Snap does so there’s no need to select what action you want to perform first and it only works when holding your mouse cursor still and pressing and holding the mouse button down simultaneously. The program will even play a sound to let you know that a right-click is being performed. One Finger Snap Is a preference panel and can be turned on and off from there. I used this nifty utility in full screen games such as Neverwinter Nights and Diablo 2 and it works quite well.

There’s a also ClickNoMo from TCNoMo. ClickNoMo Works a lot like the floating Dwellix window found in KeyStrokes with a few enhancements. You can set independent click and drag times to avoid inadvertently releasing a mouse drag too soon. You can also set the program to stick on a particular mouse action for repeated double-clicking, dragging, right clicking, etc. In default mode the program will switch back to single-clicking (or left-clicking) after each action.

There are actually other solutions out there to this problem, both on the hardware and software sides, but these are the simplest and cheapest solutions that I’m aware of. One Finger Snap, in particular, has been a godsend to me in situations where the KeyStrokes floating window is hidden by a full screen application (like a game for example).

- Paul Natsch