Firefox scrolling latency, deadzone adjustment, radial menus

Questions and answers about 3Dconnexion devices on Windows.

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ewb
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2014 5:52 am

Firefox scrolling latency, deadzone adjustment, radial menus

Post by ewb »

Hi there. Just picked up a SpaceNavigator a few days ago - primarily for Sketchup use. I'm enjoying the tool and am enthusiastic for its potential secondary uses... but I have some qualms / questions.
----------------------------

1) I've noticed that the scrolling implementation is very lagged on Windows 7x64, Firefox 28.
If I quickly tap the cap to full extension and back there is an approximately 250-400ms delay in the browser's scrolling response.
I'm not sure if this is by design or a Firefox limitation, but it generally ruins the experience. Realtime scrolling would be so very enjoyable.

2) Are the axis deadzones user-adjustable at all... perhaps via the registry?
When tilting forward or back (Sketchup) I generally find myself being forced to move in that direction as well (cap is sliding forward/back slightly). I'm getting better and better at preventing this by fine-tuning my "eagle-claw" grip... but there is always some degree of movement. When I DO intentionally move forwards/backwards it is usually with large cap extensions. I would greatly prefer there to be a overall deadzone adjustment in the settings menu.

3) The radial menu is great, but the potential is GREATLY wasted.
The current implementation brings up the menu and requires the user to click his/her choice. My expectation - and how I believe it should be treated in the future - was for the radial menu to steal 3D-mouse focus. Upon being presented with the 1-4 (N, W, S, E) menu choices, the 3D-mouse itself should then choose the desired option. Practically speaking, when a user has called up the radial menu he is likely NOT attempting to continue interacting with the program behind it. My suggested implementation would maintain the "hands on" user experience and allow the user to navigate radial menus purely by muscle-memory. Coupled with nested radial menus (already available), complex menu selections would be boiled down to very simple hand motions.
For instance, the user might create a "Camera Views" radial menu, having "Front (N), Back (S), Left (W), Right (E)" and itself being the (E) choice from the primary radial view. Now choosing the front camera view would be a simple series of hand motions: "Button, East, North"
For advanced users, one could envision the primary radial menu choosing between "common operations", "specialty operations" and "file / edit / view / etc general menu operations". By the time you're 5-6 layers deep you've suddenly opened a whole new world of control... available through simple patterns.
Seriously missed potential here.

Thanks
-ewb
jwick
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Re: Firefox scrolling latency, deadzone adjustment, radial m

Post by jwick »

Your hand will get better over time. Generally you want all 6 axes "active" at once, controlling the relative values of each. If you want only one axis at a time, turn on a filter. If you start changing lots of other parameters, you hand will not learn...or will learn something very strange.

You can set a global Deadband in the %appdata%\3dconnexion\3DxWare\Cfg\Global_User.xml.
It is used for all devices. The range is the input range of the device, ~350.

e.g.
<Settings>

<Deadband>20</Deadband>
</Settings>

Or you can set an individual axis Deadband in the Input section of an axis in the application's cfg (SketchUp.xml).

e.g.,
<Device> ....
<Axis>...
<Input>...
<Deadband>20</DeadBand>
...

Unfortunately you have to do this without the GUI. Use your favorite XML editor. I currently use notepad++ for most quick XML editing.


The ideas for the radial menu are very good.
EvoSpyder
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jul 23, 2014 10:41 am

Re: Firefox scrolling latency, deadzone adjustment, radial m

Post by EvoSpyder »

It would be great if the deadzone setting was built into the properties editor. I was getting significant drifting in all applications, and calibration would not fix it. The slightest touch would get the model moving in at least 3 dimensions, and it would continue slowly rotating in several directions. Immediately after calibrating, without touching the SpaceNavigator at all, the model would slowly move in at least 3 axes, and not even in the same direction as it was before calibrating. Trying to actually move the model in any one axis, with very delicate control, would cause unintentional movement in several axes.

A default deadzone of >0 is not a deadzone at all, its just absolute zero. It should be 10 or 20 by default, and allow for better ease of adjustment by the user. The new driver seems to almost go the wrong direction with the sensitivity as well, making the issue worse. A slight movement make a big difference, and going all the way out to the extreme range doesn't make things move all that much more, i.e. the axes appear to not be linear even with default settings for everything.
HenrikHjort
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2012 3:40 am

Re: Firefox scrolling latency, deadzone adjustment, radial m

Post by HenrikHjort »

When you mention the option for adjusting a specific axis:
e.g.,
<Device> ....
<Axis>...
<Input>...
<Deadband>20</DeadBand>
Could you give a code example of what it would look like with: rotation (around z-axis) deadband at 20?
Good Luck

Henrik Hjort
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