Building Cocoa Applications: A Step by Step Guide

The Mouse and Cursor

You can do two basic things with a mouse: move it and click its button.^[3]

Four different mouse events (actions) can be derived from these basic actions:

Clicking (single-clicking)

Pressing and releasing a mouse button (mouse down and mouse up) without changing the position of the mouse.

Clicking (or single-clicking) is used to select an object or location on the screen. For example, you can click a button or menu command to select some action, click an icon or filename in a list to select it for further action, click in a window to bring it in front of other windows, or click on a piece of text to select an insertion point.

Multiple-clicking

Pressing and releasing a mouse button two or three times in rapid succession without changing the position of the mouse.

Multiple-clicking extends the action of clicking. For example, you can click on a piece of text to select an insertion point, double-click to extend the action to select the nearest word, and triple-click to select the entire line or paragraph. Likewise, you can click a file icon in the Finder to select a file and double-click the icon to open the file in its associated application.

Dragging

Pressing and holding down a mouse button and then moving the mouse (and thus the cursor); release the mouse button to end.

Dragging is used primarily to move an object or define a range. For example, you can drag a window’s title bar to move the window, drag a file icon to reposition it in a Finder window, or ...