What is the mouse? [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
The mouse is a small object
attached to your computer or your keyboard by a cable. Its structure is made to easily slide
on a plane surface, next to your keyboard. In its lower part,
it has a small ball which makes it possible to collect the
changes of position.
When you slide it from left to right or
backwards and forwards, the ball collects your movements and
transmits them to the computer through the connecting cable .
The computer then interprets these movements to move a small
picture on your screen. This picture is
called the mouse cursor. Most of the time,
it is represented by an arrow, but according to the context,
it can have various appearances:

If you move the mouse to the right, the
cursor follows your movement and moves to the right of the
screen. The same principle applies for all directions. You
need to hold the mouse in the correct direction, with the
connection cable most distant from you.
Take care to have sufficient place beside
your keyboard to handle the mouse. By moving it, you can
bring the cursor to any place on the screen. If you are not
yet accustomed to it, train yourself to move the cursor and
to bring it to various precise locations on the screen. It is
important to control the moving of the cursor well, because
much of the operations will be carried out using the mouse.
It is not difficult, it is a simple matter of habit.
Buttons of the mouse [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
On its upper part, the mouse has one or more buttons. When it has several buttons, it is usually the left
button that is used by most programs. The right button, when
present, is often used to reach a contextual menu, i.e. a list of
actions related to the location where you clicked.
For the Mac version of Pizzicato, if the mouse
only has one button, when you are asked to use the right button
in the manual, you can use the single button of the Macintosh
mouse while holding down the "Option" (or
"ALT") key of the Macintosh keyboard. It is the key
located on the two sides of the space bar, between the
"Apple" key and the "CTRL" key.
By pushing or releasing the button, you can
carry out the most various operations, according to the location
of the cursor at that time. Four types of operations can be
carried out with the mouse:
- point
- click
- double-click
- click and drag
Here is a description of each operation. Be
certain to understand them well, because they will very often
appear in the manual.
Pointing [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
This operation simply consists of placing the mouse cursor at
a precise location of the screen. It is important to know that
the active area of the cursor is its point. If you are asked to
point a small square, you should thus place the mouse in such a
way that the point of the cursor is inside this square:

This operation of pointing is preliminary to the other
operations. It is first necessary to place the cursor at the good
location before starting another operation.
Clicking [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
It is the most current operation. You press
the button and release it immediately, without moving the
mouse between the two.
When you are asked to click on (or in) an
item, it means that you must first point this item with the
cursor (by moving the mouse) and then push and release the
mouse button.
The action to push and release the button
is called a click. According to the type of the clicked item,
the action will be different. It is often used to carry out a
choice or to execute an action. We will later study the types
of graphical items that you will run into.
Double-clicking [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
As its name may indicate it, one executes
two clicks one after the other, at the same location (without
moving the mouse between the two) and without waiting between
the two clicks. On average, this time between two clicks will
not exceed half a second. If you wait too long between the
two, your action will be interpreted as two simple clicks and
not as a double-click.
The 4 actions must follow one another
quickly:
- press the button,
- release the button,
- press the button,
- release the button.
The mouse should not be moved between these
4 operations otherwise the double-click will not be valid.
When you are asked to double-click an item, it means that you
must first point this item with the cursor (by moving the
mouse) and then execute the 4 actions given above. When you
execute a double-click that does not produce the expected
effect, it means that you either execute these 4 operations
not fast enough or you move the mouse during the operation.
Train yourself!
This operation is called a double click.
According to the type of the double-clicked item, the action
will be different. It is often used to open a graphic element
and to see its contents.
Clicking/dragging [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
This operation makes it possible to move a
graphic element on the screen. The principle is the same as
moving an object on your desk: you seize it, move it to
another location and put it down. With the mouse, the
operations become:
- point the graphic object on the screen
with the mouse,
- push and hold down the mouse button (=
seize the object),
- drag the mouse to another location (=
move the object),
- release the mouse button (= release
the object).
The time that goes by between these
operations is not important. You can take your time to move
the mouse before releasing the button.
When you are asked to click and drag an
item, it means the four operations given above. The word
"click" can also be omitted and you will simply be
asked to drag an item from one location to another.
This operation is used to move graphic
objects on the screen, to change the size of a graphic object
and to select a choice among several available actions or
options.