re: [Flightgear-devel] Throttle movement squared
David Megginson [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: The thing is that the default bindings have to be for something. If you're rebinding anyway, then changing the 'squared' feature isn't a lot of extra work. I find that the squared feature makes an enormous difference in usability for regular joysticks on the aileron, elevator, and rudder axes, enough that it justifies violating the rule of least surprise. What does everyone else think? You know with my sidewinder pp it might be a little nicer without the squared. It's been a long time since I've even touched the joystick bindings, but don't remember ever trying it without the squared on. What do people think about sharing joystick bindings? Might be a good idea to have a dozen or so joystick.xml files for the most popular sticks and custom binding ideas in the base package. Best, Jim ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
re: [Flightgear-devel] Throttle movement squared
Jim Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: David Megginson [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: The thing is that the default bindings have to be for something. If you're rebinding anyway, then changing the 'squared' feature isn't a lot of extra work. I find that the squared feature makes an enormous difference in usability for regular joysticks on the aileron, elevator, and rudder axes, enough that it justifies violating the rule of least surprise. What does everyone else think? You know with my sidewinder pp it might be a little nicer without the squared. Hmmm...after trying a landing, I'm not so sure now. Have to do more testing. Best, Jim ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Throttle movement squared
David Megginson wrote: Julian Foad writes: However, I think it would be a good idea to change the default to false because this squared feature is not the Right Thing for a general input axis. It is, like a dead band, an arbitrary work-around for normally-centred, low-resolution joystick axes, that some people want and others don't. It is a useful feature to have available, but only when the user asks for it. The thing is that the default bindings have to be for something. If you're rebinding anyway, then changing the 'squared' feature isn't a lot of extra work. I find that the squared feature makes an enormous difference in usability for regular joysticks on the aileron, elevator, and rudder axes, enough that it justifies violating the rule of least surprise. What does everyone else There's no pleasing everyone. I'm actually of a mind with Julian here -- the squaring makes sense for auto-centering controls, where it provides fine control in the center of travel while preserving the full range of control authority. This is a good fit for ailerons, rudder, elevator, and nosewheel controls. But others, like throttle, mixture, prop advance, or nozzle direction (harrier, heh) really don't make much sense with this feature. I think it makes more sense to leave the more intuitive linear mapping as default and flag the squared axes as special than the reverse. As for the Right Thing analysis, though, we're basically SOL on that already. Real controls have forces that depend on things other than control position, and PC joysticks don't (well, there's force feedback, but even that is really limited). For reference, I introduced the squaring into YASim originally to deal with nosewheel steering. Real wheels caster about a point that is not the center of the wheel. This causes a centering force that increases the faster the aircraft is moving, and thus reduces the authority of the steering. Without the squaring, there would be too much authority in the center of travel and the aircraft would be very grabby at high speeds. The only other solution would have been to reduce the range of travel of the wheel, but that would have reduced turning radius unacceptably during taxi. Andy -- Andrew J. RossNextBus Information Systems Senior Software Engineer Emeryville, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.nextbus.com Men go crazy in conflagrations. They only get better one by one. - Sting (misquoted) ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Throttle movement squared
Andy Ross writes: There's no pleasing everyone. I'm actually of a mind with Julian here -- the squaring makes sense for auto-centering controls, where it provides fine control in the center of travel while preserving the full range of control authority. This is a good fit for ailerons, rudder, elevator, and nosewheel controls. But others, like throttle, mixture, prop advance, or nozzle direction (harrier, heh) really don't make much sense with this feature. The default bindings in joystick.xml use squared only for ailerons and elevator. If it seems to be applied anywhere else, then there's something wrong. All the best, David -- David Megginson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
RE: [Flightgear-devel] Throttle movement squared
Andy Ross writes: David Megginson wrote: Julian Foad writes: However, I think it would be a good idea to change the default to false because this squared feature is not the Right Thing for a general input axis. It is, like a dead band, an arbitrary work-around for normally-centred, low-resolution joystick axes, that some people want and others don't. It is a useful feature to have available, but only when the user asks for it. The thing is that the default bindings have to be for something. If you're rebinding anyway, then changing the 'squared' feature isn't a lot of extra work. I find that the squared feature makes an enormous difference in usability for regular joysticks on the aileron, elevator, and rudder axes, enough that it justifies violating the rule of least surprise. What does everyone else I think it makes more sense to leave the more intuitive linear mapping as default and flag the squared axes as special than the reverse. FWIW Everytime the subject has come up before the linear mapping was deemed the most appropriate. To bad there isn't a way to search the historical archives as there was a fair amount of 'good' discussion each time Cheers Norman ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Throttle movement squared
On Sat, 30 Mar 2002 12:01:01 -0800, Andy Ross [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]: As for the Right Thing analysis, though, we're basically SOL on that already. Real controls have forces that depend on things other than control position, and PC joysticks don't (well, there's force feedback, but even that is really limited). For reference, I introduced the squaring into YASim originally to deal with nosewheel ..is used in RL in Real rc models. ;-) Leave it in. ;-) steering. Real wheels caster about a point that is not the center of the wheel. This causes a centering force that increases the faster the aircraft is moving, and thus reduces the authority of the steering. Without the squaring, there would be too much authority in the center of travel and the aircraft would be very grabby at high speeds. The only other solution would have been to reduce the range of travel of the wheel, but that would have reduced turning radius unacceptably during taxi. .._lock_ that darn tail wheel. For landings and take-offs. Done in RL too. AT-6, P-51, P-47, and many more. Usually unlocked by pushing the stick/yoke fully forward. For locking, there are far more variants, pull handle, flick switch etc etc. ..unlocked, they either pivot 360 dregrees, or are steered. Some pivot less than 360 degrees, against a (steered) spring. ..P-38, Long-Ezes, RV-6A and many more has pivoting nosewheels. Steered thru assymmetric brakeing. Locked on landing and T/O. -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-) Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
[Flightgear-devel] Throttle movement squared
The joystick axis squared mode seems to default to on, and is applied at the centre of the axis, not the zero-point of the output value. In the default joysticks.xml, the throttle bindings do not explicitly set it false, so the throttle movement is very odd, so I edited my joysticks.xml. However, I think it would be a good idea to change the default to false because this squared feature is not the Right Thing for a general input axis. It is, like a dead band, an arbitrary work-around for normally-centred, low-resolution joystick axes, that some people want and others don't. It is a useful feature to have available, but only when the user asks for it. Would people be prepared to change the property's default value in CVS? - Julian ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
