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Click Or Double Click?

© Copyright 1998, Jim Loy

In Windows, sometimes you click, sometimes you double-click. Are you ever confused about which is which? In general, here is how it works:

1. Click:
   • Select this item (it will get highlighted), which is a word on a list.
   • Execute this button push. Usually, these are shaped like buttons.
   • Execute this menu item
2. Double-click:
   • Run this program, from a list of program names.
   • Open this data file, using whatever program is appropriate.
   • Double-click is used by some programs (word processors, for example) to let you select more than one item, a whole line perhaps.

Sometimes these usages conflict. When a menu item is a program name, I may have to single-click, but I often double-click, and sometimes get burned.

On the Macintosh, there is only one mouse button, at least on the older ones. On pulldown menus on older Macs, as I have been reminded by email, you have to click and hold the menu button to get the menu to pull down, then you drag the cursor to the menu option and then release the button. Newer Macs, apparently work the same as Windows. Then the normal way is to click on the menu (and don't hold); it drops down, and you can click once on the menu option. Or (on both Macs and Windows) you can drag to the menu option and release, if you prefer.

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