MARCH TUTOR ■
MOUSEKEYS
The keyboard
mouse
Although almost no one seems to be aware of the fact, Windows offers a feature that’s ideal for
touch typists who hate taking their hands off the keyboard or for anyone whose hands ache after
using the mouse for long periods. Here’s what you need to know.
he feature is called MouseKeys,
T which we’ll also refer to as the
keyboard mouse. The keyboard
mouse lets you act as though
you’re using a mouse without actually push-
ing one around. You simulate mouse move-
ments and clicks using the numeric keypad.
The way MouseKeys operates is not very
well documented in Windows, though, so
we’ll run through the details here.
Holding down a key adjacent to the 5
moves the mouse pointer in the direction of
that key relative to the 5. Press 8, for exam-
ple, and the pointer moves up because the
8 is above the 5. (Note that on most laptops
8 will be above and slightly to one side of 5.)
Keys on the diagonal (1, 3, 7, and 9) move
the mouse pointer diagonally.
By default, the 5 key acts like the left mouse
button. Hit the - (Minus) on the keypad to
make 5 act like the right button, or the *
(Asterisk) to make 5 function like a simulta-
neous left and right click. Pressing / (Slash)
restores the left click behaviour.
When you need to drag, press the Ins (0)
key to turn the 5 into a click-and-hold but-
ton. Use the Del (Period) key to return the
simple click functionality.
INSTALLATION AND SETUP
If you think the keyboard mouse isn’t
installed, go to Control Panel, choose
90 March 2001
Add/Remove Programs and then click the keyboard mouse off and then on. The rest of
Windows Setup tab. Select Accessibility and
choose Details. Put a check in the Accessibility
Options check box if there isn’t one, then
the options are reasonably self-explanatory.
You may find the keyboard mouse a little
confusing at first, but using the feature
choose OK and follow the on-screen instruc- becomes quite straightforward with a bit of
tions. If the option is already checked, choose practice. Surprisingly, MouseKeys can actu-
Cancel and then Cancel again. ally give you much better control over the
To turn the feature on once installed, go to mouse pointer than you can get from using
Control Panel, choose Accessibility Options, a real mouse. Familiarise yourself with
click the Mouse tab and then mark the Use MouseKeys and you’ll have a way to control
MouseKeys check box. the mouse pointer when you can’t move a
In addition to turning MouseKeys on, real mouse or don’t have one available.
you’ll want to choose the Settings button to
view the available settings. As you can see
in Figure 1, there are only a few settings to
configure.
You should check the Show MouseKey
Status On Screen box, because using the
keyboard mouse is harder without the status
icon in the system tray. The icon shows you
which button or buttons the centre (5) key on
the numeric keypad currently represents,
and whether the key is set to click (indicat-
ed by a crosshatched pattern) or to click and
hold (with a solid fill).
You should also check the Use Shortcut
checkbox, which defines the Left Alt–Left
Shift–Num Lock key combination as a toggle
that turns MouseKeys on and off. This short-
cut is extremely useful. The status icon has
Figure 1: You can change the speed and acceleration
a tendency to disappear from the system tray of the MouseKeys mouse pointer.
but can often be resurrected by toggling the
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