Mouse wheel. Seeing a trend here, Marty?  :wink:

One problem I see is that X-Plane is being ported to, well, "portable" devices - things like touchpads with no mouse wheel.  While I cannot possibly imagine trying to simulate flight on a touchpad, many do, and concessions will have to be made to accommodate those who fly with such devices.  I occasionally see complaints from people who are having trouble with click-spot sizes and such, most are the result of trying to use X-Plane on devices for which it was not originally intended to be used.  I have no idea how you'd implement a mouse scroll wheel on a touchscreen - but that's why I use a mouse.

 

 

I have no idea how you'd implement a mouse scroll wheel on a touchscreen - but that's why I use a mouse.

 

I agree completely here.  Some things work well on a touchscreen tablet.  I use an iPad for somethings like tracking, but a flight simulator should stay mouse controlled.  It seems that the trend is to merge touchscreen into all forms (desktop/tablets) of computers and that just does not work for me..   Too old - I guess!  However, the plug-ins should have their own - touch sensitive - setups for the tablet and leave the main program to the mouse/keyboard.

 

John

There may well be issues with mouse wheel scrolling.  It is a plug-in add-on installed with Carenado aircraft and may be patented by Carenado in some way which would preclude it being used by X-Plane itself as basic code without payment of large fees.  On the other hand, zooming is done with the mouse wheel, so perhaps it isn't "intellectual property" to use it for other functions.

 

I have laptops with touch screens, but I'd never consider using one to fly X-Plane.  I did, on a couple of occasions, use one networked to X-Plane as a moving map, but now I simply run Plan-G or FS Commander in another window in the background and toggle them onscreen when I want them, which isn't often.  I use a second computer also to access charts for flight planning and occasionally while flying.

 

But my main setup, and I'd guess most simmers, use a yoke (and/or joystick), pedals and throttle in front of a standard monitor.  Virtually all mice today have a scroll wheel (haven't seen an Apple mouse now for a while but I assume they've seen the light) and aside from zooming in on the view (both panel and scenery), it doesn't have much function within X-Plane, which is unfortunate.

There may well be issues with mouse wheel scrolling.  It is a plug-in add-on installed with Carenado aircraft and may be patented by Carenado in some way which would preclude it being used by X-Plane itself as basic code without payment of large fees.  On the other hand, zooming is done with the mouse wheel, so perhaps it isn't "intellectual property" to use it for other functions.

 

I have laptops with touch screens, but I'd never consider using one to fly X-Plane.  I did, on a couple of occasions, use one networked to X-Plane as a moving map, but now I simply run Plan-G or FS Commander in another window in the background and toggle them onscreen when I want them, which isn't often.  I use a second computer also to access charts for flight planning and occasionally while flying.

 

But my main setup, and I'd guess most simmers, use a yoke (and/or joystick), pedals and throttle in front of a standard monitor.  Virtually all mice today have a scroll wheel (haven't seen an Apple mouse now for a while but I assume they've seen the light) and aside from zooming in on the view (both panel and scenery), it doesn't have much function within X-Plane, which is unfortunate.

X-Plane has had scroll wheel capability since version 2.0 of the SDK (many years).  Any developer can implement this capability if they choose to (via plugin). There is no exclusivity.  

 

Apple's current mouse offerings do have scroll capability.

1. Best for desktop: Mousewheel. Intuitive, needs almost no screenspace, fast, rock solid.

 

2. 2nd best: click/click and hold - with left button for (-) and right button for (+). No need to move around on already small clickspots.

 

Flo

One problem I see is that X-Plane is being ported to, well, "portable" devices - things like touchpads with no mouse wheel.  While I cannot possibly imagine trying to simulate flight on a touchpad, many do, and concessions will have to be made to accommodate those who fly with such devices.  I occasionally see complaints from people who are having trouble with click-spot sizes and such, most are the result of trying to use X-Plane on devices for which it was not originally intended to be used.  I have no idea how you'd implement a mouse scroll wheel on a touchscreen - but that's why I use a mouse.

 

Mouse wheel is the easiest for me.   There isn't a mouse on a touchpad but there isn't a joystick, pedals, throttle etc so supporting something that is not on a touchpad shouldn't be too difficult unless they have made it too difficult themselves.

I hope the mouse wheel scroll function is an open option.  One never knows what tricky legal issues rear their ugly head when dealing with "intellectual property."  It depends on how the original patents were written, if any, and then how the courts interpret them.

I doubt that using the mousewheel to control radio frequencies (or whatever) can be subject to a valid patent. The precise code - yes, but the very idea?
Is there a patent on the idea to flip switches by mouseclick, to trigger a gun by mouseclick, to move the view by mouse-movement? Probably not.

But yes, law often is beyond reason.

 

Flo

I hope the mouse wheel scroll function is an open option.  One never knows what tricky legal issues rear their ugly head when dealing with "intellectual property."  It depends on how the original patents were written, if any, and then how the courts interpret them.

 

Scroll wheel support is NOT exclusive to any 1 developer.  It was added to the X Plane SDK a few years ago and is an open option for any developer to utilize.  The scroll wheel plug in used for Carenado's add ons is a compiled plug in and is not possible to copy or read.  And even their scroll wheel function is all derived from the X Plane SDK.

I find that Mouse scroll wheel works best for me when I want to quickly scrolling through radio dials. The click method is definitely the most cumbersome to use.

Scroll with mousewheel is best imho.

Of the options asked for, click and hold is better than click and drag

If I had to choose between the two, I would go for 'Click and hold' but with larger click spots.

Mouse scrollwheel is nice, but it's not something that I miss.

I mainly just want a hotkey that invokes keyboard input so I can use my #pad to fire in new freqs quickly

Preferring the mouse wheel like most others. It's fast and precise at the same time. I think Carenado did well on their V35 Bonanza for example, also allowing for other input methods.