scroll-wheel

[cloudfreak1]

A Partial List of 10.50 Features

New Manipulators: We have added a few new manipulator types as part of an effort to make 3-d cockpits more usable. Yes, the scroll-wheel is accessible. (We have not rebuilt every 3-d cockpit in our fleet. The feature here is the capability in the engine, for us and third parties to use.)

 

will it then be in the IXEG 737 too?

[Morten]

4 minutes ago, cloudfreak1 said:

Awill it then be in the IXEG 737 too?

It *might*, but not for v1.0.  No-one that has tried the aircraft this far has missed that option, so we suggest everyone try and get the "feel" what we have first.

Also there are downsides using scroll the scrollwheel from an operating point of view, like zoom issues..

M

[cloudfreak1]

o.K. thanks

[HerrSchwarz]

1 hour ago, Morten said:

It *might*, but not for v1.0.  No-one that has tried the aircraft this far has missed that option, so we suggest everyone try and get the "feel" what we have first.

Also there are downsides using scroll the scrollwheel from an operating point of view, like zoom issues..

M

I said that many times to ppl on Youtube complaigning. I think your implemented system looks absolutely perfect. And i am finding it very annoying to scroll all the time in other airplanes so i turned it off in all of them. if you´re climbing from 3000 feet to FL 300 or what ever, it takes for ever to dail that in and almost hurts the finger. I am very happy with your System.

[Yidahoo]

Although I have the scroll wheel option available in an number of other X-Plane products, I nearly always disable it. I love being able to use the scroll to zoom quickly to a panel. Combined with X-Plane's built in view system its a great combination. With scroll wheel enabled, if the mouse over slips slightly on the manipulator you suddenly find yourself zoomed in so far you cannot see anything. Not ideal on final.  I agree with HerrSchwarz that from the Youtube videos, the IXEG implementation looks excellent. Just bought myself a nice gaming mouse in anticipation.

[Fat Bastard]

I am afraid I have a different opinion on the scroll wheel matter.
I find it to be the best way to manipulate knobs in the cockpit and I would really like to see the option to have it in the 737.

At least include it as an option so people can choose?

Great job so far with this plane! I am really looking forward to the release

[FloB]

It all depends on implementation. I loved FSX scroll wheel implementation and it handled everything just fine. A big plus is that you don't need any screen space for it to work - this means less moving around in a VC.
XP-Manipulators are tricky (how they work sometimes depends on viewpoint/angle and that's plain stupid - but maybe they fixed that?) and need a lot of screen space. The current work-arounds for scroll wheel support in XP by 3rd party developers are far from perfect and I don't use them.
I hope Laminar came up with a smart implementation, if so, scrollwheel support might be a big win.

Flo

[frumpy]

I believe in the scroll-wheel too. Setting up the MCP with the scrollwheel feels pretty natural.

Zooming could be done with right click+scrollwheel, just like the right click moves the view around.

[Ben Russell]

The X-Plane SDK doesn't give us cross platform access to the right mouse button.

[Tom Stian]

6 hours ago, Morten said:

It *might*, but not for v1.0.  No-one that has tried the aircraft this far has missed that option, so we suggest everyone try and get the "feel" what we have first.

Also there are downsides using scroll the scrollwheel from an operating point of view, like zoom issues..

M

I totally agree with you Morten. I came from FSX/P3D and was used to scrolling to change heading, speed etc.

So for me when I was reading "Things that are NOT going to be in V1.0" that dident have scrool wheel support, I was disappointed.

But now, after I got used the "click and hold" to change heading, speed etc, I actually prefere that way to handle the knobs in the aircraft in X-plane. If you use the headshake plugin it can be hard some times to use the scroll. And when you are tryng to zoom you can change switches instead of actually zooming if you dont have your mouse cursor in the right place.

So I changed from being a scroller to be a "click and holder".

 

Edited April 19, 2016 by Tom Stian
typos

[poodster]

As someone who uses the headshake plugin, I really like that IXEG implemented their own version of the click and drag. Using the scroll wheel can sometimes be annoying while trying to decend or going through turbulence. I always end up zooming in way too far lol. 

