Dragging an object to the canvas edge should auto scroll the canvas
When I have a canvas larger than the window, it is difficult to drag an object to a part of the canvas not currently in view. I have to drag the object to the window edge, drop it, scroll the canvas as far as I can without losing sight of my object, then drag it again. The window should scroll automatically if I drag my object outside the window edge.
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The company has a solution in progress.
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Inappropriate?Hey Brian, what do you know, this is next on my list! It's a bit tricky so I want to take the time to do it right.
Peldi
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Inappropriate?I posted this a while ago so you may group my request with this one:
Annoying problem when selecting with bounding box... -
Inappropriate?OK, I have spent days on this one, including restarting from scratch 3 times. I have a working implementation of it, but I'm not 100% satisfied with it. There are limitations of Flash and AIR which prevent me from making this as "smooth" as I want it to be. I believe what I have is 90% there and thus much better than not having the feature, but I'd like your opinion on it before shipping it to the masses. If you have some time I would appreciate it if you could try it here: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mock...
The limitations I know of but cannot fix:
- drag outside, then back inside without lifting the mouse. In the Desktop version, the mouse pointer will not change as you move over things and you might not be able to select shapes properly. Workaround: move your mouse out of the app and over it again, or switch to another app and switch back. I know, black magic. Note that this only happens in the Desktop version, the web versions are fine (it's a bug with AIR) :(
- drag the mouse outside, then release it while outside. See what happens. Workaround: move the mouse back over the app
The first one is the one I'm most concerned about, as it might get annoying in the long term and the workaround is not obvious.
Thanks for the help, I appreciate it.
I’m unsure
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Inappropriate?I also just realized something. I only made the canvas auto-scroll on resize, not on move like you asked me to. Let me see what I can do there as well. :(
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Inappropriate?Oh - I would venture to say that most of us are elastic band selecting UI and then realeasing mouse and then trying to drag them elsewhere on the screen. Is this what you had in mind?
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Yes, I added support for what you just described, which is in the other topic you filed. I also added support for "once something is selected, grab the bottom or right edge and stretch it past the size of the canvas to make the canvas grow", which is what I have heard people want (say you want to make a browser window taller) -
I see this working for drag resize (in 1.1.67), but it still does not work for drag move. Reading this thread and the responses, I would have expected this to work. Perhaps it got broke? -
I see this working for drag resize (in 1.1.67), but it still does not work for drag move. Reading this thread and the responses, I would have expected this to work. Perhaps it got broke? -
No I still have to implement drag-move. It works for drag-resize and drag-select, and it should work in all directions now. -
Inappropriate?For the resize I think the basics are working. I'm not seeing the first limitation you describe on the desktop version; not sure why. I do see the second one, where I get a weird continuation of the resize that gradually tapers off. It's actually kind of cool looking; I'd call it a feature.
Another limitation I am seeing appears to be that I can't drag top and left. That is, if I have an object larger than the canvas, I can't drag the right side of the object back to the left side of the canvas and get the auto scrolling.
So it's a little quirky, but I think there is enough value in the behavior you have implemented to release it.
The big one for me is supporting the move; I tend to move stuff around more than I resize. -
Inappropriate?It seems to work, but not (as Peldi would put it) smooth as butter. It seems to stick sometimes and I notice it only moves the window scroll when dragging down. It does not appear to work dragging up.
I have tested other applications and one thing they all do differently is that as long as the user still is holding down the mouse button, they can still define window size even when the cursor is out of the window. I notice Balsamiq will halt the selection size as soon at the cursor goes beyond the Balsamiq window.

It may seem petty, but its these little things that we take for granted. Its like walking up a flight of stairs with an non-standard step height. Sure you can do it, but it feels strange and you have to think about it more.
I will test some more. -
Yup, that's one of the limitations of AIR. I have no control over the mouse position once it's out of the application, meaning I don't know where it is or if it's pressed or not until you get back over the app's window. :( -
Inappropriate?I'm glad this is getting worked on :o)
I'm finding my work's almost immediately getting larger than the canvas.
I've tried the preview release for scrolling and resizing, and it's almost there, but seems quite 'jumpy'.
I'm mainly after the move as opposed to resize though as that's what i do much more often!
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Inappropriate?OK, I have added support for resizing and selecting past the top and left borders as well. Move is left, and it looks like it's going to be even harder. But we'll get there...
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