10 Jun
2004
10 Jun
'04
10:18 a.m.
Oh well, just read through the more than 30 mails ...
Thanks to Arnold, Marek, Tim Hockin, Benno, Uwe, Tim Orford
for the nice words.
Thanks to everyone for the interest.
About a standard toolkit:
The general desktop toolkits do not adress some special needs
of audio apps, that's clear.
While an integrated look/feel with other, non-audio apps, would
be nice, it can hardly be achieved (think alone of theming).
Therefor a somewhat alien look could be of advantage (better
clearly different than somewhat alike).
Unification advantages: write once, get used to once, allowing
usage to become somewhat subconcious (switching between different
looks/feels doesn't allow that).
It would be great to have all scalable vector guis (especialy
interesting options for modular systems, overview vs tuning).
Even without scaling, I think I would prefer to deliver plain
SVG.
Beside implementations in the major toolkits there's also
Y at the horizone, with a base collection of widgets that
is planned to be extendable with modules.
About generating plugin guis from parameter descriptions:
don't forget that layout is important. There would have to be
some hints for that at least.
I'm working on something very general regarding user interfaces,
and widgets will be one topic. This should give me a nice
foundation for an audio toolkit design from the look and feel
side. So how about building a standard for exactly that: look
and feel? Who's with me?
About the implementation: wouldn't it be possible to wrap things
up in enough ways to every capable developers likes?
For people like me it would be more interesting to have gui
editors / high level descriptions for concentrating on design.
(hand writing xml or similar is acceptible for me, fiddling
around with c code rather not)
To Rtaylor:
I'm all for breaking away from analog limitations. But I still
think that a little 3d look helps with making clear what is
manipulatable and what is not. And I hope it's possible to make
both purists and eye-candy freaks happy enough (I'm myself more
on the purist side, being german industrial design student, think
Bauhaus and all :)
And would you say what I presented is not clear/easy to
read/decipher?
About advanced knob functionality:
For resetting knob with center (pan) I would rather replace the
simple line mark with an arrow, that can be clicked for reset.
Mousewhell should work, of course! Backwards decrease, forwards
increase, to match with scrollbars/sliders. When Ctrl is used
for finer adjustment, Shift or Alt could boost.
Plus/minus buttons could also work.
Right-click must be preserved for context menus (knobs could
of course have such).
For numerical input making use of a text field close to the knob
might be better (but in any case only when numerical exactness
makes sense).
Tim Hockin: please elaborate about velocity sensitve knobs like
used by OhmForce.
A special fine adjustment accessible by a non-left click or with
modifier key is a little problematic, because it breaks the
connection between scale/indicator and mouse movement (not that
I'm against it, only wanted to point this out).
Clicks/modifier keys should not be user options. No need for
extra coding, overloaded preferences / layout problems and
users fiddling around instead of using the software.
Radial?
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.
However, I never had problems dealing with radial knobs, but
always found linear ones do not feel right.
There's no need to move the pointer accurately in circular
fashion, a soft bow works perfectly fine.
I do not say knobs are perfect / better than sliders
or other solutions in all cases, and I'm aware of the problems.
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.
About releasing the knobs
Everybody can have the existing svg, png export or Blender 3d
files (just ask). I doubt I will continue with Blender, so future
work will be vector or directly bitmap. Like I said, it's not
finalized at all.
ATM I do not know how to best generate series of bitmaps
for rotations. Would be nice if someone could help with a
little imagemagick or gimp scripting to do the rotation and
combine it with fixed parts.
Benno:
I think Dave Robillard is right. Only when you're very sure the
saved space can be put to better use, knobs ar an option there.
And the design would have to be adapted to fit in.
---
Thorsten Wilms
10 Jun
10 Jun
3:27 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 02:09:08PM +0200, Thorsten Wilms wrote:
Tim Hockin: please elaborate about velocity sensitve
knobs like
used by OhmForce.
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.
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 :)
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.
4:12 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 10:19:10AM -0700, Tim Hockin wrote:
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).
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
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 :) 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.
4:36 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 08:02:48PM +0200, Thorsten Wilms wrote:
It is unpredictable. I don't much care for it as a UI feature. It is
very hard for me to stay below the 'fine-grain' speed limit.
