Is it possible to work without a mouse on Windows? | Gamedev Dairy #76
Hacks for learning, productivity, having work-life-passion balance and finally game development!
TL;DR
Is it possible to work without a mouse on Windows? First conclusions from the experiment.
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Is it possible to work without a mouse on Windows?
Do you remember an issue or two ago I tried to remove the mouse from my productivity equation? Today I want to answer the question of whether it is possible.
It's not!
Although the existence of such an approach for Linux brings hope, it requires a lot of work when bringing it to Windows.
Apparently, the mouse is not a helpful tool according to the UX tribe. It is a pillar in using the GUI.
Some applications are hard to use when considering a keyboard-only approach.
Microsoft Teams is a TAB-mashing festival, unlike Microsoft Outlook, which supports the wonderful ALT shortcut (not to mention if you disable the instant preview of e-mails, it becomes a keyboard paradise).
Chrome gives some ways of interaction via keyboard but not when traversing a website. Depending on the number of links navigating the page can become another TAB-fest.
What barely helped was my keyboard of choice. I knew that the mouse would be hard to remove, what I did not know was that a touchpad will not help either. Using both touchpad and keyboard at the same time (as those two like to impose on each other) can lead to some weird conclusions, like randomly enlarging a site by 500%. So it must be either a mouse or a keyboard.
Not to mention some really weird choices, like providing a new button that acts as the mouse's left button, but none for the right making accessing context menus impossible without the touchpad.
So, what now, you ask?
I'm not going to return to the mouse so easily, as I consider it the devil's context switcher! But I will have to connect it back. And change the keyboard to something without a touchpad ;-)
I do consider this an opportunity to fail like a scientist and improve my productivity flow. But I don't consider the experiment fully completed, as...
I have not tried a mouseless approach in Godot
I have not used any browser except Chrome
I have not searched for tools dedicated to supporting a mouseless approach. Maybe you can suggest some?
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