Re: [LAD] Mouse/knob interaction

On September 7, 2010 02:20:10 pm Gordon JC Pearce wrote: A quick check of our MusE knobs shows it's circular motion. Circular or linear doesn't really bother me too much, but if linear, then both up/down AND left/right should operate the knob. I've seen some that do one but not the other. However, I would like to share with you a 'patented' (he he) technique I developed a long time ago: When the mouse cursor goes to the edge of the screen you have no more movement, forcing you to pick up the mouse and go back to another position away from the screen edge and continue adjusting. So here's what you do in the coding: When the control is clicked, you turn off the mouse cursor so that it is always INVISIBLE during adjustment, then you force it to the CENTRE of the screen, and wait for some mouse movement. When movement happens, you record how much it moved (delta) and use that to adjust the control's value (as usual), and then you FORCE the mouse cursor right back to the CENTRE of the screen again, waiting for more mouse movement, and the whole process repeats. Then when the control is un-clicked, you force the mouse cursor back to where it originally would have been, and turn it on again so it's visible. This way the mouse NEVER reaches the edge of the screen during adjustment, although it may physically reach the edge of your desk. However, with trackball mice you can keep on rolling and rolling, and the control keeps adjusting without end ! I used this technique in a 'spinbox' derivative which I call 'RollEdit'. I hate reeeeally tiny spinbox up/down arrows, and waiting for them to increment, don't you? With my 'RollEdit', you simply click anywhere in the edit portion and start rolling, and rolling, and rolling, and the value keeps going and going and going... No mouse repositioning needed. I also used it in 3D modelling apps: You click anywhere in a 'scene' and start rolling, and the zoom or viewer position (for example) just keeps going and going. No visible mouse cursor to get in the way. Excellent with trackballs ! (AutoDesk's 3D Studio at one time came close to this, but they messed it up by leaving the mouse cursor visible and making it 'wrap around' the edges of the screen. Like the game Asteroids, very annoying.) All of that work was in Windows and it was very complicated because you can receive multiple mouse movement messages for just one movement. I've always wondered if Linux would be able to handle this technique better than in Windows. Never investigated yet. Opinions? In MusE, when you click on any slider, even in the slider trough area, the mouse cursor is FORCED to the centre of the slider knob. I did this to help with automation, so that you could easily 'grab' the slider knob even while it was in fast motion due to existing automation movements. Gotta go! Looks like bad thunderstorm here! Thanks. Tim.