I think that your frontal lobe is saying "knobs are round, move the mouse
around them" but I still believe that your hand will find it more
intuitive and correct to move the mouse in one direction - up and down.
OH! Hrrm, yes, well. I see the point, but I don't think it will work.
Differing semantics for similar-looking widget is the worst of all possible
choices.
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. 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). 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. 
5:02 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 11:28:01AM -0700, Tim Hockin wrote:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 08:02:48PM +0200, Thorsten
Wilms wrote:
Not if the pan sliders are laid out horizontally :-)
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
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.
OH! Hrrm, yes, well. I see the point, but I don't think it will work.
Differing semantics for similar-looking widget is the worst of all possible
choices.
6:45 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 02:53:56PM -0400, Paul Winkler wrote:
Not if the pan sliders are laid out horizontally :-)
I was speaking of knobs. A horizontal slider is obviously visually
different from a vertical one. A horizontally-linear knob is not
obviously different from a vertically-linear knob :)
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.
OH! Hrrm, yes, well. I see the point, but I don't think it will work.
Differing semantics for similar-looking widget is the worst of all possible
choices. 
9:05 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 01:37:12 -0700, Tim Hockin wrote:
I dont think theres any reason to support up-down and not left-right at
the same time.
- Steve
Not if the pan
sliders are laid out horizontally :-)
I was speaking of knobs. A horizontal slider is obviously visually
different from a vertical one. A horizontally-linear knob is not
obviously different from a vertically-linear knob :)
9:19 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 11:56:30PM +0100, Steve Harris wrote:
Having it work in two dimensions is ok, but I don't know that it's
actually as obvious as up/down. In fact, 1 dimension makes it easier to
get small incrments by moving diagonally.
Your hand is not good at very small movements, so you can make a
moderately sized movement diagonally, which has a small vertical
component. This lets you get very small vertical tweaks.
I was speaking
of knobs. A horizontal slider is obviously visually
different from a vertical one. A horizontally-linear knob is not
obviously different from a vertically-linear knob :)
I dont think theres any reason to support up-down and not left-right at
the same time. 
9:26 p.m.
On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 19:10, Tim Hockin wrote:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 11:56:30PM +0100, Steve Harris
wrote:
Having it work in two dimensions is ok, but I don't know that it's
actually as obvious as up/down. In fact, 1 dimension makes it easier to
get small incrments by moving diagonally.
Your hand is not good at very small movements, so you can make a
moderately sized movement diagonally, which has a small vertical
component. This lets you get very small vertical tweaks.
I think having both axis tweak a knob is a bad thing too. It would be
really hard to figure out how the heck the thing works.
People would think it's radial, but it's acting funny.. or just not be
able to figure it out at all.
-DR-
I was
speaking of knobs. A horizontal slider is obviously visually
different from a vertical one. A horizontally-linear knob is not
obviously different from a vertically-linear knob :)
I dont think theres any reason to support up-down and not left-right at
the same time.
9:04 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 11:28:01 -0700, Tim Hockin wrote:
I think that your frontal lobe is saying "knobs
are round, move the mouse
around them" but I still believe that your hand will find it more
intuitive and correct to move the mouse in one direction - up and down.
Hmm... I've just realised that I dont actually use mice, I prefer
touchpads, which make different movements easier.
- Steve
10:29 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 11:55:32PM +0100, Steve Harris wrote:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 11:28:01 -0700, Tim Hockin
wrote:
+1. Aside from the growing number of "laptop DJs" out there,
I actually use a touchpad on my desktop because it doesn't
fsck up my hand as badly as prolonged mouse useage does.
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
I think that your frontal lobe is saying
"knobs are round, move the mouse
around them" but I still believe that your hand will find it more
intuitive and correct to move the mouse in one direction - up and down.
Hmm... I've just realised that I dont actually use mice, I prefer
touchpads, which make different movements easier.
10:53 p.m.
On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 20:21, Paul Winkler wrote:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 11:55:32PM +0100, Steve Harris
wrote:
Speaking of touchpads, does anyone know of a (usb) touchpad that works
with your finger, not just a pen? (The only ones I've seen just work
with the stylus, which is no good)
I want to get one and set it up as a MIDI controller, like a poor mans
Kaoss Pad (and what I think would be the ultimate expressive MIDI
controller).
Surely one of these things must exist?
