Now that you are becoming quite an expert with the Mouse, and as a result are getting up the speed with getting around the web and emailing, you also worked out that the mouse is rather a handy little tool.

For the mouse is not just a ‘point and click’ tool, it can help you to do quite a bit more than that. Let’s take a look at a standard mouse, the kind with a left and a right button and a central wheel.

The left button you already know you use for selecting, marking and clicking, and from the courses at Kapiti SeniorNet you have learned to highlight text by pressing the left button and holding the shift key whilst moving the cursor over the text to be highlighted. But it is quicker to press and hold the shift-key then click the mouse at the beginning of the text and again at the end of the text you want highlighted.

Perhaps you just want one word highlighted, then just double click on that word and it is done. Click once to undo.

You are on the internet reading a page that has a link to another website which you’d like to look at later. Press and hold the Ctrl key and then left click on the link and presto it will now open in a separate tab in your browser for your later attention.

Have you tried double clicking the top edge of the window you are in? It will maximise the window to fit the entire screen. Do the same thing in a maximised window and it will revert to the smaller size.

In Windows 7 and later you can work with 2 screens at the same time. Click on and hold the top bar of the first window and drag it to the edge of the preferred side of the screen and let go of the mouse button. Repeat for the second window but drag it to the opposite side of the screen. Now they will sit side by side.

Just as you can move text from one place to another of your choice you can also move a file from one folder to another by left clicking and holding the file or text and dragging it to the new location and release.

Then there is the right mouse button, your action button. Mostly used for bringing up various action menus and dialogue boxes. Hold the cursor over a file or highlighted text and press the right mouse button and a menu with options or choices relevant to the highlighted selection or file will pop up.

Most commonly used is the copy and paste options usually available when you click on the highlighted  text with the left button, you may also choose to cut a selection, which can then be pasted elsewhere.

Do you use the wheel in the centre of your mouse for other than scrolling through pages?  Here is a way to increase or decrease the text or images on your screen, press and hold the Ctrl key whilst your scroll the wheel.

Click on a link on a webpage with the mouse wheel and you will  see it open in a new browser tab. To close an open tab click on it with the wheel.

Now try to click the wheel on a page and a new and different cursor appears. When you now move your mouse up or down the page the screen will scroll accordingly, but the further you move away from the new cursor the faster the page will scroll, so go slowly till you get the hang of it.

And lastly –  in Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers press and hold the shift key whilst moving the wheel up or down will move the web pages you have been visiting back or forward accordingly, as an alternative to using the back button on the screen.

Have fun, happy computing.