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Invert Map Panning

Started by Prime624, April 25, 2018, 02:28:26 AM

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Prime624

Moving the map is very tedious in Simutrans. The only good way to do it is by dragging with the mouse, but the orientation is backwards. Is there a way to invert the directions. For example, right now, if I drag my mouse down, the map moves up, which is unintuitive. Can I make it so down is down, left is left, etc.?

An_dz

Yes, in Video settings. It's the fifth checkbox from the top.

Ters

For those wondering, present and future why the default behavior is as it is: It is perfectly intuitive when one thinks of it as moving the viewport across the map, which is mathematically what is happening, and not the map past the viewport. This has traditionally been how computers do it. The PgDn button moves the text up. All mouse wheels I've encountered also reflect this. Early mouse pads was the same, but they seem to have switched. I suspect the relatively recent introduction of commodity touch screens, in particular with mobile units, has caused this shift in perception, especially among those who have no old habits that must be broken first.

An_dz

Totally agree, the current system is what I've been used to on all games I played in the 90's and early 2000. A reason I think inverse is only correct if your action is on the screen (e.g touching it) and not with a mouse.

isidoro

The metaphor when doing the present day way is "grabbing".  In some old applications the cursor was a hand that grabbed "the paper" when pressing the left mouse button.  All in all, don't know the exact reason but it feels very uncomfortable for me the way ST does it by default.  Maybe because I like to have a fixed point in the map when moving around.

Another not very intuitive way of doing things is ST way of zooming in when doing it with the mouse wheel, if I recall it correctly.  It zooms in around the place where the cursor is.  Natural behavior for me is zooming in around the center of the screen, just the way it's done when using the keyboard.

ACarlotti

Quote from: isidoro on April 25, 2018, 10:27:46 PM
Another not very intuitive way of doing things is ST way of zooming in when doing it with the mouse wheel, if I recall it correctly.  It zooms in around the place where the cursor is.  Natural behavior for me is zooming in around the center of the screen, just the way it's done when using the keyboard.

This behaviour very useful to zoom in on the cursors location, as this allows zooming into a point to be done by just scrolling while moving the mouse a little to account for any inaccuracy in the initial placement of the cursor. If zooming was always about the centre of the screen, it would be necessary to put the point near the centre of the screen, zoom in a bit, and then adjust the position before zooming in further. I also find this behaviour useful when zooming out, as I can for instance decide to zoom out from a close up of a town to a wider view with that town in one corner of the screen.

Every online map I can remember using zooms in this manner when using the scroll wheel, and I believe I've encountered that behaviour in at least one image editor as well.


IgorEliezer

Normally this is what I'm used to, specially if I work with graphic apps:
Left-button = selection
Middle-button = camera
Right-button = menu

Anything related to "selection" should be left to the left-button: selection of terrain tiles, buildings or vehicles, interaction with interface.
Anything related to "camera" should be left to the middle-button: zooming (scroll up-down) and panning (hold down and drag).

Now what if my mouse had only 2 buttons:
If I use the left-button, my intuition says "select that piece of terrain and move it to the camera". I'd expect the camera will move to the opposite direction of the mouse movement.
If I use the other button, my intuition says "let's move the camera itself to that piece of terrain". I'd expect the camera will follow the direction of the mouse movement, as if I were flying over the terrain with no interaction.

Ters

How many mouse buttons can be expected these days? In older times, around the turn of the millennium, I remember hearing that Mac only had one mouse button. Meanwhile, three buttons have been common on PCs for almost twenty years now. (Although I think the first three-buttoned mouse I used didn't have a third button as we know them today, but a double-click button.) Then we got touch pads and touch screens. While the pads did have two (or more) buttons next to it, once they supported tapping, the button that tapping didn't double for became relatively more difficult to use. Screens initially (or at least once they reached the consumer market) only had tap and drag. But now we there is support for multi-touch and multi-tap, which seems to have become quite common. I do not know how standardized the gestures are, however, as I have used too few different touch devices to tell (three, but the last one mostly with a stylus).


prissi

I was considering switching the default for a long time. It is easy to do, and with the coming dominance of touchscreens probably the best option. Especially since it can be easily reverted individually.

Ters

Is the setting currently saved when left at its default value? If so, existing players will keep the way they have it, otherwise there might be some complaining about things suddenly changing.

An_dz

I'm quite sure it is, as far as I remember the preferences saving code it just saves everything always.

TurfIt

The default direction got inverted back in January in what looks like a stowaway in an unrelated commit. Very irritating to now have the default be backwards, and no way to change it from simuconf.tab