Paul Stovell says…

If there’s one button on the humble computer mouse that shows a lot of potential, it’s the middle mouse button:

In the last few months I’ve grown very attached to this button. It can be used for all sorts of meaningful activities, such as:

• Panning around PDF documents and large images
• Changing the font size of a web page, by holding down the Ctrl key and scrolling
• Clicking it, then panning around a web page
• Zooming in on the world using Google Earth
• Scrolling past this blog entry in your RSS aggregator

But by far the most useful thing this humble button can be used for is to close tabs. In IE7 or Firefox, just move your mouse over the tab, click the middle mouse button, and the tab is history. In both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0 you have to manually select a tab first before the little “close” icon appears so you can left-click; but with the middle mouse button, that extra click is removed.

It also works in Visual Studio. Try clicking any open code window tab - with one click, that tab is gone.

I’ve grown so attached to this button that I keep trying to use it in other places. Live Messenger conversation windows, the Processes window in the task manager, items in my taskbar, and even the windows of applications themselves. But to my dismay, none of these applications respond. They are immune.

In most of the contexts above, the left and right mouse buttons are designed to do something, but the middle mouse button does nothing. Why is this button ignored?

Here’s a list of applications that should respond to the middle mouse button, and what should happen when it is clicked:

• Live Messenger conversation windows. Clicking anywhere except the text window where the conversation is displayed, or where you type, should immediately close the conversation. Clicking the display photo of a contact should block them or delete them.
• The “toast” windows that appear via Live Messenger. Why bother trying to target that tiny “X” to close the popup, when you have a whole mouse button at your disposal?
• Any application icon in the system tray. The middle mouse button should immediately terminate the application, with no prompts. Clicking the volume icon should mute the volume, and clicking the time should make it stand still.
• Any entry in the task bar. Applications like Word and Visual Studio are allowed to prompt (”Do you wish to save?”) when clicked, but utilities like the Snipping Tool, Outlook and web browsers should close instantly.
• The unused client area in any application. That means the part that is covered in glass under Vista, as well as things like the area left untouched by toolbars and menus (and Ribbons). Pretty much anywhere that isn’t the main content area and isn’t being used for other things like buttons or menus. All of these should tell the application to close (again, allowing some of them to prompt).
• UAC prompts. The middle mouse button should automatically accept. In fact, since UAC prompts normally take over the whole screen (safe desktop), clicking the middle mouse button anywhere should accept the prompt.
• Any program in the start menu. The middle mouse button should start the uninstaller for the program.
• Files, Folders and other items in Explorer. The middle mouse button should automatically delete them (with a prompt). They do not go to the recycle bin, and do not collect $200.
• Emails in Outlook. Gone. This includes clicking the email content, the item in the listing, or the toast popup that appears when new mail arrives. Clicking a folder in Outlook should mark the folder as read. Since the middle mouse button also allows you to scroll, most of your email reading could be done with one button.

Think of the middle mouse button as the “get out of my way” button. Have 17 applications listed in your task bar? Forget right-clicking each item, waiting for the menu to appear and then locating the close button; just select the one closest to the start button and click the middle mouse button until they’re all gone.

Imagine a desktop where everything that could possibly bug you, distract you or get in your way could be destroyed with the click of a button. Ask yourself this: if you can start a program by pointing at a massive big icon in your start menu and using one click, why does it take so many to close them?

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