I find it extremely unlikely that adding mousewheel zoom would attract millions of dollars worth of new customers to X-Plane. It's not exactly a "make or break" feature. Besides, not everybody uses the mouse extensively in FSX. I never did. I always used the hatswitch to look around and keyboard to zoom. Only thing I used the mouse for was interacting with the cockpit, exactly like I do in X-Plane (only I use a rocker switch on my CH yoke to zoom rather than the keyboard). I doubt my experience is unique.

The main problem I have is to rotate knobs in Virtual Cockpit.I must use mouse to point to the knob and I have to zoom to it. So the problem is that I have to use mouse to point => keyboard to zoom => mouse to rotate the knob. Too many moves for a simple action that often needs to be done fast and precise (set exact values for speed and/or altitude).Using the mouse wheel allows you to do all these actions without leaving the mouse and moving your hand around.I never used X-Plane before - am I missing something?How do you guys rotate those knobs when flying airliners especially on approach and landing?

I have been using windows since day one. X windows for about 20 years and macs for about 8 years. Coming to xplane I thought the main problem with the interface was learning where things were but I didn't have too many issues using the interface. It is a bit of a mashup though. My main complaint was after using xplane on windows I tried it on the mac with OSX. When I was going to do something else I went up to the OSX menu at the top and it was not there. I thought damn! finder had crapped out. I finally found out that when xplane has the focus (I was running it in windowed mode) it removes the system menu. A complete no no, against all the rules and for no apparent reason. Other than that I can only say it is different with a few quirks. I hate using keyboards in sims, they are the bain of my flight simming existence!

How do you guys rotate those knobs when flying airliners especially on approach and landing?

I stick mainly with general aviation, so I don't have nearly as many knobs to fiddle with. Suppose that gives me a different perspective.

Workaround for the missing mouse-zoom: Get "x mouse button control" (freeware). I allows you to assign the mouse-wheel up/down to the key that is used in x-plane for zoom in/out. Works not too bad, depending in the mouse you have.You can also assign the right mouse and/or the middle-button to pop up the ATC, for example...Flo

Thank you! That should work...

I agree, the one thing holding me back from switching to X plane 10 from FSX is the horrible key functionality of Xplane. The XPlane keys are just not user friendly.

True, oh so true. No mousewheel? Come on.

From a UI perspective, xplane has some really wonky controls. Now I may be used to FS9, but a lot of those controls make more sense, intuitively, then the xplane setup. A saved remap would be cool, and the outside views need work (more zoom out!)