-DR-
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 11:28:01 -0700, Tim
Hockin wrote:
+1. Aside from the growing number of "laptop DJs" out there,
I actually use a touchpad on my desktop because it doesn't
fsck up my hand as badly as prolonged mouse useage does. I think that your frontal lobe is saying
"knobs are round, move the mouse
around them" but I still believe that your hand will find it more
intuitive and correct to move the mouse in one direction - up and down.
Hmm... I've just realised that I dont actually use mice, I prefer
touchpads, which make different movements easier.
11 Jun
11 Jun
3:03 a.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 08:42:42PM -0400, Dave Robillard wrote:
Speaking of touchpads, does anyone know of a (usb)
touchpad that works
with your finger, not just a pen? (The only ones I've seen just work
with the stylus, which is no good)
I'm guessing you mean a big one, like 15 or 20 cm on a side?
I've never seen one that big that wasn't a pen-controlled art thingie.
... on the other hand, google finds everything... check this out,
not cheap but looks very interesting and they seem to be linux-friendly!
http://www.fingerworks.com/igesture.html
Currently I use a Fellowes (nee Cirque) touchpad as my primary mouse.
It's a bit bigger than a laptop touchpad, but not by much.
Like this one:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?RestartFlow=t&Section_Id=1795&a…
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
3:18 a.m.
On Fri, 2004-06-11 at 00:54, Paul Winkler wrote:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 08:42:42PM -0400, Dave
Robillard wrote:
Yeah, that's the only one I could find. All those stupid features make
it expensive as heck, I just want two axis and that's it! It's a
descent size though, maybe I should bite the bullet.
It says it just emulates a USB mouse despite all the crazy extra
features, so hacking out some software to MIDI-ize it shouldn't be too
hard at all.
Speaking of touchpads, does anyone know of a
(usb) touchpad that works
with your finger, not just a pen? (The only ones I've seen just work
with the stylus, which is no good)
I'm guessing you mean a big one, like 15 or 20 cm on a side?
I've never seen one that big that wasn't a pen-controlled art thingie.
... on the other hand, google finds everything... check this out,
not cheap but looks very interesting and they seem to be linux-friendly!
http://www.fingerworks.com/igesture.html Currently I use a Fellowes (nee Cirque) touchpad as my
primary mouse.
It's a bit bigger than a laptop touchpad, but not by much.
Like this one:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?RestartFlow=t&Section_Id=1795&a…
Yeah, that is small. On the other hand, it's also incredibly cheap. I
don't think something that size would even be precise enough for
controlling filter cutoff though..
Could always buy 10 and build a nice little finger drum kit! :)
-DR-
4:08 a.m.
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 01:07:46AM -0400, Dave Robillard wrote:
yeah but how?
i think you'd have to treat them as something other than normal
mice for X, afaik it only allows one pointer at a time -
i.e. multiple mice works fine but they all just control the same
pointer.
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
Currently I
use a Fellowes (nee Cirque) touchpad as my primary mouse.
It's a bit bigger than a laptop touchpad, but not by much.
Like this one:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?RestartFlow=t&Section_Id=1795&a…
Yeah, that is small. On the other hand, it's also incredibly cheap. I
don't think something that size would even be precise enough for
controlling filter cutoff though..
Could always buy 10 and build a nice little finger drum kit! :)
5:09 a.m.
On Fri, 2004-06-11 at 01:59, Paul Winkler wrote:
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 01:07:46AM -0400, Dave
Robillard wrote:
yeah but how?
i think you'd have to treat them as something other than normal
mice for X, afaik it only allows one pointer at a time -
i.e. multiple mice works fine but they all just control the same
pointer.
You can define multiple pointing devices in XF86Config; people do things
like have a mouse and a tablet, etc.
If you don't want a device to control the core pointer, you just define
it but don't set it as the pointer for any screen.
Either way, you could always just not deal with setting it up in X at
all and just dealing with the USB level stuff (there's already code
around to map a joystick to MIDI I know)
-DR-
Currently
I use a Fellowes (nee Cirque) touchpad as my primary mouse.
It's a bit bigger than a laptop touchpad, but not by much.
Like this one:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?RestartFlow=t&Section_Id=1795&a…
Yeah, that is small. On the other hand, it's also incredibly cheap. I
don't think something that size would even be precise enough for
controlling filter cutoff though..
