V3: Mouse wheel now does NOT work AT ALL, and other issues ...

[timoteo]

Hi, I'm just going to copy/paste what I wrote in the FSE forum regarding the V3 release and the issues I observed that are causing me to have to stick with V2.  However, before doing so, I do want to stress how much I appreciate the hard work and effort Tim has put into this software, and how thankful I am to use it ... just about every day.   What I am reporting below is in hopes to make it even better ...

==========================
Tis' a shame ... what we have here is a severe case of "takes one step forward, two steps back." Possibly even three or more steps back.  I actually find more speed (which I like of course) regarding the map's scroll and update, but there are a number of problems ...

• Mouse-wheel zooming has been "fixed" ... that is, it has been eliminated.  Doesn't work at all.  This alone, forces me back to V2 ... even with its "half-working" mouse-wheel support.


• Display of airports is ... well, inconsistent at best.  I zoomed out around the MD area, and KBWI did not show up, but KNHK did.


• Map "tags" are appearing randomly and will not disappear ... and on things I did not even click on.  What is worse, they are staying on my monitor on top of things ... EVERYTHING.  Even if I slide Plan-G to another monitor.  BIZZARE.


• The new font is horrid ... not sure why that was changed.


• Unless I'm just missing it, you can no longer dock all of the info neatly on the right as with V2.  So they just float all over the place in the way of the map.  If the dock has truly been removed, I am at a loss as to why this would be a sound choice.


• Did I mention the new font is terrible?? ;0  Seriously ... is there an easy way to change that, Tim?

A number of nice new things have been added (e.g. VATSIM, RADIO, etc integration ... and of course (for some) a massive speed increase).  Unfortunately, these nice new items are greatly overshadowed -- at least for me -- by the above-mentioned problems, which mostly boil down to core-functionality.  Perhaps a .x release will address some/most of these.  (Probably need to post my observations on his site.)

Ok, there's my two (or four) cents worth ... for what it's worth.



Take care,
Tim K.
========================

[tim arnot]

You can change the font directly from the config file. Location is in the read me.

Scroll-wheel zooming works fine here.

[kolaf]

I also had mixed success with the scroll wheel. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. I'm not really able to determine the transition point from one state to the other, though, it seems to be quite random.

[NikkiA]

It's fairly easy to find how to replicate it...

If your mouse is over something Plan-G is drawing on top of the map, and thus has a tooltip of some kind, then the wheel won't work for zoom, if the mouse is over the map background, it works fine.

[timoteo]

Sincere apologies for the LONG OVERDUE response (lots of issues/reasons I won't go into here) ... but just wanted to say thanks for the replies and info.  I will try that with the mouse wheel, however I don't think it matters ... at least for me.  The zoom in/out was sporadically working (but mostly) in V2 and could have been the case mentioned (i.e. pop-up/tool-tip), but with V3 it NEVER worked.  Again, I'll give it a shot though.

[bjarnehorsboel]

If I remove the tick in ICAO Airspace on Map page, I can get the zoom / scroll wheel to work.


Best regards

Bjarne

[rele]

I have found that with my set-up the scroll wheel and +/- works as long as I am not connected to VATSIM. If I connect to VATSIM only +/- works.

[timoteo]

Hi:

I've diligently installed each update, and am -- unfortunately -- dis ... (WOW, Plan-G 3.1.3) just crashed as I was typing, and I hadn't even done anything but load it up, sync it to FSX, and try out this issue I'm writing about!) ... as I was saying, disappointed.

The lack of mouse wheel support makes it mostly unusable for me ... I mean it's the way I've been using maps on a computer for nearly a couple of DECADES.  It doesn't even work sporadically for me.  It also crashes a lot more than V2 ever did.  Honestly, nothing else on my system ever crashes.  I don't understand why this app crashes so much. 

Anyway ... any idea why mouse-wheel zooming does not work?  Was it finally removed since it had been buggy in the past? 

Also, is there ANY CHANCE we'll be able to dock those windows once again?  Considering the zooming in/out is based on the whole screen, rather than the visible map, they often get in the way. 

I appreciate the effort that goes into making this app, but for me it is so close to being great, but is just falling short in these areas, and they are big enough to make using it enjoyable.

Thanks,
Tim

[tim arnot]

Mouse wheel zooming works fine here. No idea why it doesn't work for you. There was a brief period when some functions that had been handled remotely by Google's servers still needed to be ported over, but that was ages ago.

Making those windows lockable is a major piece of work, so no it's not going to happen soon, although I appreciate there are people that want it. There's no development happening right now, cos I don't have a PC to do the work on (hardware failures, no money, yadda yadda).

The only code I'm aware of that's particularly prone to crashing sometimes is the Simconnect library. It was written by one of the old MS guys and he disappeared before he could fix the bugs. It's been like that since 1.0, so it's no more buggy now than it was. Otherwise it rarely if ever crashes for the vast majority of people. It really needs to be rewritten without that library, but it's a major piece of work, and see above.

[timoteo]

Hey, Tim:

Thanks for the quick reply.  Yeah, it literally crashed on my a few more times in the short time since I wrote that last post.  Usually it crashes when I'm not even interacting with Plan-G.  Also, it sometimes will lose sync and I have to disconnect and reconnect.  It also does not appear to like, or keep up with, time acceleration.

I did just noticed I'm using SimConnect, so that might explain a lot (with the crashes).  Not sure why I'm not using FSUIPC, as that is pretty much what I use for anything else requiring a connect to FSX.  Will switch that over and see what happens.

Back to the mouse-wheel ... yeah, this has never worked for me since V3 came out.  I don't understand why, as it works with every other program I own that can use mouse wheel input.  Only thing I can think of is, is there perhaps some incompatibility between Plan-G and FS-Simtimizer?

Thanks again,
Tim

[tim arnot]

Maybe. I can't even remember the last time I used time acceleration, and I'm not familiar with FS-Simitizer. Perhaps someone more familiar can comment?

[timoteo]

Bingo!  No crashes after switching it to FS from SimConnect.  Not sure why it was set to SimConnect in the first place.  Maybe that is the default?  Anyway, glad that was it ... thanks!

Anyway, major issue solved.  Now if I could just get the mouse wheel to work.  I'll try not using FS-Simitizer next time I use FSX just to eliminate that possibility.  Another thing I might try is mapping the +/- keys to my side mouse buttons.  Not quite the same, but maybe a touch better than using the keyboard.  Depends if it will zoom to where the cursor is using that method.

-Tim