Rhino OSX

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Mouse

The Macintosh OS X operating system does not assume that you have a two or three button mouse, so all computer operations must be possible using a mouse with a single button. This will likely be the biggest difference you will notice between the Windows and Macintosh version of Rhino. iRhino works very well with a two or three button mouse, but such a mouse is not required. For all the right mouse operations that are described below, you may instead hold down the Control key and click the left or single mouse button instead.

Some common Rhino right mouse operations have been altered for the Macintosh version.

In a drawing view, you can right-click and drag a 2D view to pan the drawing view. Clicking and dragging in a perspective view rotates the view. Both of these operations are the same in Windows and the Macintosh. If your mouse has a scroll wheel, then you can use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out in a view. This is also the same as the Windows version.

If you right-click anywhere in a view and release the button without moving the mouse, a context menu appears. A right-click in a view will not repeat the last command.

Macintosh users expect that right-clicking in a view will always bring up a context menu. As such, a right click is always a safe operation on a Macintosh computer. The Windows Rhino right-click behavior of executing the last command again can be both disconcerting and destructive for the naive Macintosh user.

Toolbars and Tool Palettes

Macintosh Rhino has tool buttons, which are buttons with icons in them. Rhino uses these tool buttons to invoke Rhino commands. You can find tool buttons in the standard Macintosh toolbar at the top of a document window. Use the View / Customize Toolbar menu choice to modify the toolbar contents. Use View / Hide Toolbar and View / Show Toolbar to hide and show the toolbar at the top of the document.

Macintosh Rhino also has tool palettes, which are windows that contain a collection of tool buttons. There is a tool palette to the left of the document window when Macintosh Rhino starts that contains a number of frequently used tool buttons.

Tool buttons also can have one or two commands and perhaps a menu. Hovering the mouse over a tool palette button displays the tool tip help for that button. Clicking the button will invoke the command described in the first line of tool tip text. If the tool tip has a second line of text, then this tool button has an alternate command. The alternate command is invoked by pressing the Option key and clicking the button.

As an aid for Windows Rhino users, you can also right-click a tool button to execute the alternate command. Right-click works only for tool buttons in floating tool palettes, and not for tool buttons in the toolbar.

Some of the tool buttons can both invoke a command and display a drop down menu. Tool buttons that contain a menu have a small downward-pointing triangle (called a disclosure triangle) in the lower left corner. Click and hold the mouse on the button and the drop down menu will appear.

Every tool button menu can be also displayed as another floating tool palette. To display the floating tool palette associated with a tool button, hold the Option key down while you click and hold on a tool button. The floating tool palette will appear where it was last positioned. Macintosh Rhino remembers the location of all open tool palettes and reopens the tool palettes when the application is started.

Keyboard

As of this writing, there are very few Command key sequences assigned to menu choices. This will change in the future as we gain experience with the Macintosh version.

You may type commands at any time, and you may use the backspace and forward delete keys to correct entries in the command line. Hold down the Command key and press the Delete key to delete selected objects. Requiring the Command key when deleting objects will prevent users from accidentally deleting objects when attempting to correct typing mistakes.

Windows Rhino uses the Control key to modify a number of keyboard operations. OS X uses the Control key in conjunction with the single mouse button to simulate right mouse button actions. Because of this, we avoid using the Control key in Macintosh Rhino and instead use the Command key as the replacement.

For example, here are some Macintosh keyboard navigation shortcuts:

Mouse Navigation with Modifier Keys

If you find it confusing that Rhino changes its right-mouse drag mode depending on the projection style of the viewport, you can lock the navigation mode by using a modifier key. Regardless of the view projection style, press Shift to always pan, press Command to always zoom, and press Command and Shift together to always rotate the view.

If you have a one-button mouse, you must press Control, Command, and Shift together to always rotate a view. We think this is one of the best arguments for getting a two or three button mouse.

Fun with Laptops

Sliding two fingers up or down on the trackpad of recent Macintosh laptops acts just like a scroll wheel. In Macintosh Rhino, this zooms the current view in or out.

Macintosh keyboards double up some of the keys that are available in full-size keyboards. A laptop keyboard does not have a separate Home, End, PageUp or PageDn key, but these can be generated from the keyboard. In the lower left corner of the laptop keyboard is the fn key, and pressing this key on combination with other keys generates a different key function.

Laptops do not have a second mouse button, but all recent laptops have Bluetooth built in. We find a Bluetooth mouse such as the Logitech V270 to be a useful addition when working on a laptop.