What is a Computer Mouse?

Your mouse is one way for you to communicate with your computer. You are the boss, and you can use the mouse to send commands to the Windows operating system. The mouse sends messages to the CPU (central processing unit) to be processed.

Your mouse can roll and it can click with the left mouse button or the right mouse button. Each time you roll or click, Windows does something. On your screen, you will see a mouse pointer, which is most often shaped as a white arrow. The mouse pointer allows you to choose items on the screen that tell the computer what to do. Programmers call the things a computer is able to do "commands."

When you left click one time, you are telling Windows to pay attention to that item the pointer is touching. That is to say that one left click "chooses" something. Double left clicking commands Windows to "Open" something. That means that the computer copies information (like a program) stored on the hard drive into the computer's memory (RAM) where the processor can use it.

You also use your mouse to highlight. Highlighting is another way of choosing something you see on your screen. Mostly, you will highlight text so that the computer can do something to the text, such as bold it or change the font. Highlighting tells the computer exactly what text you want it to work on. There are many ways to highlight a piece of text, but the most common is to left click at one end and drag the mouse. Let go of the mouse button when you reach the other end.

Right clicking brings up a menu. That is a list of commands you can use for the item the mouse pointer was touching. After you see the Right Click Menu, you left click to "Choose" something from the menu. Generally, if someone says to "click" on something, they mean left click since left clicking is most common.

Windows allows you to move things around on your desktop with "drag and drop." If you left click on an item, hold the mouse button down and move the mouse around, the item will follow the mouse around the desktop until you let go of the mouse button.