Survex 1.1.1 test version uploaded

[Olly Betts]

On Wed, Oct 13, 2004 at 01:22:30AM +0100, Wookey wrote:
> It is tiresome when you want to zoom without rotating or rotate without
> zooming. Allowing both by default but using shift and control to suporess
> one or the other sounds good to me. (I haven't tried the new code).

So those who've not tried 1.1.1 can follow this discussion, the new code
currently has:

Left button drag does rotate/tilt (just like Ctrl+Left button drag in 1.0.X)
Middle button drag up/down zooms
Right button pans (unchanged from 1.0.X)

And earlier this evening I merged Phil's mousewheel patch, so if you
have a mousewheel, it will tilt the cave in 1.1.2.

I used to think we should make all the keys and mouse actions
configurable, but I now think this is probably a mistake - a common
use of Survex is on expedition where one machine is shared by the
expedition members, and rebound controls will cause chaos in this
situation.  I think it's much better for us to come up with good
controls by default.

Pan on right button works well, and we have two more buttons for most
mice around these days.  And 3 more actions: scale, rotate, and tilt.

So we need to pair (and use modifier keys to restricted the paired
button to one or the other), or put one on left, one on middle, and
make one require a modifier.

If it weren't for the 1.0.X compatibility issue, the latter might work
quite well actually - the natural one to require a modifier is tilt, as
then modified-middle-drag works as an alternative to the mousewheel.

So (say) scale is on Left, rotate on Middle, and tilt is
modified-Middle.  And we can have simultaneous rotate and tile on
modified-Left (as in 1.0.X) so you can still perform all actions with a
two button mouse.

I think I'll change it to work like this and see how I cope.  If I
find it annoying, that's probably a bad sign.

> The main problem with this is 'discovery' (i.e. it's not at all
> obvious to the new user, but then most survex users are likely to be
> using it quite a lot so that may not matter, so long as it's mentioned
> somewhere)

We could add a "tip dialog" which shows a random tip on startup (or
perhaps cycle through tips rather than actually be random).  You've
probably seen them in other applications - they standardly have
a checkbox for "don't show me tips on startup" so they won't irritate
the experienced user.

So for example:

   Tip:  You can drag the scale bar, compass, and clino to zoom, rotate,
   and tilt the model.

   Tip:  You can close the side panel by double-clicking on the divider.

Cheers,
   Olly