Could always buy 10 and build a nice little finger drum kit! :)
2:42 p.m.
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 02:59:11AM -0400, Dave Robillard wrote:
You can define multiple pointing devices in
XF86Config; people do things
like have a mouse and a tablet, etc.
If you don't want a device to control the core pointer, you just define
it but don't set it as the pointer for any screen.
Oh, right, I didn't think of that.
But if it's not set as a pointer for anything, how do you get events from it?
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
3 p.m.
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 12:33:35 -0400, Paul Winkler wrote:
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 02:59:11AM -0400, Dave
Robillard wrote:
XInput.
- Steve
You can define multiple pointing devices in
XF86Config; people do things
like have a mouse and a tablet, etc.
If you don't want a device to control the core pointer, you just define
it but don't set it as the pointer for any screen.
Oh, right, I didn't think of that.
But if it's not set as a pointer for anything, how do you get events from it? 
14 Jun
14 Jun
2:40 p.m.
yeah but how?
i think you'd have to treat them as something other than normal
mice for X, afaik it only allows one pointer at a time -
i.e. multiple mice works fine but they all just control the same
pointer.
program against EVDEV, simple input event layer presents events
as byte triplets.
modprobe -ra keydev mousedev;
modprobe -a evdev
cat /dev/input/event* > my_app
this is how GDAM supports USB touchpads, joysticks,
keyboards, pen tablets, powermate big knob, etc. A USB mini
keyboard, 120+ temporary on buttons for $12, is by far the cheapest
control device. Treating it as a dedicated device with direct
app support (as opposed to normal keyboard operating hotkeys)
lets the controls stay the same regardless of window focus.
But touchpads generally don't support pressure, so it doesn't
seem to offer anything for drum triggering other than "zero
travel time" vs. a keyboard.
-geoff
19 Jun
19 Jun
4:52 p.m.
On Mon, 2004-06-14 at 12:31, Lance Blisters wrote:
Zero travel time is pretty important.. keyboard drumming is horribly
impractical, it just isn't accurate.
But I was just kidding about the touch pad drum kit anyway. I have an
Akai MPD-16 so it's a non-issue. You poor guys without any nifty
hardware can deal with ghetto drum input solutions. :)
-DR-
yeah but how?
i think you'd have to treat them as something other than normal
mice for X, afaik it only allows one pointer at a time -
i.e. multiple mice works fine but they all just control the same
pointer.
program against EVDEV, simple input event layer presents events
as byte triplets.
modprobe -ra keydev mousedev;
modprobe -a evdev
cat /dev/input/event* > my_app
this is how GDAM supports USB touchpads, joysticks,
keyboards, pen tablets, powermate big knob, etc. A USB mini
keyboard, 120+ temporary on buttons for $12, is by far the cheapest
control device. Treating it as a dedicated device with direct
app support (as opposed to normal keyboard operating hotkeys)
lets the controls stay the same regardless of window focus.
But touchpads generally don't support pressure, so it doesn't
seem to offer anything for drum triggering other than "zero
travel time" vs. a keyboard.
-geoff
14 Jun
14 Jun
2:29 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 08:42:42PM -0400, Dave Robillard wrote:
Speaking of touchpads, does anyone know of a (usb)
touchpad that works
with your finger, not just a pen? (The only ones I've seen just work
with the stylus, which is no good)
I want to get one and set it up as a MIDI controller, like a poor mans
Kaoss Pad (and what I think would be the ultimate expressive MIDI
controller).
Surely one of these things must exist?
Most (all?) by default work only in relative motion mode,
not absolute motion mode. So moving your finger a bit to the left
sends -5 -7 -2 but you have no idea of where on the pad your
finger is. In fact, the relative events don't even add up; move
back and forth a from side to side a dozen times, the values tend
do drift in some direction (the direct USB events, pre-mouse
accelleration) So, it doesn't map onto the kaoss pad very well.
I have an "easy-cat" usb touchpad. IIRC it has an absolute mode
under windows, but i've seen no linux code to enable it. They
wanted me to sign an NDA for futher info. However, this device
is still usable for x-y parameter control, just only via relative
motions. There are some binding files to support this device in
GDAM's CVS repository.
-geoff
19 Jun
19 Jun
4:54 p.m.
