I’m lazy and I want the UX to be as minimally obtrusive as possible, and I see a couple of things VCV could do to improve.
Middle mouse button can be used to delete cables. The update brought the right click cable context menu, which unless I have a bunch of stuff plugged into 1 input/output isn’t that useful. It just removed the quick delete. MMB currently doesn’t really do anything other than panning, which leads into point 2.
Scroll wheel should always be tied to zoom rather than scrolling up and down. Maybe on Mac it’s more useful with the magic mouse, but on Windows it’s annoying and leads to using the MMB pan. The program already has the zoom to mouse feature, which is a quicker and more efficient pan.
Keyboard panning is done on the arrow keys. This makes sense, but it’s also kind of bad design. No one naturally has their hand on the arrow keys. The best UX is to have as much control as possible on the mouse and anything extra on the keyboard in a position you don’t have to move your hand constantly. WASD would be a better control scheme for panning while still being in contact with the modifier keys.
Or at least giving the option to rebind things. I don’t find having to shift click cables to delete them very convenient.
It’s actually very useful for being able select the cable colour you want to use without having to click multiple times to get to the colour you want like you needed to do in V1. To delete a cable just unplug it and let go - easy.
My goodness no! that would be awful and unlike any other application on a computer. Mouse wheels are, and always have been, for scrolling up and down. That’s the UX behaviour users expect. The mouse wheel does Zoom if you hold CTRL though.
You’re probably right about that - but the best way to pan in v2 now is just to alt/option drag the window.
How many people actively do this? I’d still rather it just be a quick delete. Dragging to unplug isn’t as fast as a simple click, and if you have more than 1 cable that’s a lot of precision clicks and drage.
That’s not necessarily true. Typically for 2d things, sure. But that’s also typically for things like word processing where you only need to go up and down. In 3d applications (like I’m used to) mouse wheel is zoom. And for other 2d applications like photo editors it can be either way. Zooming is preferred when you have to go left or right. In terms of VST programs, the mouse wheel does a bunch of different actions. On the track selection list it scrolls up and down, on the timeline it zooms in and out, and on the mixer panel (I use reaper’s on a second monitor) it scrolls left to right, all within one window.
I’m aware it works if I hold ctrl. I don’t want it to do that, I want it on the mouse wheel for quick ease of use. Scrolling up and down isn’t useful, but I often want to zoom in and out. And like I said, I’m lazy. I kick my feet up. Right now, every time I want to zoom I have to pick my arm up, sling across my considerable mass, and hit a keyboard button when I should be able to just use the scroll wheel I don’t use because vertical scrolling isn’t useful.
I didn’t even know alt did that. It’s spacebar in Photoshop, which also annoys the hell out of people. I’ve been using middle mouse button. The primary point is you shouldn’t ever have to take your hand off the mouse.
But like I said, the option for control rebinds would solve this too. Photoshop is really annoying because it lets you rebind everything except the pan button, so you can’t just use MMB.
Disagree. Prior right click was quick delete and open library browser. You have to be pretty on point with the clicking for deleting. It might happen occasionally, but unlikely. Could add a slight buffer on mouse movement/click speed to determine if it’s a quick delete or a panning motion.
Don’t want to. It takes longer and requires more precision.
My mouse has 6 side buttons, but buying new hardware for a software problem is a poor solution. Also, I’d probably have to keep clicking the button instead of just a quick scroll. I’m all about speed.
True. Don’t have a great solution for that, but someone else mentioned alt+click also pans, which also kind of solves the problem.
Rack is a 2D application, not 3D. The vast majority of users will be much more used to word processing, coding, web browsing etc and using DAWs (which also use the mouse wheel to scroll up and down through tracks) than they are to 3D applications that use the mouse wheel to zoom. It may be what you are personally used to but it would be a terrible decision in terms of Racks general usability.
Er… yes it is. It’s extremely useful. I use it a lot more than panning left to right (because my screen is wider than it is tall). Rack has lots of rows stacked on top of each other and you scroll up and down to navigate between rows.
And regarding deletion of cables - how often do you actually do that anyway? I spend most of my time plugging cables in, not deleting them. If I remove a jack from a port its generally because I want to plug it into something else. I rarely need to actually delete cables at all.
to me the current way work great, only missing the right mouse button click to disconnect cables. but considering the accidental deletion (it append to me one time since V0.4) I agreed, because even when is not provably to happens, could happens and this could be super bad in some circumstances (a live session for instance) but, what about a way to enable and disable that option via preferences?
hi, I’d vote for mouse wheel zoom, I always miss it in applications where it’s not there. It took me almost my first 1,000 hours to get used to it missing from Ableton. I’ll tell you something once you have it, and you’re use to it, you will realize how silly scrolling up and down is, when instead you could zoom out, and then zoom back in on the lower section, no more scrolling needed!!
The main problem I’m having right now with the VCV VST plug-in is that every time you open and close the window it defaults to the small laptop size UI window, and of course I’m using a gigantic ultra wide monitor, and this is really starting to piss me off.
You kind of ignored a lot on the functionality of mouse wheel in other 2d programs, particularly ones that have left and right scrolling.
Do you not zoom? Or you do constantly just zoom in and out and then scroll up and down? If your zoomed in you have to pan left and right. Or do you just do a couple plugins on each row and make the synth more vertically based? All of the patches I’ve seen online aren’t done this way and if you zoom in you have to move left and right.
I just got into VCV, and it’s my first foray into mod synths. I’m plugging and unplugging a lot of stuff trying to experiment. I’m certainly not at a level where I just know what I want and how to do it. Removing the quick delete (changing the keybind technically) is slowing the process down a lot. The thing is VCV is a pretty basic program from a user input viewpoint. You should be able to quickly control you most used functions from the mouse alone. I even have a program called Strokes Plus that lets me control stuff with imprecise mouse gestures so I don’t need precision nor the keyboard.
Aha, I figured out quoting.
I think the only reason people wouldn’t want it is because they’re used to only needing to scroll for web browsers in a one dimensional line. When you have the old Apple mouse with the scroll ball, it works in 2d because it actually has 2 axis. You have to design around that on Windows. You’re trying to manipulate 2d space with a 1d control.
Someone else mentioned the keyboard is also used for midi input, which I forgot about. But again, optional user defined keybinds. Then they don’t have to rely so heavily on just one control scheme for everyone.
To Zoom In and Out, i discovered last week the excelent Stoermelder Stroke module, wich as a lot of very interesting festure for the UX, and especialy for zoom in and out.
You can use anynthing on the keyboard to zoom in and out, just with one key !