Scroll wheel
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A scroll wheel is a
Functionality
The scroll wheel is placed horizontally between the mouse buttons and commonly uses vertical scrolling, wherein rolling the wheel from the bottom side to the top is known as scrolling "upward" or "forward", while the reverse, i.e. rolling the wheel from the top side to the bottom, is known as scrolling "downward" or "backward".
In a graphical user interface, the "upward" motion moves contents of the window downward (and the scrollbar thumb, if present, upward), and vice versa. In other configurations (sometimes called "natural scrolling") the effect is inverted.
On most mice, the scroll wheel can often also be used as a third, middle mouse button by pressing down on it,[1] known as the scroll button.
Some mice's scroll wheels can scroll horizontally by tilting them to the left or right,[2] or there may be additional wheel on a perpendicular axis located elsewhere on the mouse.
The wheel is often, but not always, engineered with detents to turn in discrete steps, rather than continuously as an analog axis, to allow the operator to more easily intuit how far they are scrolling.[3][4]
Scroll wheels are prevalent on modern computer mice and have become an integral part of the
Some user interfaces, like Cinnamon (desktop environment), allow using it to adjust brightness and volume by pointing at the respective taskbar icon while scrolling.
History
The scroll wheel on a mouse has been invented multiple times by different people unaware of the others' work.
Other scrolling controls on a mouse, and the use of a wheel for scrolling both precede the combination of wheel and mouse. The earliest known example of the former is the Mighty Mouse prototype developed jointly by
At the ACM SIGCHI conference in 1989, Gina Danielle Venolia from Apple presented a mouse prototype with a horizontal thumb-wheel for scrolling, or for navigating inwards and outwards: zooming or along the third axis in 3D space.[5] In her patent application from 1992 there are two vertical wheels: left and right of the button(s).[6]
In 1995, the Taiwanese company KYE Systems released the first commercial mouse with scroll wheel. It was named Genius EasyScroll and was also available as Mouse Systems ProAgio.[7][8][9][10]
The scroll wheel was popularized by the Microsoft IntelliMouse in 1996 along with support for the mouse wheel in Microsoft Office 97. It had been based on ideas developed by Eric Michelman since 1993 with input from Chris Graham.[7][11]
Scroll wheels can also be found on
Alternatives
Instead of a scroll-wheel, some mice (and other devices) use an alternative but similar component.
Laptop computers often include a
In mice, alternatives include scroll balls (similar to
Some ThinkPad laptops allow scrolling using the pointing stick by holding a button above the touch pad.[17]
Other applications
Scroll-wheel motion is often used to control other aspects of a system. For instance, it can allow the user to switch between a series of options, zoom in or out, or increment/decrement any value.
In first-person shooter computer games, scroll wheels are often used to switch between weapons[18] or even to allow the player to lean left and right if horizontal scrolling is available[19] or zoom in/out a telescopic sight. Some of them and most real-time strategy games also use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out of the player's view.[20][21]
) using the scroll wheel to zoom in and out in the 3D space, while a wheel-click and a mouse drag is orbit.See also
- Scroll lock
References
- ^ Broida, Rick (2009-12-22). "Bring Your Middle Mouse Button to Life". PC World. Archived from the original on 2023-03-02. Retrieved 2022-03-02.
- .
- ^ Nass, Richard (2006-12-01). "Tear Down: High-end mouse goes where no mouse has gone". Embedded.com. Archived from the original on 2023-03-02. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
- ^ Livingston, Christopher (2020-03-12). "Do you like your mouse wheel to click when you scroll, or spin freely?". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 2023-03-02. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
- ^ a b Buxton, Bill, "Chapter 2: An Illustrated Tour" (PDF), Human Input to Computer Systems: Theories, Techniques and Technology, retrieved December 8, 2018
- ^ US 5313230A, Venolia, Daniel S. & Ishikawa, Shinpei, "Three degree of freedom graphic object controller", published 1992-07-24, issued 1994-05-17
- ^ a b Coding Horror: Meet The Inventor of the Mouse Wheel
- ^ gearrate.com – History of Computer Mouse (1964 ~ 2020)
- ^ funtrivia.com – Quiet As a Mouse – Fun Facts, Questions, Answers, Information Archived 2013-06-12 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Joe Kissell (2004-10-07). "The Evolution of Scrolling: Reinventing the wheel". Interesting Thing of the Day. Retrieved 2010-02-12.
- ^ The History of the Scroll Wheel
- ISBN 2-940373-07-8. Retrieved 2022-03-02.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link - ISBN 978-3-030-22188-1. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
- ^ "TrackPoint Mouse G1".
- ^ "Navigator 525 Laser Mouse".
- ^ GM1 Scroll Mouse, archived from the original on 2003-02-10, retrieved 2015-07-26
- ^ Gartenberg, Chaim (2020-06-30). "The ThinkPad TrackPoint tried to build a better mouse". The Verge. Retrieved 2022-05-16.
- .
- ^ Kauffmann, Stéphane (2004-07-09). "Logitech New Mouse Range Goes Back to the Future". Tom's Hardware. p. 11. Archived from the original on 2023-03-02. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
- ISBN 1584502398. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
- Gamasutra. Archivedfrom the original on 2010-08-04. Retrieved 2023-03-02.