On Mon, 2004-06-14 at 12:20, Lance Blisters wrote:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 08:42:42PM -0400, Dave
Robillard wrote:
Now that I think of it, with a small touchpad, relative would be okay
anyway. Not accurate enough for absolute to be that useful.
Absolute would be better, for sure, but relative would be okay - I
personally just want to be able to drag my finger around and manipulate
things in an expressive way.
-DR-
Speaking of touchpads, does anyone know of a
(usb) touchpad that works
with your finger, not just a pen? (The only ones I've seen just work
with the stylus, which is no good)
I want to get one and set it up as a MIDI controller, like a poor mans
Kaoss Pad (and what I think would be the ultimate expressive MIDI
controller).
Surely one of these things must exist?
Most (all?) by default work only in relative motion mode,
not absolute motion mode. So moving your finger a bit to the left
sends -5 -7 -2 but you have no idea of where on the pad your
finger is. In fact, the relative events don't even add up; move
back and forth a from side to side a dozen times, the values tend
do drift in some direction (the direct USB events, pre-mouse
accelleration) So, it doesn't map onto the kaoss pad very well.
I have an "easy-cat" usb touchpad. IIRC it has an absolute mode
under windows, but i've seen no linux code to enable it. They
wanted me to sign an NDA for futher info. However, this device
is still usable for x-y parameter control, just only via relative
motions. There are some binding files to support this device in
GDAM's CVS repository.
-geoff 
11 Jun
11 Jun
8:47 a.m.
On Friday 11 June 2004 00:55, Steve Harris wrote:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 11:28:01 -0700, Tim Hockin
wrote:
Speaking of mouse-alternatives:
How would you use a trackball to control a knob? circular? seems very
difficult... linear is better...
Arnold, thinkink of bying a trackball for his laptop-use-on-stage...
--
Get my public-key from pgp.mit.edu or pgp.uni-mainz.de
---
Hi, I am a .signature virus. Please copy me into your ~/.signature and send me
to all your contacts.
After a month or so log in as root and do a rm / -rf. Or ask your
administrator to do so...
I think that your frontal lobe is saying
"knobs are round, move the mouse
around them" but I still believe that your hand will find it more
intuitive and correct to move the mouse in one direction - up and down.
Hmm...
I've just realised that I dont actually use mice, I prefer
touchpads, which make different movements easier. 
9:23 a.m.
On fre, 2004-06-11 at 12:38, Arnold Krille wrote:
How would you use a trackball to control a knob?
circular? seems very
difficult... linear is better...
I have a trackball. Moving the index and middle fingers in little
cirkles is actually quite easy ...
OTOH, double clicking with your thumb is a pita.
Arnold, thinkink of bying a trackball for his
laptop-use-on-stage...
I'd say go ahead. But get one with a wheel.
/jens
9:58 a.m.
New subject: OT: Trackballs [was: [linux-audio-dev] Knobs, the reply]
On Friday 11 June 2004 13:17, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
On fre, 2004-06-11 at 12:38, Arnold Krille wrote:
I had one without wheel for three-day-testing. I am never going to buy one
without wheel!!! Its just so much easier for scrolling! And by the way the
only MS-product I am using regularly is the little mouse at my laptop, where
the wheel feels so much better than on every other mouse...
Stopping now, as this is no LAD-topic anymore. ;-)
Arnold
--
Get my public-key from pgp.mit.edu or pgp.uni-mainz.de
---
Hi, I am a .signature virus. Please copy me into your ~/.signature and send me
to all your contacts.
After a month or so log in as root and do a rm / -rf. Or ask your
administrator to do so...
How would you use a trackball to control a knob?
circular? seems very
difficult... linear is better...
I have a trackball. Moving the index and middle
fingers in little
cirkles is actually quite easy ...
OTOH, double clicking with your thumb is a pita.
Arnold, thinkink of bying a trackball for his
laptop-use-on-stage...
I'd say go ahead. But get one with a wheel. 
10 Jun
10 Jun
5:10 p.m.
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 20:02:48 +0200
Thorsten Wilms <t_w_(a)freenet.de> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 10:19:10AM -0700, Tim Hockin
wrote:
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.
For visual hinting, how about:
O
/ \ Horizonal (e.g. pan control)
min at south west
max at south east
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. O Vertical (e.g. Whatever else)
min at south west (or east)
max at north west (or east)
-
Myk
11 Jun
11 Jun
5:05 a.m.
