new zoom keys in dplot 2.1.7.6

Roberto · Post by **Roberto** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 9:41 am

Hi,

Definately a huge help is the added keyboard zoom control ctrl 1...5 and thank you very much for adding those key shortcuts!
I don't know how others feel about the current behaviour, though:
currently ctrl x behaves in a relative way: e.g. using ctrl2 twice will zoom in 2x and again 2x = 4x.

Personally I think it's generally more natural to let it behave with absolute ratios: ctrl2 = zoom at 200% regardless how many times the key combination is pressed. This way it's convenient to quickly change to a fixed zoom ratio 100%, 200%, 300%, 400% or 500% during the workflow, no matter in what zoom ratio people are currently in.

Now we quickly can zoom in through the keyboard but must zoom out using the mouse. With absolute zoom ratios per key shortcut also this inconvenience is taken care of.
Anyone else who disaggrees?

PS: for people who do use keyboard shortcuts and who don't as well: would be helpful if the zoom-in button in the menu bar would get additional functionalityl: now we can't click on a single point in the graph to zoom inthere proportionally but must draw a rectangular marquee around the area to fill the work window with a non-proportional "random" zoom factor. If it also would behave as the current ctrl2 key shortcut we could single-click on a point in the graph (without the need to drag a marquee) to get an instant relative AND proportional 2x zoom (so X/Y grid proportions won't get stretched vertically or horizontally - which easily happens if we need to draw a marquee manually).

Contrary to the zoom keyboard shortcuts it would be praktical if the menu bar zoom-button would behave relative and not absolute: using it multiple times would zoom in x2 again and again upto the max zoom ratio is reached. For zooming out x1/2 the normal zoom-out menu bar button is used then.

Cheers,
Roberto

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:47 pm

Roberto,
Thanks very much for your comments.

Personally I think it's generally more natural to let it behave with absolute ratios: ctrl2 = zoom at 200% regardless how many times the key combination is pressed. This way it's convenient to quickly change to a fixed zoom ratio 100%, 200%, 300%, 400% or 500% during the workflow, no matter in what zoom ratio people are currently in.

Now we quickly can zoom in through the keyboard but must zoom out using the mouse. With absolute zoom ratios per key shortcut also this inconvenience is taken care of.
Anyone else who disaggrees?

I don't necessarily disagree and this is something I gave some thought to. I'm hopelessly biased, though, towards users who plot several hundred thousand or millions of points... mostly because I'm one of those users. So a 5x zoom may not get me where I want to be. But CTRL+5 2 or 3 times will.

One thing I thought about 5 minutes after uploading is I should have added a keyboard shortcut for "Zoom out". That will go in the next release for sure.

...would be helpful if the zoom-in button in the menu bar would get additional functionalityl: now we can't click on a single point in the graph to zoom inthere proportionally but must draw a rectangular marquee around the area to fill the work window with a non-proportional "random" zoom factor. If it also would behave as the current ctrl2 key shortcut we could single-click on a point in the graph (without the need to drag a marquee) to get an instant relative AND proportional 2x zoom (so X/Y grid proportions won't get stretched vertically or horizontally - which easily happens if we need to draw a marquee manually).

I like this one a lot, and it will definitely go in the next release. Thanks for the suggestion. I also need to monitor for pressing <Esc> before clicking to abort the operation, since you'll no longer be able to do that by just clicking w/o dragging.

Roberto · Post by **Roberto** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:59 pm

Hi,

Maybe an extra button in the menu bar next to the zoom buttons to toggle between zoom ratios behaving in an absolute or relative way for the keyboard zoom functionality. (prefs menu is too hard to access since people want such a feature quickly accessible in the workflow depending on the type of graph (many data or few data graps).

Roberto