Tech: Unwanted clicks

Subject: RE: Tech: Unwanted clicks
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 04:07 PM

Since you say your problem is on a laptop, and don't say what kind of pointing device you're using it might be assumed you're using a touchpad. Many of these have rather "touchy" sensitivity, and since you have to move your finger around to get to where you hover, it's quite easy for the pad to sense even slight variations in your finger pressure as a click - or two. There should be a setting, usually under "mouse" in Control Panel where you can set several things like "speed," "acceleration," and separately the "click sensitivity."

The click sensitivity setting often assumes everything sensed as a click is a click, and there often is little control of what is seen as a click, but you usually can set a "click rate" so that faster, or very much slower successive clicks aren't seen as a "double-click."

Note too that some laptops have a separate "app" for setting the touchpad (or whatever other gimmick is built in) and you might need to find that application to turn the touchpad off (as I do) and plug in a real mouse - or even a trackball. (If you also plug in a real keyboard, you shoudn't really need to turn any of the "onboard" trash off.)

The separate app for the "pointing device" is because the laptop maker wants you to believe that your simulated mouse is "something special" to avoid admitting that yours is the same piece of crap everybody else uses.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Unwanted clicks
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 02:00 PM

Experts may check me if I'm wrong, but I believe there are javascript tricks to control what happens when you hover over a link.
I have seen (at the bottom) little parenthetical notes that say "on hover...a,b,c..."

I have a special add-on for Opera that actually shows a pop-up of an image without actually clicking on it....and Firefox has a similar 'preview' add-on which shows an entire page. So-...*shrug*

Subject: RE: Tech: Unwanted clicks
From: EBarnacle
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 01:43 PM

Try setting the sensitivity of the mouse down. To do this, open the control panel and click on the "mouse" heading. Follow the instructions. The problem should go away. If that does not work, try an external mouse via one of your USB ports.

Subject: RE: Tech: Unwanted clicks
From: Bert
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 01:41 PM

Get a mouse.

Although I find that this happens on certain websites, particularly Netflix.

Subject: Tech: Unwanted clicks
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 01:39 PM

I have a laptop with an odd problem. If I allow the cursor to hover over a link, it will sometimes follow the link as if I had clicked on it, but I didn't click.

This seems to happen at random times, not always. It can happen even if my hand isn't on the button.

It's not only in the browser. If I allow the cursor to hover over an icon on the desktop, it will sometimes select that icon, as if I had clicked on it. (It would take a double-click to open the item, and I haven't seen that happen.)

If this happened on my desktop, I would suspect I had a defective mouse, and I might try switching it with a different one, or I might try downloading a new mouse driver. But on my laptop, I don't have a mouse as such; I have a built-in pad and buttons, and I don't even know what that's called, or what the driver would be called, if there is one.

Any ideas?