Tim Hockin wrote:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 02:09:08PM +0200, Thorsten
Wilms wrote:
Hello? See my previous post re: mouse wheel. There is a *perfect*
mapping between a knob and the
mouse wheel, much more straightforward than for any other hardware control.
This is getting increasingly common on Windows, and makes so much more
sense than any other approach
that I am starting to consider any other behavior to be broken. Of
course, on some supposedly modern
Linux distros you still can't count on the thing to even be detected and
set up correctly. But that is another
story.
This discussion should really be about what we fall back to if there is
no mouse wheel.
Lee
Tim Hockin: please elaborate about velocity
sensitve knobs like
used by OhmForce.
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.
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 :)
7:46 a.m.
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 02:57:11 -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
Its not really "perfect" the mouse wheel is vertical and they often have
big steps, plus they give me twinges.
- Steve
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 :)
Hello? See my previous post re: mouse wheel. There is a *perfect*
mapping between a knob and the
mouse wheel, much more straightforward than for any other hardware control.
5:08 p.m.
Steve Harris wrote:
OK, perfect is too strong a word, but it is 1:1.
As far as having big steps, just make one click-turn (for lack of a
better term) equal to whatever the resolution
of your control is.
If you needed less sensitivity (say for a DJ crossfader versus a master
gain) you could make it velocity-sensitive
or implement acceleration or whatever. The possibilities are endless...
Lee
Hello? See my
previous post re: mouse wheel. There is a *perfect*
mapping between a knob and the
mouse wheel, much more straightforward than for any other hardware control.
Its not really "perfect" the mouse wheel is vertical and they often have
big steps, plus they give me twinges.
13 Jun
13 Jun
2:05 p.m.
On Fri, 2004-06-11 at 15:00, Lee Revell wrote:
Steve Harris wrote:
OK, perfect is too strong a word, but it is 1:1.
As far as having big steps, just make one click-turn (for lack of a
better term) equal to whatever the resolution
of your control is.
If you needed less sensitivity (say for a DJ crossfader versus a master
gain) you could make it velocity-sensitive
or implement acceleration or whatever. The possibilities are endless...
Lee
I think the clicks in most mouse wheels would make it unsuitable for
manipulating audio controls.
The velocity idea you mention sounds like it COULD work, but I'm
sceptical. I guess actually trying it out is the only way to tell.
Regardless of how well it feels, I don't think I would want to tweak a
knob with a clickey mouse wheel. Not to say the behavior shouldn't be
there, it doesn't get in the way of anything. (It's somewhat stupid not
having the mouse wheel move knobs really, if it's not doing anything
else might as well)
-DR-
Hello?
See my previous post re: mouse wheel. There is a *perfect*
mapping between a knob and the
mouse wheel, much more straightforward than for any other hardware control.
Its not really "perfect" the mouse wheel is vertical and they often have
big steps, plus they give me twinges.
2:48 p.m.
I read:
I think the clicks in most mouse wheels would make it
unsuitable for
manipulating audio controls.
Some time ago I used the jogdial of my vaio in pd alot, it's pretty much
like a scrollwheel and it works nicely if you keep the resolution fine
grained enough (a 127 pixel slider on the screen has the exact same problem)
so basically you'll interpolate to the target value in a few msecs anyway.
regards,
x
--
chris(a)lo-res.org Postmodernism is german romanticism with better
http://pilot.fm/ special effects. (Jeff Keuss / via ctheory.com)
11 Jun
11 Jun
3:19 p.m.
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 02:57:11AM -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
Hello? See my previous post re: mouse wheel. There
is a *perfect*
mapping between a knob and the
mouse wheel, much more straightforward than for any other hardware control.
Perfect it is not. My favorite mouse has a wheel which is not very fine
grained. Not so good for moving a knob. Besides that, you still need to
decide whether the main control (left-click) is linear or radial. Mouse
wheel is an add-on and not something that can be considered standard, yet.
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linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org
31 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
Arnold Krille -
CK -
Dave Robillard -
Jens M Andreasen -
Lance Blisters -
Lee Revell -
Mike Rawes -
Paul Winkler -
Steve Harris -
Thorsten Wilms -
Tim Hockin