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hotkeys for rational zoom ratios

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 3:01 pm
by sparr
Smooth zooming with the mouse is nice for gameplay, but sucks for screenshots. I'd love to have hotkeys (+/- or pgup/pgdn by default, probably) to zoom in and out to specific ratios.

Here's a list of zoom levels that I might want on that list:

0.125
0.25
0.375
0.5
0.75
1
1.5
2

(I'd probably choose to play at these zoom levels, too)

Re: hotkeys for rational zoom ratios

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:21 pm
by SilverWarior
I think I have a better idea. Why not just add a modifier key to switch between smoth or by increments zooming?
- using scroll wheel = smoth zooming
- shift + scroll wheel = incremental zooming
This one would be easily implementable and you don't force players to learn a bunch of new keyboard shourtcuts.
Also using of Page down and Page up keys might be dificult especially for some laptop users becouse some laptops have realy awkward placment of these keys. I even saw a laptop which required the combination of Fn key and another key to invoke Page up and Page down key presses.

Re: hotkeys for rational zoom ratios

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:33 pm
by sparr
I think everything should have configurable controls. Whether it's pgup or shift+scrollup is just a matter of changing it in the controls dialog.

Re: hotkeys for rational zoom ratios

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 11:25 pm
by ssilk
For screenshots there are many more things important.
For example you should turn alwaysday to on, because screenshots from the dawn or the night are not useful to explain game mechanics.
I also make the speed a little bit slower, because it makes it easier to get the right moment. Additionally I found that making animations instead of photos is an important difference for understanding.
I have some more things, I put it into the wiki last week: https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... o#Pictures

I was near at a point to take the time buttons mod and just add that stuff, but currently I'm a bit ill. :(

Question: is there someone, which has some experience in making gif animations out of a program? Which program to use (I'm currently not so satisfied with it). Some more good hints?

Re: hotkeys for rational zoom ratios

Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 12:41 am
by sparr
I've been working on a fork of the TimeButtons mod with more features. Adding "screenshot mode" and zoom control features are on my to-do list.

As to making animations, I just use ImageMagick.

Re: hotkeys for rational zoom ratios

Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 2:12 am
by ssilk
Nice. :)

JFY: The devs promised to add a screenshot function callable by lua. :)

Re: hotkeys for rational zoom ratios

Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 7:48 am
by slpwnd
ssilk wrote:The devs promised to add a screenshot function callable by lua. :)
This will be done for the next feature release for sure. We will need it ourselve to "shoot the trailer video".

Re: hotkeys for rational zoom ratios

Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 1:24 pm
by ssilk
Coooool. Some kind of step-by-step animation then?