[linux-audio-dev] Knobs, the reply

[Thorsten Wilms]

On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 10:19:10AM -0700, Tim Hockin wrote:
> 
> When you move the mouse slowly, you get very fine control.  When you move
> it faster, the control gets coarser.   So you can move a knob from 0.0 to
> 1.0 quickly with a fast mouse gesture, or you can move it from 0.5 to 0.6
> very slowly.

Thanks. Sounds like trouble with controlabilty/predictability to me.
 
> > For those who think radial is bad: in that case knobs shouldn't 
> > be used at all! (Tim Hockin: it makes no sense to disagree to a 
> > half sentence/meaning!) Popping up a slider doesn't help much, 
> > the nature of the control should be clear right away.
> 
> I'm still going to put my bet on linear.  If you do a usability study of
> linear vs radial, I bet linear will be more obvious and easy to control.
> And you will not convince me otherwise until I see a usability test done
> with non-LAD users :)

Maybe linear is easier to handle, but the usual knob graphics are 
still misleading (you can't tell me something round with clear center 
hints at linear movement, even if the real world metaphor is left out).


> > Oh, and about linear needing 2 directions, up/down for gain 
> > and right left for pan (Uwe): Sure. And the widget has 
> > to be clear about that in advance.
> 
> This is such a bad idea, unless the control is an X/Y control to start
> with.

No, I did not mean 2 axes for one widget. Only that a linear widget has 
to indicate it's direction even before interaction happens, and that it 
makes sense to use vertical for volume and horizonal for pan in the 
same interface.


---
Thorsten Wilms