OpenOffice gets a branded mouse with 18 buttons
Have you ever looked at your mouse and thought, ‘I wish someone would over complicate this?’ Well, your wishes have come true!
Popular open source office suite OpenOffice has partnered with a company named WarMouse to release the first mouse built specifically for the application. The mouse features a whopping 18 programmable buttons with double-click functionality. Not only will this monster help you whiz through creating new documents, but it also has 20 default profiles for programs like Photoshop, World of Warcraft and so on.
While I would have to get my hands on it before passing final judgement, seeing how close the buttons are laid out next to each other, I don’t see how this thing could be that easy to use. Perhaps I’m old school, but keyboard shortcuts suit me fine, trying to remember if I need to use the middle mouse button on the second row on the right side seems a bit over engineered. I’m sure you’d get used to it, but the learning curve has to be something else.
The new device will retail for $74.99 and you can learn more at OpenOfficeMouse.com.
OpenOfficeMouse Tech Specs
- 18 programmable mouse buttons with double-click functionality
- Three different button modes: Key, Keypress, and Macro
- Analog Xbox 360-style joystick with optional 4, 8, and 16-key command modes
- Clickable scroll wheel
- 512k of flash memory
- 63 on-mouse application profiles with hardware, software, and autoswitching capability
- 1024-character macro support.
- Open source support software for creating, managing, and customizing application profiles
- Import and export of custom profiles in XML format
- Optional audio notification of profile switching with customizable wave files
- PDF export of profile button assignments
- Adjustable resolution from 400 to 1,600 CPI
- Default profiles for Writer, Calc, Impress, Base, and Draw based on actual usage statistics compiled for OpenOffice.org 3.1
- 20 default profiles for popular games and applications, including Adobe Photoshop, the Gnu Image Manipulation Program, World of Warcraft, and the Call of Duty series.
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November 7th, 2009
I can see this making sense for something like Photoshop or AutoCAD where you are almost constantly mouse in hand. But in a word processor, or spreadsheet? I’m with you there, keyboard shortcuts keep you far more productive than do extra buttons in a mouse!