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4D ScrollWare Dual Wheel Mouse, Version 5.41

by Michael Bolitho

Note: If you are upgrading to Windows 2000, ME or XP, and your driver software does not support these Operating Systems, go to http://www.a4tech.com.tw/ftp.html to download the appropriate driver.

Contents:

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

STUDENT PROFILE

BACKGROUND

WHAT DOES IT OFFER?

ADVANTAGES

DISADVANTAGES

TRAINING REQUIREMENTS

INTEGRATION

SOURCE AND COST

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The 4D ScrollWare Dual Wheel Mouse software provides extra mouse facilities which can be used with any mouse with scroll wheel(s) and a third mouse button. These facilities include:

• automatic and manual scrolling;
• a zoom window; and
• text scaling in Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer.

STUDENT PROFILE

• Vision impaired - where increasing the size of the screen, or part of it, will assist students (not blind students- blind students require other assistance).
• Physical disability - which affects consistent or continued control of the normal mouse.

BACKGROUND

The 4D ScrollWare Dual Wheel Mouse software provides much greater control over the functions of the mouse and, particularly, its use for scrolling the computer screen. Using the scroll wheels for scrolling a page at a time, or the automatic scroll functions with Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer significantly reduce the problems for students with fine motor control problems or who are susceptible to fatigue.

In many cases, the zoom window is only required by visually impaired students to simplify the process of reading text in a text editor. The option to increase the size of text within the Microsoft Office window can mean that the zooming process can be better integrated, since the scroll bars then control panning around a document or spreadsheet.

WHAT DOES IT OFFER?

The 4D ScrollWare Dual Wheel Mouse software is selected from the Mouse Properties in Control Panel. It offers:

• manual scrolling of lines or pages using the scroll wheels;
• automatic variable speed scrolling using the third mouse button;
• a scalable zoom window, turned on or off by the third mouse button;
• a wide range of functions that can be associated with the third mouse button instead of the zoom window; and
• text scaling in Microsoft Office 97 or later and Internet Explorer Version 3 or later, operated by the CTRL key and the vertical scroll wheel.

ADVANTAGES

• as the 4D ScrollWare software integrates fully with the Windows Operating System, all facilities are available in any program run under Windows.
• the zoom window only requires a press of the third mouse button, not starting of another piece of software or continual operation with a zoom window displayed.
• scaling of text within Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer is integrated such that panning around a document is controlled by the scroll bars, where most magnifiers need to be panned to the scroll bars to move the window.

DISADVANTAGES

The zoom window has two drawbacks:

• the actual location of the mouse pointer is not where it appears when the zoom window approaches the edges of the display;
• the first click of the mouse is used to turn off the zoom window before the mouse returns to normal functioning.

TRAINING REQUIREMENTS

Minimal training is required.

INTEGRATION

Fully integrated with Windows, and therefore with any program run under Windows.

SOURCE AND COST

The Internet 4D Trackball ScrollTrack containing:

• ScrollTrack Advanced 4D Mouse
• 4D ScrollWare software and disk is available for $39.00 (approximately).

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Minimum:

· IBM PC 486/586/Pentium
· Windows 3.x/95/98/NT
· DOS 3.3 or later
· MD-6 pin PS/2 or 9 pin serial port
· 3.5" floppy disk drive for installation

DSU AT Project 4D Mouse