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Re: gEDA-user: Trackball at work?



Shahab Sanjari wrote:
This rebaissance thing looks good. But I think it would be less precise to
make movements with the arm. After all the idea behind a normal mouse was
to rest the arm and the wrist on the desk, hold the mouse between the
thumb and little finger and move it with fingers. Now since I work on a
dual head monitor, I have a lot of X movement than Y movement, and exactly
that has been the bad thing for the wrist, all that in an unnatural palm
down position.

Has anyone had experience with a real joy stick in CAD??
I've never used a real joystick for CAD, but the Renaissance Mouse is easy to use precisely. You use arm movements for large scale moves and fingers/wrists for small shifts. I find that I have BETTER control with it than with a regular mouse, especially in that X direction you care about. With a mouse, moving in the X direction requires a lateral wrist bend. With your wrist rotated 90 degrees, though, you are using a more natural flex/extend movement that doesn't cause as much harm.

Another thing this has helped for me is that $#%&^ track wheel. I used to use it all the time, but with my long fingers this resulted in pulling the middle finger back into an arch while the rest stay extended. This is VERY bad for your wrists. With the vertical-stick mouse you scroll by holding a button on the side of the stick and dragging the whole mouse.

It's critical to note that there are two sizes, and to get the right size. I'd recommend erring on the large side. But for $45 it's not a bad thing to try.

Regards,
Chad