Hello!

I am evaluating ModelRight, and in my opinion navigating in the diagram could be easier. The new diagram navigator will help, but speed could be really improved using:

• Mouse wheel to zoom in/out (Ctrl + Mouse Wheel)
• Keyboard to navigate (up/down/left/right)
• 3rd mouse button to navigate (scrollbars move, but view doesn't change right now)

Thanks for the suggestions.  We'll look into the mouse wheel and third mouse button suggestions.  On the issue of using keyboard arrows to navigate, you can do that already if you hit Shift at the same time.  Without Shift, the arrows are used for navigating within a Table.

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Scott Reynolds
Senior Technical Support
ModelRight, Inc.

My mistake.  Shift works when a Table is selected to move it.  So, yes, we will use the arrows to pan if nothing is selected.  Will add shortly.

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Scott Reynolds
Senior Technical Support
ModelRight, Inc.

Thanks for your reply. 

By navigating using keyboard arrows I did not mean to move objects (which is nice too) but to move the view without having to use the scrollbars.

The most important thing for me would be the zooming though. If the location under the mouse cursor stays the same while zooming, one can easily navigate by zooming out, moving the mouse cursor and zooming back in again. This would allow to navigate through large models quit, and when done, the cursor is exactly where you need it.

Another point, is it really necessary to have the "Set Magnification" event in the Transaction History? If I change a table, zoom out, move around, zoom back in again and then find out, that I would like to undo the changes on the table (using Ctrl-Z, not the Transaction History) then I've got to undo all the other steps before, which did not affect the diagram at all.

Sorry, did not see your second reply concerning the arrow keys.

All good points.  We'll get you something by Monday with most (if not all) of your suggestions implemented.

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Scott Reynolds
Senior Technical Support
ModelRight, Inc.

Ok.  We added better support for mouse wheel and middle mouse button handling - and arrow navigation.  Give it a try in the latest build (3005) and let us know...

 Thanks again for the suggestions!

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Scott Reynolds
Senior Technical Support
ModelRight, Inc.

You guys rock!

Navigation works as expected now, both with arrow keys and middle mouse button.
Mouse wheel behavior does not seem to have changed, though.

Thanks.  Those were some really good suggestions.

 The mouse wheel should scroll the Diagram.  A middle mouse click should pan around the diagram - based on the location of where you clicked and where the mouse currently is.  A Ctrl + click of the middle mouse, and then using the mouse wheel should zoom in and out - based on where the mouse is wrt the center of the diagram.

Please let us know if it doesnt work like that for you.

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Scott Reynolds
Senior Technical Support
ModelRight, Inc.

Scrolling the diagram works fine.

Zooming works as described, but I did not think of pressing the middle mouse button before zooming, but to enable mouse wheel zooming as long as Ctrl is pressed (as it works with Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader and many more).

I think that the behavior implemented in Adobe Reader works best, where (as soon as the document fills the whole screen) the point under the cursor is always the same. So if I move my cursor over the dot of an i and zoom in or out, the dot (or table, in our case) will always be exactly under my cursor.
I guess that this would work better if not aligning the view to the grid.

Sounds reasonable.  We'll fix in the next build.  Thanks for the input.

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Scott Reynolds
Senior Technical Support
ModelRight, Inc.

Now it works as expected, thanks!

There only seems to be a little inaccuracy with calculating the new position, making a table float out of view when I zoom out using the mouse wheel on top left position of the diagram.

Btw, would it be possible to allow changing the displayed area by just clicking the Diagram Navigator instead of dragging the red box?

Yes, I think that would work.  Thanks for the suggestion - we will add.

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Scott Reynolds
Senior Technical Support
ModelRight, Inc.

I believe that changing the display view when clicking on the diagram should be an option... I am not sure if everyone would appreciate it. I can see users being annoyed with it when accidentaly clicking in the Navigator window. 

Just a thought.

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ModelRight Evangelist

Well, they might be annoyed too, when accidentally pressing the "Zoom to Fit" button or clicking on a scrollbar ;-)

When working with 1680x1050 and zoom factor 120%, having to move a box of circa 20x10 pixel can be annoying too, but that's just my opinion.

I think I found the reason for the inaccuracy while zooming I mentioned yesterday. The algorithm seems to somehow consider the screen edges instead of the diagram edges.
So if I make the application window have half the size of the screen and move it to the top left corner, it seems to work. But when I move it to the bottom right corner, I lose sight of my objects while zooming. Same result when I move it to my second screen.