I have just been playing around with Stylizer, a Windows CSS editor. Why, you may ask, is the CTO of a mobile software company messing around with CSS editors? A very good question. Someone was extolling the virtues of this program on the Business of Software forum, and how everyone should take a look at the first-run experience. I went to the website, which is simple, clean, and attractive, and downloaded the program, which instantly launches into the tutorial.

Stylizer's tutorial is well implemented, and compelling. I am no expert on CSS, and not much more knowledgable about CSS than I was when I started the tutorial, but I know a bit more about how to use Stylizer, and I agree that it is easy to use. Right up to the point where it asked me to hold down my left mouse button and then click with the right while the left button was still down.

Now, not only did I have to read that twice to work out what I needed to do, I could not actually do it. I use an Apple Mighty Mouse, and it is simply not possible to press any two buttons simultaneously, unless you press very hard enough (i.e. hard enough to break it).

Up to this point, all the shortcuts had been with the keyboard, so I didn't quite see why we were suddenly using the mouse, particularly in a click combination that is hardly standard. In the case of Stylizer, it is simple enough just to achieve the desired action (insert a new rule) using the Insert key, but I am left asking myself why someone found it necessary to come up wth a completely non-standard action to implement a common action. In the same thought, I realise that Apple disabled simultaneous button clicks on the Mighty Mouse precisely to prevent people coming up with complex, non-standard UIs. More power to them.