Subject:
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Re: MLCad Suggestions
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad.mlcad
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Date:
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Sun, 20 Feb 2000 01:40:18 GMT
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Viewed:
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1762 times
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In lugnet.cad.mlcad, Steve Demlow writes:
> - Make MLCad as mode-less as possible. It should be possible to pan
> (translate) and zoom (scale) the view without switching modes.
I agree with this - it's one of the fundamental user interface design
guidelines, and something that has tripped me up when using MLCad.
> A single
> mouse button can control both operations using a gestural approach: when the
> user clicks the button and begins dragging, if the drag starts out being
> vertical, the program enters zooming mode; if the drag starts out being
> horizontal, the program enters panning mode. (Once the mode is established,
> the mouse can move horizontally and vertically as usual in either mode).
Ugh, you said to remove the modes and then put them back in! (with an alternate
means of activation). And using the mouse movement direction as the factor
determining which mode to use is bad - it's unintuitive and difficult to do
reliably (it's very easy to bump the mouse vertically a pixel or two even
though you mean to make a horizontal movement).
The most common way of providing pan and zoom functionality is to make dragging
(that starts) in the views perform the panning operation and have buttons for
zoom. Another example of a program that doesn't do things this way and IMHO
suffers for it is Acrobat Reader.
A good place to go for user interface design guidelines (or at least examples
of what not to do) is the User Interface Hall of Shame:
http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm
Generally MLCad is pretty good in the UI stakes though.
Regards,
Steve Hodge
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: MLCad Suggestions
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| (...) And how. Click to zoom, but only sometimes? Yeesh. AR is a great program in general and kudos to Adobe for making it available free, but that needs to be fixed. (25 years ago, 20-Feb-00, to lugnet.cad.mlcad)
| | | Re: MLCad Suggestions
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| (...) Gestural activation is way different than true modal operation - there is no additional interface component (the "specification of operation" is part of the operation itself) and there is no state change either before or after the operation. (...) (25 years ago, 21-Feb-00, to lugnet.cad.mlcad)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | MLCad Suggestions
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| I've been using MLCad and having a lot of fun with it. It's a great program. I do have a number of suggestions that could (IMHO!) make it even better. - Part selection: Put a text entry field between the available parts and the preview area that (...) (25 years ago, 19-Feb-00, to lugnet.cad.mlcad)
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