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A thought on spinners

bigseb

bigseb

Alibre Super User
Referring to this thread:


Spinners are great for adjusting fillets and chamfers. Problem: the default value in the box is 0.25mm. Must be an American thing where people work in halves, quarters, eighths, etc. No-one in the metric world (everywhere else) works like that. This is the number one reason why I don't use spinners. We should be able to set default values. Would make using spinners a lot simpler.
 
sacherjj

sacherjj

Member
My first problem with spinners is when they grab focus as I'm scrolling down a dialog and now I'm getting error dialogs fired off a few times and values completely screwed up.

My second problem with spinners is they need the ability to easily set the spin increment. It is either way too big or way too small. Possibly look at where the cursor is and increment the value one to the left of it?

Edit: Look like there is a setting I'll have to play with for value. I'd LOVE a setting of never give focus to spinners unless I click on them.
 
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M

MilesH

Alibre Super User
bigseb said:
Spinners are great for adjusting fillets and chamfers. Problem: the default value in the box is 0.25mm. Must be an American thing where people work in halves, quarters, eighths, etc. No-one in the metric world (everywhere else) works like that. This is the number one reason why I don't use spinners. We should be able to set default values. Would make using spinners a lot simpler.
Click to expand...
There is a setting in File Properties.
Yes, 0.25mm as the default was nonsensical.
 
Stu3d

Stu3d

Senior Member
I can see a default setting for Spinner Increment in Properties (0.1mm) which can be adjusted but not default starting value.
Default for fillet radius is 0.5mm and for chamfer 0.25mm. I don't have a problem with those as I always type in my own value to start with anyway and then nudge it if necessary.
If I did have a choice I don't know what I would set it to.
They need to be a small default value so there is less chance of an error window popping up due to intersecting whatevers, which would be very annoying if frequent, and big enough so you can see a result & quickly visually check that the correct edges/faces have been selected.
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User
Stu3d said:
I can see a default setting for Spinner Increment in Properties (0.1mm) which can be adjusted but not default starting value.
Default for fillet radius is 0.5mm and for chamfer 0.25mm. I don't have a problem with those as I always type in my own value to start with anyway and then nudge it if necessary.
If I did have a choice I don't know what I would set it to.
They need to be a small default value so there is less chance of an error window popping up due to intersecting whatevers, which would be very annoying if frequent, and big enough so you can see a result & quickly visually check that the correct edges/faces have been selected.
Click to expand...
Yes, you're right. I was confusing start value with increment. In a sketch both chamfer and fillet have a start value of 0.5mm. It would make much more sense to have a start value of 1mm for them all.
As sacherjj refers to above, if my cursor is hovering over the spinner buttons, they change by 0.3mm increments with the mouse wheel. I've never noticed that before! Everybody needs to be aware of that in case of accidents. It would also be nice to set it to 0.1mm increments though : )
 
Stu3d

Stu3d

Senior Member
MilesH said:
As sacherjj refers to above, if my cursor is hovering over the spinner buttons, they change by 0.3mm increments with the mouse wheel. I've never noticed that before! Everybody needs to be aware of that in case of accidents. It would also be nice to set it to 0.1mm increments though : )
Click to expand...
The spinner increments with the mouse wheel are dictated by the number of lines in Mouse Properties - Vertical Scrolling. Change it to 1 line instead of 3 and you have 0.1mm increment. Annoying though if scrolling a page of text with that setting.

Screenshot 2024-02-05 102615.png
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User
Brilliant. Thanks! I remember trying to change zoom with that setting before but it didn't work for that. Now we just need to get the start values set to anything but 0.25mm...
 
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S

sz0k30

Senior Member
bigseb said:
Referring to this thread:


Spinners are great for adjusting fillets and chamfers. Problem: the default value in the box is 0.25mm. Must be an American thing where people work in halves, quarters, eighths, etc. No-one in the metric world (everywhere else) works like that. This is the number one reason why I don't use spinners. We should be able to set default values. Would make using spinners a lot simpler.
Click to expand...
Seems like the spinner default values should be dependent on & change with the the units of the part file.
English - maybe: .125
Metric - maybe: 1
 
Cator

Cator

Senior Member
bigseb said:
Facendo riferimento a questo thread:


Gli spinner sono ottimi per regolare raccordi e smussi. Problema: il valore predefinito nella casella è 0,25 mm. Deve essere una cosa americana in cui le persone lavorano a metà, in quarti, in ottavi, ecc. Nessuno nel mondo metrico (ovunque) lavora così. Questo è il motivo principale per cui non uso gli spinner. Dovremmo essere in grado di impostare valori predefiniti. Renderebbe l'utilizzo degli spinner molto più semplice.
Click to expand...
 
stepalibre

stepalibre

Alibre Super User
Stu3d said:
The spinner increments with the mouse wheel are dictated by the number of lines in Mouse Properties - Vertical Scrolling. Change it to 1 line instead of 3 and you have 0.1mm increment. Annoying though if scrolling a page of text with that setting.

View attachment 40911
Click to expand...
Alibre should add a factor on top of the system mouse scrolling "number of lines" for the increment value. Changing the mouse setting globally for Alibre will affect other apps.
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User
stepalibre said:
Alibre should add a factor on top of the system mouse scrolling "number of lines" for the increment value. Changing the mouse setting globally for Alibre will affect other apps.
Click to expand...
Would that be an easy way to have control of the increment by using a modifier key too? Then you could have 0.1mm as the default and 1mm with the use of a modifier key, as Cator pointed out.
 
stepalibre

stepalibre

Alibre Super User
Yes. I would like to have increments that are based on the project or the design. For example at the part level you may want a more precise increment, but at the assembly level you may prefer a larger increment. This can be automated or controlled with modifiers if Alibre exposed the factor to users.
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User
Using the mouse wheel has made it much easier for me to use the spinners. The up down arrows were awkward to use before because they are quite small. It wasn't easy to differentiate between, and maintain selection of, the up or down arrows. Now, all I need to do is hover the cursor over both arrows and scroll up and down without moving the mouse that small distance. Changing the value is quicker too because scrolling is faster than multiple clicking. This means that, for me, a change of increment is less important now. The mouse setting definitely needs to be specific to Alibre though, not global, and we need to get rid of that pesky 0.125 default value for metric....
 
stepalibre

stepalibre

Alibre Super User
MilesH said:
Using the mouse wheel has made it much easier for me to use the spinners. The up down arrows were awkward to use before because they are quite small. It wasn't easy to differentiate between, and maintain selection of, the up or down arrows. Now, all I need to do is hover the cursor over both arrows and scroll up and down without moving the mouse that small distance. Changing the value is quicker too because scrolling is faster than multiple clicking. This means that, for me, a change of increment is less important now. The mouse setting definitely needs to be specific to Alibre though, not global, and we need to get rid of that pesky 0.125 default value for metric....
Click to expand...
Depending on your mouse, you can set buttons to do the same. On another mouse I have it set up on side buttons.

1707327420024.png

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