I can't wait to try the click and drag system on the plane

[captain_alligator]

9 hours ago, frumpy said:

Setting up the MCP with the scrollwheel feels pretty natural

Except it's not. Try visiting a real flight simulator and operate the MCP knobs - they don't spin as fast as scroll wheel knobs in FSX. It takes time and sometimes several hand movements to dial in a heading, speed or altitude in the real thing.

The other problem with scroll wheel is usually the controls are accelerated. FSX is really bad for this - how much each detent on your mouse moves depends how fast you move. One detent can mean 1 degree of heading change, or it can mean 20 degrees, it depends how fast you flick it. Dialling in a heading is a hit-and-miss affair. On the real thing, 1 detent equals 1 unit of movement. Mouse scroll wheel detents are too far apart to replicate this.

Edited April 19, 2016 by captain_alligator
Thought of more to say...

[Fat Bastard]

6 hours ago, captain_alligator said:

Except it's not. Try visiting a real flight simulator and operate the MCP knobs - they don't spin as fast as scroll wheel knobs in FSX. It takes time and sometimes several hand movements to dial in a heading, speed or altitude in the real thing.

The other problem with scroll wheel is usually the controls are accelerated. FSX is really bad for this - how much each detent on your mouse moves depends how fast you move. One detent can mean 1 degree of heading change, or it can mean 20 degrees, it depends how fast you flick it. Dialling in a heading is a hit-and-miss affair. On the real thing, 1 detent equals 1 unit of movement. Mouse scroll wheel detents are too far apart to replicate this.

It might be like you say but I find it very easy and accurate in FSX to dial in using the scroll wheel. For me it absolutely is the preferred way in FSX.

Like I said earlier it would be very nice to at least have the option for this plane.
I have to be honest though, I don't have any experience with scroll wheel in X-plane but if it can get near the FSX experience it is my number one choice of manipulating dials.

[tkyler]

6 minutes ago, Fat Bastard said:

Like I said earlier it would be very nice to at least have the option for this plane.

I agree that options are the way to go here.   Scroll wheel support, while able to be done custom.....is now in 10.50 as noted above.  It is our intention to get this integrated into a preference if possible....but of course we need to get past a few things in the early going.

-tkyler

[frumpy]

10 hours ago, captain_alligator said:

Except it's not. Try visiting a real flight simulator and operate the MCP knobs - they don't spin as fast as scroll wheel knobs in FSX. It takes time and sometimes several hand movements to dial in a heading, speed or altitude in the real thing.

The other problem with scroll wheel is usually the controls are accelerated. FSX is really bad for this - how much each detent on your mouse moves depends how fast you move. One detent can mean 1 degree of heading change, or it can mean 20 degrees, it depends how fast you flick it. Dialling in a heading is a hit-and-miss affair. On the real thing, 1 detent equals 1 unit of movement. Mouse scroll wheel detents are too far apart to replicate this.

Yes, I've been to larger sims and programmed encoders myself with X-Plane. The thing is, you need to have a coarse

and fine control with the encoder. Coarse moves 10kts/1000ft/10°, fine 1kts/100ft/1°. In order to distinguish

between coarse and fine, you need to know the interval timing between signals when turning fast and

slow. Turn as slow as you can while thinking "this should be fast" and as fast as you can thinking "this should be slow"

and take the timing between the encoder clicks. To make a long story short, 30ms between intervalls distinguishes

pretty good on encoders that I have seen. I'm not a programmer, but this algorithm worked for me with a Teensy board:

 

flightsim.update ();

if encoder moved

 timer_old=timer1;   // save old value of timer

 timer1 = atmeltimer;   // get the time from the chip

 time_between= timer1-timer_old;   // calculate the time elapsed

if time_between <30ms then {move encoder 4 steps};

if time_between >30 ms then {move encoder 1 step};

 

More can be found here: https://simelectronics.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/encoders-coarse-and-fine-control/