Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] mouse wheel behavior and RFC: human interface guidelines
From: Lee Revell (rlrevell_AT_joe-job.com)
Date: Sat Aug 21 2004 - 23:41:34 EEST
On Sat, 2004-08-21 at 14:45, Thorsten Wilms wrote:
> 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.
>
Very interesting. You are probably correct.
> 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!
>
Agreed. I can understand why Microsoft (and thus QT and GTK) chose to
do it this way, but I bet audio users make MUCH heavier use of sliders
than almost anyone else. So, an informal survey of Linux audio users is
actually pretty good data.
> 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.
>
True, no reason to break it for people who are used to the old behavior,
and MS does do extensive usability testing. However this NEEDS to be
made configurable system-wide. This way CCRMA and AGNULA (for example)
can ship with the non-default slider behavior if their users prefer it.
Lee
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