Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 8:15 pm

when i first hit page up all it does is split the view, it doesnt actually scroll up anless i hit it a second time.. in zmud it did both with the first keypress.

Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 4:18 am

This is correct operation. It's a change for CMUD. I received a lot of feedback that many people just wanted PgUp to split the screen, and PgDn to unsplit the screen when first pressed. Seemed a bit more natural that having to press Ctrl-Z to toggle the split screen for many people.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

Could we get a toggle? I'm with shalimar on this - I never use control-z to split the screen and prefer page up to move it straight away.

Actually as part of this request, can we also specify how much to move it by? I would prefer to move it a half screen at a time rather than a full screen.

Neither are particularly high priority to me as for 'when' but I'd like to see them before it goes public.

Magician Joined: 23 Nov 2004 Posts: 364

i agree with the page up that it should page up right away, and agree with having pg down remove the split when it has caught up with the current buffer. and love removing the cntl z, its a pain

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

I always just used scroll-lock for my toggle and prefer to have PgUp at least scroll back some on its first press. It isn't all that far from the number pad on most keyboards.

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 12:05 pm

I think the most important action regarding the scrollback is that PgDn removes the split when at the end of the buffer.

Wizard Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 1113 Location: USA

Actually, Taz, I prefer that the split doesn't go away when I reach the bottom of the buffer. I'm not sure exactly why, but it makes me feel like I lost my place and I have to go find it again. I always use Ctrl-Z to close the split window, though I admit I still try and use Ctrl-Z to undo things I type, too. Heh. Really, I don't mind that CMUD is going to do this differently, so long as it makes good logical sense and works as advertised.

Apprentice Joined: 12 Jun 2006 Posts: 106

I must be the only person who didn't know these shortcuts and used the scrollbar.

Magician Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 482

i just used page down and the button at the bottom of the scroll bar :)

Apprentice Joined: 11 Apr 2003 Posts: 119 Location: Sweden

You can use the "scroll lock" key as well as Ctrl+Z

Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 5:52 am

Or the middle mouse button....

Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 8:21 am

Well there seems to be enough differing of opinion about this, perhaps as Rainchild suggested Zugg can be persuaded to put in options to control the behaviour of the split.

Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

I would like to say that when it comes to small options like this, NO, the correct behavior is not to cater to every whim. It is to pick a reasonably easy to use choice (I'm fine with CMud's behavior, though it required some relearning) and stick with it.

Featuritis like this is hell on usability. It should not be a visible toggle button that anyone can get to because it's simply not important enough. A far better long term solution is a set of variables that can be set via scripting... those who really care can change them programmatically, or even publish their own package with those options changed. Perhaps a set of 'zMud defaults' put into a package.

But a billion checkboxes on a hundred tabs is not the answer. This is a trivial change, and Zugg will not lose customers just because one key works differently.

Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 4:42 am

I actually tend to agree with The Raven on this. I've gotten email over the years talking about how complicated zMUD is with all of the options. And a feature like this is something that you just learn and then forget about. Only people switching from zMUD will have an initial relearning to do, and it's not like it's hard to figure out what its doing. In fact, it's really easy to see that a single PgUp just splits the screen and doesn't scroll it, so most people will naturally just press PgUp again.

The fact that it works consistently is also a benefit. If you press PgUp 4 times, then pressing PgDn 4 times will bring it back down and remove the splitter. And the fact that PgDn removes the spliiter is already a big improvement over zMUD.

I played around with a couple of options on this (as you saw in previous betas). At one point I had PgUp scrolling instead of just splitting, and it just felt wrong. You'd press PgUp once and then have to press PgDn twice to restore the screen.

In any case, you have already seen a bunch of stuff in the Preferences from zMUD disappear in CMUD (stuff like Expand Vars, Expand [], etc, etc). It's definitely a goal with CMUD to make it work more consistently and not provide billions of options for little stuff that doesn't matter. I'm not trying to remove functionality or versatility, but I'm trying to make it work more naturally.

It's also hard to help other people when everyone is using different option settings.