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A well-designed digital rotary knob isn't too hard to use - but it must be set by simply dragging up and down, not in a rotary motion, which is very unnatural w
by widdershins 4y ago
A well-designed digital rotary knob isn't too hard to use - but it must be set by simply dragging up and down, not in a rotary motion, which is very unnatural with a mouse. They remain popular in audio software not just because of skeuomorphism (though that doubtless plays a role) but because they are a space-efficient way of putting lots of controls on a page. Audio software is usually highly parametric, so that's important.
Even though I understand this need, I'm still very keen on audio software that tries to break out of the 'everything is a knob' paradigm when it makes sense.
- jakear 4y agoGood point about converting linear motion to rotary for mouse users. I hadn't considered that as I only ever use touch screens and touch pads so to me the rotary is just fine (aka, touch the option you want). That said, it's just a radio button, would you expect radio buttons to activate on scroll too? For continuous numeric inputs I modeled the slider, and enabled scroll control. One issue there is intercepting horizontal scroll on touchpads is flakey and about two thirds of the time you go back instead of moving the thing right.
- lmm 4y ago> That said, it's just a radio button, would you expect radio buttons to activate on scroll too? If you represent it as a knob then it's not though. A knob is something you turn, scrolling is the natural way to approach that.
- Falkon1313 4y agoA digital knob shouldn't need any dragging nowadays with modern mice. Instead you should be able to just point to it and spin the scrollwheel. It's a rotary motion that feels somewhat analogous to spinning a physical knob with an easy physical transition from coarse-grained spin to fine-tuning adjustment.