Mousing around again? Did you know that “mouse” is appropriate as a verb? There are several common actions that involve moving a pointer cursor but not necessarily clicking the item underneath.

Mouse Over

Mousing over an element on a screen means moving the cursor on top of it. Sometimes this results in the element changing. Without even clicking on the object, for example, a link on a website might change color or get decorated, such as with an underline. Likewise, a button might appear depressed—not sad; the other depressed, as of pushing a button.

Or, a mouseover might reveal explanatory information. Commonly, many interface elements have associated “tooltips,” also known as Help Tags. A tooltip spells out an abbreviated title, names the function of a button, or otherwise describes an element.

In the screenshot above, notice the definition that appears under the cursor, describing what happens when you click the Safari tab close button. It even offers an extra tip!

Data Detectors

When you mouse over some types of textual information, like dates and locations, you’ll see a dotted border and a little menu button on the right. Your Mac has detected some data you can act on. Click the menu to connect directly to the associated application.

For example, in an email message, a date and time can pull the subject, date, time, and even a mentioned location into a new calendar event that you can customize on the spot without ever leaving the email. Or, with a street address, you can show the location on a map and add the address to your contacts.

Link Previews

Another cool implementation of data detectors is for previewing links. In an email, mouse over a link and click the menu to reveal a preview of the linked page.

You can’t click any links in the preview but you can scroll through it. You can also open the site with your default web browser or add it to your Reading List.

There are many more actions you can take after mousing over various elements on the screen. Apple lists them in its overview of things you can do with a Force Touch trackpad, which is another way you can act on this feature.

Perusing this list, you may get a sense of how well integrated Apple’s applications are and how efficient you can be in each one.