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For navigating the Windows GUI, a pointing device is almost essential. You can get a bewildering variety of pointing devices that work with Windows- everything from a conventional mouse or trackball with two, three, or more buttons, to a set of foot pedals that provide mouse functionality, to a head-mounted infrared reflector that reflects a beam sent from a device mounted on your monitor to track your head movements and so move the mouse pointer. But the basic principle of all these devices is the same: You move the pointer around the screen to indicate one or more objects on which you want to take an action. You then click in one of the following ways to take the action:

Click Press the primary mouse button once and release the button. The primary mouse button on a conventional mouse is the left button, on which your right forefinger rests.

Double-click Press the primary mouse button twice in quick succession.

Right-click Press the secondary mouse button once.

Drag Press the primary mouse button to select the object, keep holding the mouse button down, and move the mouse to drag the object to where you want it to appear. Release the mouse button.

Right-drag Drag as described in the previous paragraph except using the secondary mouse button. If you’re using a Tablet PC with a stylus, you tap instead of clicking, double-tap instead of doubleclicking, and press and hold for a right-click. See the section “Configuring Tablet PC and Pen and Input Settings” in Article 14 for details of how you can customize these settings.

Selection Basics

These are the basic moves for selecting objects in Windows:

• To select one object, click it with the primary mouse button. Alternatively, use the arrow keys to move the focus the current selection to the object, and then press the spacebar.

• To deselect a selected object, click in open space elsewhere in its window. With the keyboard, use the arrow keys to move the focus off the object.

• To select multiple objects that appear next to each other for example, in a dialog box or in a Windows Explorer window, click the first object to select it as usual. Then hold down the Shift key and click the last object in the range. Release the Shift key.

• To select multiple objects that don’t appear next to each other, click the first object to select it as usual. Then hold down the Ctrl key while you click each of the other objects in turn. Release the Ctrl key.

• To deselect some of multiple objects you’ve selected, hold down the Ctrl key and click each selected object that you want to deselect in turn. Release the Ctrl key.

• To select multiple objects that appear near each other on your Desktop or in a folder in Tiles view or Icons view, click in empty space outside one corner of the area occupied by the objects you want to select, and then drag to draw a dotted box around them. When you release the mouse button, Windows selects the objects.

• To select all the objects in a Windows Explorer window, choose Organize Select All. To toggle the selection selecting the objects that weren’t selected and deselecting those that were, press the Alt key to display the menu bar, and then choose Edit Invert Selection. For example, to select all but three objects in a Windows Explorer window, select those three objects and then press the Alt key and choose Edit Invert Selection.

Drag-and-Drop

Windows makes extensive use of functionality known as drag-and-drop, which lets you select an object on your Desktop or in a window, then drag it to a different location and drop it there. Drag-and-drop has different effects depending on the object you’re dragging, its source, and the location or object you drop it on. Here are some examples:

• Dragging a file and dropping it in a folder on the same drive moves the file from its source folder to the destination folder.

• Dragging a file and dropping it in a folder on a different drive copies the file from its source folder to the destination folder.

• Dragging a document and dropping it on the icon for a printer prints the document.

To use drag-and-drop, select an object by clicking it, keep holding down the mouse button, drag the object to its destination, and release the mouse button to drop it there. Most drag-and-drop techniques use the primary mouse button, but some usually less common techniques use the secondary mouse button. The latter technique is referred to as right-drag-and-drop. If you need to cancel a drag-and-drop operation you’ve started, press Esc.