Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] mouse wheel behavior and RFC: human interface guidelines
From: Thorsten Wilms (t_w__AT_freenet.de)
Date: Sat Aug 21 2004 - 21:45:19 EEST
On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 06:35:44PM +0200, Melanie wrote:
> Hi,
>
> it's backwards in a "numerical" sense, in that the numbers increase with
> one slider type, but decrease with another, using the same command.
>
> However, UI designers don't think in numbers, but associations.
>
> Left is generally associated with up, right with down, as we read left to
> right, top to bottom. Therefore, up MUST map to left, down MUST map to
> right, otherwise, non-mathematically minded people get uttely confused.
I couldn't find anything on the web abou this.
But I asume the behaviour was thought out for
scrollbars and transfered to sliders.
With scrollbars scrolling lets say a table, the vertical scrollbar
has top = start, bottom = end. Horizontal scrollbar left = start,
right = end. Wheeling up on vertical sliders means scrolling
toward the vertical start. Wheeling up on the horizontal slider
should therefor mean scrolling to the horizontal start -> scrolling
left.
But there's nothing to scroll with sliders. They're not about
a position in space.
Today might well have been the first time I used the wheel
on common sliders, and it felt backwards!
Fan-slider wheeling will stay as is, differing from QT and
GTK sliders. But I doubt the folks behind the toolkits would
listen and change wheeling direction.
--- Thorsten Wilms
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