These conventions assume you are using a standard three-button mouse.
The left mouse button (mouse button 1) is the most commonly used button. You click the left mouse button to select items, activate menus, and depress or release buttons within Ishmail windows. When a procedure asks you to "click on an object" or to "select an item," use the left mouse button. The middle (mouse button 2) is used for "drag-and-drop" operations (see below). The right mouse button (mouse button 3) activates pop-up menus associated with a particular object or item.
Ishmail windows follow Motif conventions for selecting, highlighting, and performing actions on selected items using the mouse. Reverse image highlighting is used to indicate items that have been selected.
In most cases, you will select (highlight) items, such as mail messages, mail folders, alias names, and so forth, and then perform some action on the selection(s).
There are several ways to select and then perform an action on selected items.
You can select single or multiple items:
This is called the mouse drag-select method.
To perform an action on an item:
Double-clicking an item performs the default action for that item. For example, the default action for a highlighted mail message in the Main window is "Read." Therefore, if you double-click a message in the Main window, it will be opened and displayed in Ishmail's Reading window.
You can use the mouse drag-and-drop method to perform certain default actions on message(s).
This action performs the same function as double-clicking the message or selecting the message and then choosing the Read option from the Message pull-down menu.
If you drag-and-drop multiple messages into a Reading window, only the first message will be placed in the Reading window.
When items are being "dragged," the cursor takes one of two different shapes. If the mouse is over an area where "drop" is appropriate, the cursor takes the shape of a "thumb up." If the drop action is not appropriate, the cursor takes the shape of a "thumb down."