right click

[stoldie]

Apologies if this has been posted loads of time before (I did try a search first but couldnt find a definitive answer)...

Being new to Mac - what is the OSX equivelant of right clicking in windows? Ive seen lots of posts - like there's no right click in OSX, then there is etc etc..

I use, in windows, right click a lot of the time for re-naming/copying etc.

Can someone clarify what actually happens in OSX for me?

Also I read a lot of the time people referring to command/option buttons - is the command button the one with the funny square symbol? apple key.

You need to bear with me- I'm very new to mac!

 

[eric]

you're right about the command/apple key.

a mouse with a right click option will also right click.

and if you have a macbook or macbook pro, you can enable two-finger tap to right click.

 

[Brown Study]

Can someone clarify what actually happens in OSX for me?

Most mice, if not all, are supported, so any mouse with right click should work as soon as you make the required connection.

At the dawn of time, Macintosh did not include the right-click capability. Its mice were single button. The right-click menus were accessed by holding down the Control key — the outside key in the triple lineup — while clicking with the single button. This choice remains.

However, the no-right-click restriction disappeared a decade or more ago. But the collective memory gave birth to the myth that Macs still can't right click, and this myth won't die because of its value as fodder for the FUD* machine, even with Apple's laptop trackpads providing two-finger-tap right clicks.

Apple's one-button philosophy wasn't born of ignorance or stupidity. Outside the hallowed halls of Xerox's labs, computer mice were an unknown. Apple's overriding philosophy was and still is Keep It Simple, and at the time, a single button made a ton of sense. There were no other computers — for the mass market, anyway — using mice. Everything was command-line.

Somewhere on a CD I have an Apple tutorial (complete with drawings — wow!) on how to use a mouse. Now it's as quaint as the "How To Use a Dial Phone" movies you can stream or download at the Internet Archive.

So now there are three right-click choices: a multi-button mouse, a left click while holding down the Control key and the two-finger tap on the trackpad.

*FUD: Fear, uncertainty and doubt, anti-Apple propaganda.

 

[stoldie]

Great - Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I am starting to realise that a lot of this anti-apple propaganda (or FUD as you describe ) is a load of rubbish..
or just fear on the part of PC/Wndws fanatics..

ta!.