One of the more annoying things about dialog boxes when you need to confirm or click OK, is the fact there’s no way of knowing exactly where, on your desktop, that the dialog with the “OK” “Cancel” buttons is going to appear. Sometimes it appears in the middle of your screen; sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right, sometimes at the top and sometimes at the bottom. Guessing where the dialog box will appear is a game Windows users have been playing for a long time. This isn’t so bad when you only have one dialog box to confirm or cancel. But what about those times when you’re dealing with multiple dialog boxes in rapid succession? You’re going to be all over your screen clicking OK or Cancel.
But did you know you can make your mouse snap to the default button on the dialog box automatically – no matter where on your screen it decides to appear? You can and here’s how to do it!
To train, err I mean configure the mouse pointer in Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, to land on the default button in the dialog box, so you can easily select “OK” without even moving your mouse.
Windows XP – Click on Start \ Control Panel and click on Mouse to open the Mouse properties. Select the Pointer Options tab, then select the check box next to “Automatically move pointer to the default button in a dialog box”. Click OK to save the setting and close the mouse property window.
Windows Vista/Windows 7- Open the Control Panel by clicking on the Start button in Vista or Windows 7, and type mouse in the search box, then click on Mouse in the search results to open the Mouse properties. Select the Pointer Options tab, then select the check box next to “Automatically move pointer to the default button in a dialog box”. Click OK to save the setting and close the mouse property window.
Nothing’s better than a snapping mouse – except maybe a snapping turtle…or a snapping spouse 🙂