# Mouse Manipulations

This section describes how to use the mouse in the drawing area. MOLMOL can only be (reasonably) used with a mouse with at least two buttons. If you have a three button mouse, the right mouse button displays a popup menu.

The usual terms will be used to describe mouse input:

click
  Press one (or multiple) mouse button(s), and release them without moving the mouse.
drag
  Press one (or multiple) mouse button(s), move the mouse, and release the button(s).

The following list refers to the left and middle button of a three button mouse. If your mouse has only two buttons (as is commonly the case with Windows), the second (right) button of your mouse will take the role of the middle button.

click left
  Select item closest to position of mouse pointer, deselecting everything else.
click left, while holding down Shift or Ctrl key
  Select item closest to position of mouse pointer in addition to already selected items.
click middle
  Same as click left.
drag left
  Rotate molecules, using the virtual trackball model.
drag middle
  Translate molecules in direction of mouse movement.
drag left+middle
  Zoom. Moving right/up zooms in, moving left/down zooms out.

When used over text labels, the middle mouse button takes on different functionality:

click middle
  Toggle selection of text label.
drag middle
  Move/resize text label, depending on the position within the text labels. Different zones are indicated with dashed lines, the zones on the edges/corners are for resizing, the one in the middle is for moving the label.

If you need a quick reminder of these manipulations, you can view a table with the `HelpMouse` command.

Last modified: Mon Jan 20 19:44:56 CST 2003