Hi,
I’m helping with the development of an open source 3d animation program
called Blender and I was looking for some opinions…
At the moment, Blender has an unusual mouse setup. The left mouse button is
used to click buttons and the right mouse button is used to make popups
appear, as usual. But when you’re dealing with 3d objects, you use the
right mouse button to select and move objects around and the left mouse
button to place the cursor somewhere. The only suggested reason why this is
so is because it divides the strain used to select buttons and objects
between both fingers.
I was wondering if people thought there would be any reduction in RSI
because of this. It seems to make sense that Blender’s technique is helpful
for RSI, but theory and reality are two different things.
After reading some material on RSI I was under the impression that dragging
(clicking and moving) was the main cause of RSI during mouse use. The strain
in my wrist feels like it is in about the same place whether I’m dragging
with the left mouse button or the right. (Though I’m no expert)
If using different fingers to divide the strain is a good idea, perhaps some
Mac users who have one button mice regularly change the fingers they’re
using to click and drag - and that might result in less RSI problems for
them… I’m not aware of any people who use their mouse in that way though.
Thanks.