binding functions to the mouse?

[morning]

Hi, I have been enjoying my mac for a couple of weeks now. it sure does have a nice feel to it. I have learned to love the expose and hot corners etc. (although I still miss the explore window.Does mac think we are too stupid to handle seeing the contents of our system all at once?)
Any way, In an earlier question I posed, "Ora" thoughtfully responded with this instruction:
Macs work very differently in this regard to PCs. In general people use expose to see what is happening in all their windows, or apple-tab between applications. Activate expose with F9 (all windows) of F10 (all windows for one app), though personally i like to bind these to the extra buttons on my mouse.
I am now advanced enough I think I can handle trying to fgure out how to bind these functions to my mouse. however, I have an ibook g4 12". In my system prefs. I don't seem to have the option to afffect mouse controls because it only allows for changes to the trackpad. is it possible?
also, on my old pc I had fixed some of the keys to perform certain functions such as automatically open my firefox with one button etc. is that possible on the mac. I figure it is probably impossibe because of the limited number of keys on a laptop.

oh and one other unrelated question please, is it possible to save any project i make in idvd that is readable on a pc? i would love to share a project i have made with a friend or send it to my pc to burn it to disk however it uses that rediculous file extention.
Does mac try to be incompatible just for the sake of sticking it to the man?

[knight885]

Originally Posted by morning

oh and one other unrelated question please, is it possible to save any project i make in idvd that is readable on a pc? i would love to share a project i have made with a friend or send it to my pc to burn it to disk however it uses that rediculous file extention.
Does mac try to be incompatible just for the sake of sticking it to the man?

I can't answer your mouse question, but I can tell you that the answer to your final question is no. I would not expect any PC DVD application to open an iDVD project, any more than I'd expect Windows DVD applications to open each others' projects. There isn't a standard for that kind of file.

[morning]

hmm, ok i guess that makes sense. I am certainly not very technically savvy. I jsut want to be able to edit together some of my home videos and then actually be able to watch them. If I were using a pc, I am sure that whatever program i used the project would use a file extension that could be recognized by WMP or Quicktime. what is the point of not being able to show your work. and truly why on earth would an ibook come with idvd when there is no possibility to burn onto dvd? I am beginning to think i have been sorely ripped off.
So let me get this straight, I cannot, in any way, get my project out of my laptop and into some other viewable arena?

[Satcomer]

It is no different on a Mac, just different names for programs and how to use said programs. You original question was on mouse so if you look for a mouse gestures program like Cocoa Gestures. There are more programs like this one on VersionTracker or MacUpdate.

Now you CAN export iDVD movies to QuickTime. It is not that hard. You just need to clam down and remember your Mac OS X is a total different operating system than anything from Microsoft. So I suggest you learn how to use the Mac by reading Mac OS X: The Missing Manual. It will help you immensely.

[ex2bot]

And in response to you missing the Explorer:

Option A: Double click on your hard drive icon. Go to the View menu and change the view to "As List" (like Details in Win). There's everything on your hard drive.

Option B: Press Apple Key and N -- for a new window showing what you want to show. Go to Finder (smiling Mac guy on Dock). Click the Finder menu and select Preferences. Click the General icon. Then decide what you want new Finder windows to open to. If you have them show Computer, you'll have access to everything on all your drives.

Option B: Check out the shareware app called Pathfinder. Go to www.versiontracker.com for Mac software.

Doug

P.S. If any of this is too simplistic / you already know this, I apologize.

[ora]

Hi Morning,

I guess i should have explained this at the time but didn't want to overload my answer to you.

To bind mouse buttons to expose, go to System Preferences>Dashboard & Expose. The lower right set of drop down boxes allow you assign expose to spare mouse buttons as well as the normal F keys.

Alternatively, you cam do what I do and use USB overdrive (http://www.usboverdrive.com/USBOverdrive/News.html) which is an excellent shareware usb device driver that allows per-application changes to mouse behavior, binding keys to applications and all sorts of other goodies. I've used it for ages as I like logitech mice but logitech mouse drivers are terrible.

Hope this helps,

ora

[morning]

Originally Posted by dktrickey

P.S. If any of this is too simplistic / you already know this, I apologize.

not at all! you are so helpful thanks so much to you for your patience, thanks also to ora. you always know just what to say...

I will try these suggestions out.

thanks again,

[morning]

Ora,
I don't have the option to bind things to a mouse on the ibook, maybe if i used a mightymouse because the machelp said "if you have a Mighty Mouse, you will see two columns of pop-up menus in "Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts.",.... couldn't give up the right click anyway i don't think... anyway thanks. i guess that is not a feature on the ibook, because it doesn't normally have a mouse connected.