Space Navigator Concerns

Questions and answers about 3Dconnexion devices on macOS.

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John the Geek
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2007 8:05 am

Space Navigator Concerns

Post by John the Geek »

I've been a Space Navigator owner for over a year and a half and in all that time it's still just a glorified paperweight. When I bought it it did NOTHING on the Mac, and since then it's added very little productive support. I can play in Google Earth for a while, but then I have to get back to work and put it away since it's useless for anything else I do.

So with that said, and echoed so many times in this forum I figured it was time for a "why" thread. Why is this product a complete failure? What could make it better?

Well, for starters, it doesn't do anything by itself. You plug it in, it sits there. You open any random app, it just sits there. It's useless from the get-go. However, in the 0.00004% chance that you might launch an app that has gone out of it's way to support this device, it might work, it might not. The quality of the integration varies depending on how much the person who wrote it cared about it. You're chances of being satisfied in this product are slim from the start. You are setting people up to be disappointed and trying to place blame on the other vendors.

This is the real reason this product is, and will continue to be, a massive failure. It's backwards approach to integration. If it had a standard interface and could act (at a minimum) as a mouse device for ALL applications, with vertical and horizontal scrolling, multi-clicks, etc. (You can't tell me this can't be done.) Then even if no other vendors supported the thing it could still be useful. It would start out being useful all the time and build from there, hopefully in more positive ways. Then more devices would sell because even if no one supported it - it would still be a cool mouse. Then on top of that vendors would have more incentive to support it with custom features since happy reviews are better than very, very, very negative reviews.

But, as it is now, it's still useless. Every few months I plug it in only to get disappointed again and put it back on the shelf, and back on the shelf mine will go now. I'm google-Earth'ed out for the moment.

Anyway. There's my customer feedback.
Mischa
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:14 am

Post by Mischa »

Hi,

I was a bit disappointed also. Though I have bought it for specific 3D-apps I expected it would be configurable for other applications. It is possible if you look at the driver for the *************. With a piece of extra software, you can extend the functionality of the SpaceNavigator tremendously. With ControllerMate you can program every button and axis for use with all applications (axis can be regprogrammed by using a virtual mouse). Good piece of software. Found out about it thanks to Bishop666.

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bishop666
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:49 pm

ControllerMate

Post by bishop666 »

Mischa wrote:Hi,

I was a bit disappointed also. Though I have bought it for specific 3D-apps I expected it would be configurable for other applications. It is possible if you look at the driver for the *************. With a piece of extra software, you can extend the functionality of the SpaceNavigator tremendously. With ControllerMate you can program every button and axis for use with all applications (axis can be regprogrammed by using a virtual mouse). Good piece of software. Found out about it thanks to Bishop666.
Hello:

Just thought that I would add my own experience with ControllerMate. Although it may allow the programming of macros for the two buttons of the SN, it does not recognize all of the buttons for the Space Explorer. There is, however, a downloadable template for the Space Pilot that seems to include all of the buttons. Here, however, is the caveat that I encountered: I could not get Poser 7, Poser Pro or Cinema 4d to recognize the macros created by ControllerMate. So, for my purposes, it simply does not work. Now, it is possible that there are nuances to the CM software that I am neither aware of nor proficient in the use of that might negate the a foregoing and if there is, I'd be interested to hear about it. On the other hand, the fact remains that it does not see all of the buttons on the Space Explorer.

I agree with the first poster in regards to utility of the 3D devices in the Mac OSX environment. IMO, there seems to be a lot of "buck passing" among the software developers but all that nonsense aside, it remains within the aegis of the product developer to make certain that the product that it is advertising and selling as compatible and "certified," with a given piece of software, is indeed functional and compatible in every way implied by the term "certified!" To provide anything less is, in the opinion of this end user, treading on thin ice and may possibly violate the doctrine of "Truth in Advertising."
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