Hello again! The discussion about linear or radial mouse movement for knobs finaly got me to mockup an idea i had in my mind for sometime already. For now I call it fan sliders: http://wrstud.urz.uni-wuppertal.de/~ka0394/forum/04-06-10_fan_slider_01.png It's all about concept, not style. The idea is to allow rather small sliders, but on mouse-down lines from top and button appear on one side (important for making the feature discoverable). Outside of the inital slider the pointer position is indicated by the crossing middle and vertical line. The straight horizontal extension is only meant to make reading easier. So up/down is value change, outwards increases precision (can of course be turned for stuff like pan). If the graphics do not fit on the screen, it still can work because the value is indicated by the initial slider and inclination of the center line (well, at least I hope so). Default expansion direction should be reading direction, but moving the pointer out on the other side could make it turn over. Close to the right screen edge the behaviour could be as known from menus. The first mockup has a slider where the dragable part is clearly defined. The second gives a stronger sense of value, but is not clear about where to click (I propose everywhere on the slider area, always grabbing the actual value. No special behaviour like known from scrollbars). It's also more space efficient, because the whole are can be used (with the other one a half button must be spared on both ends each.) For those concerned about precision of pointer movement / inadvertently changes to precision while adjusting value: Instead of linear spreading out, it could be stepped (lines looking like stairs). But that would be much less elegant. Comments, please! --- Thorsten Wilms

Hello again! The discussion about linear or radial mouse movement for knobs finaly got me to mockup an idea i had in my mind for sometime already. For now I call it fan sliders: http://wrstud.urz.uni-wuppertal.de/~ka0394/forum/04-06-10_fan_slider_01.png It's all about concept, not style. The idea is to allow rather small sliders, but on mouse-down lines from top and button appear on one side (important for making the feature discoverable). Outside of the inital slider the pointer position is indicated by the crossing middle and vertical line. The straight horizontal extension is only meant to make reading easier. So up/down is value change, outwards increases precision (can of course be turned for stuff like pan). If the graphics do not fit on the screen, it still can work because the value is indicated by the initial slider and inclination of the center line (well, at least I hope so). Default expansion direction should be reading direction, but moving the pointer out on the other side could make it turn over. Close to the right screen edge the behaviour could be as known from menus. The first mockup has a slider where the dragable part is clearly defined. The second gives a stronger sense of value, but is not clear about where to click (I propose everywhere on the slider area, always grabbing the actual value. No special behaviour like known from scrollbars). It's also more space efficient, because the whole are can be used (with the other one a half button must be spared on both ends each.) For those concerned about precision of pointer movement / inadvertently changes to precision while adjusting value: Instead of linear spreading out, it could be stepped (lines looking like stairs). But that would be much less elegant. Comments, please!