 
 Using and configuring the mouse in jfig:

 
 1) Three-button user interface:

 The user interface of jfig is based on a three-button mouse.
 During most editing operations, three different operations
 are mapped to the three mouse buttons, called left (L),
 middle (M), and right (R). The status line (on top of the
 editor window) indicates the current operations.

 Most drawing commands use the following mapping:

   L/left:     select mouse position (e.g. add polyline vertex)
   M/middle:   finish operation (e.g. final polyline vertex)
   R/right:    cancel ongoing operation

 For example, in create-polyline mode, you would first click
 the left mouse button to place the first point of the polyline,
 optionally use additional left clicks to add intermediate points,
 and then click the middle mouse button to place the final point 
 of the polyline.

 Also, most object attribute controls use all three buttons:

   L/left:     select a value (opens corresponding dialog)
   M/middle:   decrement current value
   R/right:    increment current value

 Most Unix/Linux systems have a three button mouse, and the
 user interface works well and allows for very fast editing.
 However, most notebooks only provide two touchpad buttons,
 and Macintosh systems still only have a 1-button mouse.
 Also, most Windows systems are configured for a two-button 
 user interface, while the middle mouse button is often reserved
 for special purposes (like double clicks).


 2) Mouse setup and mouse button emulation

 Therefore, jfig allows to emulate a three-button mouse with
 a single-button mouse via modifier keys. Just hold down the
 <shift> or <alt> or <meta> modifier key while clicking the 
 left mouse button:


 jfig, xfig,       emulation with a    emulation with a 
 3-button mouse:   1-button mouse:     2-button mouse:

  left              click               left 

  middle            <shift>+click       <shift>+left
                    <alt>+click         <alt>+left

  right             <meta>+click        right, <meta>+left

 With a little bit of practice, this works quite well.

 Using the <shift>+click and <meta>+click combinations is also
 recommended when you regularly use jfig on different computers
 (e.g. a Windows PC, a Linux PC, and an Apple Powerbook). The
 key combinations work the same on all systems, and you don't
 need to adapt to whatever mouse is connected to your system.


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 3) Double-clicking:

 All versions of jfig newer than 07/2002 also include the option 
 to interpret a double left mouse click as a middle mouse click.  
 While this works well with some systems, the usability of this 
 function depends on the double-click interval used by your Java
 virtual machine. Therefore, the option is disabled by default. 
 If you want to play with this option, set the following line in 
 your .jfigrc configuration file:
 jfig.utils.MouseMapper.DoubleClickIsMiddleClick true



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 4) Shift-click instead of Alt-click:

 Unfortunately, the <alt>+click combinations are a little
 awkward on some keyboard layouts.  Therefore, jfig also
 allows the <shift>+click combination to emulate the middle
 mouse button. This is the default now.

 However, the drawback of this setting is that you lose the
 ability to use <shfit>+click to select stacked (layered)
 objects during some editor commands. If necessary, include:
 "jfig.utils.MouseMapper.ShiftClickIsMiddleClick false"
 in your .jfigrc configuration file.
 property in the .jfigrc configuration file. 



 -----

 5) Switching mouse buttons:

 As explained above, the standard xfig mouse mapping is 
 somewhat inconvenient on Windows systems, because the right 
 mouse button is mapped to the 'cancel' operation and the
 very important 'finish' command on the middle button is
 not available (except via the <alt>+click modifier).

 Therefore, jfig allows to toggle the role of the middle
 and right buttons via the startup configuration file
 ("jfig.utils.MouseMapper.Remap" property) or the editor 
 menu via "menu->special->toggle middle button".

 Leave this switch in its default "false" position, if you
 are accustomed to xfig. If not, you might want to change
 this to "true" on Windows systems.

