kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 27 Jul 2011, Dick Hollenbeck wrote:

> Perhaps you might get more mileage by asking
>
> 1) why we are warping the pointer,
> 2) who currently thinks it is a good idea,
> 3) and would anyone be willing to reconsider.
>
> But coming in acting like we don't know the GNOME guidelines is presumptuous and
> non-motivational.
>
> Moreover, you did not say under what circumstance the pointer is warped, nor in
> which specific program, for the guy who wrote the code 50,000 lines ago.
>
> One of the poorer bug reports that I have seen.

Well, style apart, he *does* have a good point... I tought to report the same
thing at one time but then the solution would be a bad hit for usability
instead...

The disapproval for warping goes back to Xlib! it says, from
XWarpPointer(3):

    There is seldom any reason for calling this function. The pointer
    should normally be left to the user. If you do use this function,
    however, it generates events just as if the user had instantaneously
    moved the pointer from one position to another.

There are IIRC two instances of pointer warping:
1) Searching (can be disabled)
2) Scrolling/recentering

Obviously removing warping from 2) detracts from usability since it gets
the wire/track out of control (wherever the pointer lands in the new
coordinate space), for example: I'm pulling a track right, the cursor
hits the border, automatic scroll kicks in and a recenter occurs; now
the cursor is *a lot* to the right and I have to move left to recover
from the jump.

Another thing which is useful for (it is in fact the same recentering
behaviour applied to a common gesture) is quickly panning with the mouse
wheel: zoom out, move a little, zoom in is a really quick and precise
way to reposition the view (especially in pcbnew when you are trying to
follow a track, otherwise you lose your way in the copper river :D).

Anyway, I don't care for whatever style guidelines they want us to
adhere to. Also if he has trouble with a tablet he obviously have it in
'relative mode' (which is a bad idea anyway).

I would suggest to put an option for disabling it near the 'automatic
scroll' one, so the user has a choice if s/he wants.

--
Lorenzo Marcantonio
Logos Srl