A mouse from OpenOffice.org and WarMouse, retailing for $75, offers 18 programmable buttons and default profiles for the five core OpenOffice.org applications.
A computer mouse designed by WarMouse, in collaboration with OpenOffice.org,
will feature 18 programmable buttons and is designed for a variety of software
applications, including Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk AutoCAD, Microsoft Office and
OpenOffice. In addition the mouse, called the OOMouse, includes an analog
joystick and support for as many as 52 key commands. The OOMouse supports Windows, Linux and Macintosh operating systems and will
retail for $74.99 when it debuts, though OpenOffice and WarMouse did not
include a shipping date.
The OOMouse includes default profiles for the five core OpenOffice.org
applications based on 662 million data points compiled by the usage tracking
facility incorporated into OpenOffice.org 3.1. These profiles can be customized
to suit the user's preferences using the included OOMouse setup software. The
setup and customization software is an application that will be released as an
open-source software project under the GNU Lesser General Public License Version
3 in the first quarter of 2010, the release stated. Default profiles for 20
other games and applications are also included, and the OOMouse supports up to
63 profiles to be stored simultaneously in the mouse's memory.
"The OOMouse is a really cool addition to the desk of any keen
OpenOffice.org user. The Mouse team has worked closely with experts from the
OpenOffice.org User Experience project to deliver the full benefits of the
world's leading open-source office software to the fingertips of users," said
John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org's marketing project lead. "The prototypes are
stunning-I can't wait to get my hands on the finished product." OpenOffice boasted the OOMouse is one of the first computer mice to
incorporate an analog joystick and the first to permit the use of the joystick
as a keyboard. "In the three joystick-as-keyboard modes, the user can assign up
to 16 different keys or macros to the joystick, which provides for easy
movement regardless of whether the user is flying through the cells of a large
spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel or on the back of an epic flying mount in World
of Warcraft," the release states. "You can do far more with this mouse than most people are likely to realize
at first," said mouse designer Theodore Beale. "You can launch
applications from the desktop, and in your browser you can fire up a specific
Internet site with one button, then close it with a double-click on the same
button. In Writer and Calc, you can have your most powerful and complicated
macros on one row of buttons and simple functions like Bold, Undo and Format
Cell on another." Other features of the OOMouse include double-click
functionality on the 18 programmable buttons; three different button modes
(Key, Keypress and Macro); an analog Xbox 360-style joystick with optional four-,
eight- and 16-key command modes; a clickable scroll wheel; 512KB of flash
memory; 1,024-character macro support; import and export of custom profiles in
XML format; optional audio notification of profile switching with
customizable wave files; PDF export of profile button assignments; and
adjustable resolution from 400 to 1,600 CPI.
Nathan Eddy is Associate Editor, Midmarket, at eWEEK.com. Before joining eWEEK.com, Nate was a writer with ChannelWeb and he served as an editor at FierceMarkets. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
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