SkyDemon Forums

SD plan for PC: mouse scroll wheel effect should follow mouse pointer, not pane selection

http://23588_2017.hs2.instantasp.net/Topic16498.aspx

By Deeday-UK - 7/29/2015 7:37:57 PM

Hello SkyDemon team,

here's my little suggestion that I think would improve the usability of SkyDemon Flight Planning for PC (I'm using SD 3.3.2 on Windows 8.1):
  1. Launch SkyDemon plan.
  2. Open or create a route.
  3. Click on any secondary pane (with Auto Hide = off), e.g. Virtual Radar, and scroll the mouse wheel: the zoom level of the Virtual Radar pane will change, as expected.
  4. Now, without clicking, move the mouse pointer over to the main map pane and scroll the wheel.
Expected result: the zoom level of the map pane changes accordingly (since the mouse pointer is placed over the map pane).
Actual result: the zoom level of the Virtual Radar pane (which is still selected by the click at point 3) changes instead, evidently because the 'scroll wheel' event of the mouse is set to apply to the pane selected, rather than to the pane over which the mouse pointer is located.

This concept of the scroll event that should always follow the mouse pointer, regardless of which window or pane is selected, is a real PITA on Windows, where it is applied inconsistently (e.g. Adobe Reader and Google Maps on Chrome correctly respond to it, but Windows Explorer itself doesn't). On other platforms (e.g. Linux/Gnome) it is the standard, and I think it makes for a much more natural user interface.

What do you guys think? It's a detail, I know, but attention to details matters.
By Deeday-UK - 7/30/2015 7:19:44 PM

Just to clarify: the logic I have in mind would be as follows (applicable in general to all panes, not just the map):
  • When a mouse wheel scroll event occurs:
  • If the mouse pointer is off the SD window completely (e.g. over the desktop), ignore the event altogether.
  • else check if the mouse pointer is over the pane that has focus.
  • If so, deliver the event to that pane normally, otherwise check which pane has got the mouse pointer over it and deliver the event to that pane instead.
This way the user would always see scrolling whatever the mouse is pointing to, as opposed to the pane that has focus (which may not be any more the one the user is looking at).

OK, it's a low-priority one, but can it make it onto the wishlist anyway? Wow