Easier "keyboardless" Pan, Zoom, Rotate for tablet pc.
Posted: 24 Jan 2021, 21:41
Hi TVPaint team,
I'm looking for easier ways to control Pan,Zoom and Rotation of the canvas while using a tablet pc with no keyboard or external buttons.
As far as I can tell, there are a few ways already to do this but they all introduce a lot of extra friction:
1. Use the navigator panel. Great for adjusting pan, ok for zoom (have to use slider or press +/- buttons). Doesn't allow rotation control.
2. Use the controls at the bottom right of the project view when not in inlay view (see attached image). These controls are great - probably the best short term solution - but I would love to have them as slightly larger buttons in a floating panel that I can put in the most useful spot as needed. Currently, accessing these requires you to uncheck "Inlay View" which adds a lot of other UI you may not need (screen space is precious on a tablet pc). Also, the zoom slider feels slow - you have to drag a lot for a little bit of zoom change.
3. Create custom actions using the various tools and key commands (zoom in/out, rotate +/= 15 deg, scroll up/down/left/right, etc...). This is my current solution that I am trying to improve upon.
4. There are free hand tools for pan and zoom but they require you to switch tools and then switch back to the tool you were using before - for me that's too much extra clicking and remembering where I was.
I've explored it with scripting and even external autohotkey scripts but nothing gets it quite right. I would love to see the features described in #1 and #2 developed a bit further and made more accessible - perhaps via an enhancement of the navigator panel that includes rotation and makes zoom more intuitive.
Note that this has nothing to do with touch gestures. I'm looking for a way to do it with the minimum input of just the pen cursor and nothing else - not even a side button of the pen.
Thanks for reading!
David
I'm looking for easier ways to control Pan,Zoom and Rotation of the canvas while using a tablet pc with no keyboard or external buttons.
As far as I can tell, there are a few ways already to do this but they all introduce a lot of extra friction:
1. Use the navigator panel. Great for adjusting pan, ok for zoom (have to use slider or press +/- buttons). Doesn't allow rotation control.
2. Use the controls at the bottom right of the project view when not in inlay view (see attached image). These controls are great - probably the best short term solution - but I would love to have them as slightly larger buttons in a floating panel that I can put in the most useful spot as needed. Currently, accessing these requires you to uncheck "Inlay View" which adds a lot of other UI you may not need (screen space is precious on a tablet pc). Also, the zoom slider feels slow - you have to drag a lot for a little bit of zoom change.
3. Create custom actions using the various tools and key commands (zoom in/out, rotate +/= 15 deg, scroll up/down/left/right, etc...). This is my current solution that I am trying to improve upon.
4. There are free hand tools for pan and zoom but they require you to switch tools and then switch back to the tool you were using before - for me that's too much extra clicking and remembering where I was.
I've explored it with scripting and even external autohotkey scripts but nothing gets it quite right. I would love to see the features described in #1 and #2 developed a bit further and made more accessible - perhaps via an enhancement of the navigator panel that includes rotation and makes zoom more intuitive.
Note that this has nothing to do with touch gestures. I'm looking for a way to do it with the minimum input of just the pen cursor and nothing else - not even a side button of the pen.
Thanks for reading!
David