Map: IMHO new Map views should pan/zoom to see notes

I’m finding it incredibly frustrating to use Map view, especially with Containers. Whenever I open a new Map view (including cd to a Container) the pan & zoom seems rather, um, arbitrary. If I were cynical I’d say the pan & zoom are automatically chosen to hide all your notes off-screen. :slight_smile:

So how does TB choose to pan&zoom Map views - and how can I make it do something more reasonable, like pan & zoom to center its notes?

And not just new Map views, but reopened ones, too

  1. Select a Container and down-arrow to open its Map view
  2. play hide-and-seek to find your notes
    3, up-arrow to go back to the parent - IMHO the view should be the same as when you went down to the child Container, but it is not. I have to go panning and zooming again
  3. down-arrow back to the Container - same thing: the view is not where I left it.

This seems so incredibly fundamental that I have to wonder if I’m doing it wrong. Am I? Do I really have to play hide-and-seek with my Notes in Map view every time I open one? Or is there some setting…?

– jdm

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Perhaps this could help you?
If not, you can search for $MapScrollX and $MapScrollY or look here:

http://acrobatfaq.com/atbref7/index/Attributes/SystemAttributeList/MapScrollX.html

Kind regards, Kay

Some people feel strongly that map view should automatically pan to make some notes — typically the selected note — visible when changing the parent or switching tabs.

Some people feel strongly that map view should choose its scroll position from where you previously left it.

Some people in both camps feel very strongly about the topic.


That said, there’s a display glitch in 7.5.4 that fails to update the screen after changing the parent. That’s annoying.

Just a thought. Given this divergence of need/outcome of map position, is it practical to make this a preference? If so, I’d suggest it be an inheritable attribute as I suspect many folk will want both outcomes each within different contexts.

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I only feel like I do not want to look onto a blank canvas and search for my notes when drilling down into a container or switching back and forth between the tabs. But anyway the idea of Mark A sounds like a clever solution. :+1:

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After playing with this more deliberately, it seems that Map view is adding some diagonal offset to what was shown before. To see this, go down into a Container and back up again. If you have enough notes in that Map you’ll see your notes marching off the screen. If there aren’t many notes in either level, you’ll be looking at a blank page the first time, even.

Personally, I’d like to see this behavior & options:

  1. Map views retain their last viewed pan & zoom, such that going up/down levels consistently restores that visual context.
  2. a new command, “Center on selected notes” with these behaviors:
    2a: if there are selected notes, center on those notes at the current zoom
    2b. if there are no selected notes, center and zoom on all notes, e.g., The Big Picture
    2c. when opening a new, previously unseen Map, apply #2b, center and zoom all
    2d. with a modifier key pressed and a Container selected, apply to the Container viewport, i.e., organize the Container view while up a level
    2e. if I cd to the Container, that Map view is the same as was in the Container’s viewport from above. (I kinda think is the intent today, but foiled by the diagonal offset issue mentioned above.)

just my $0.02,

– jdm

2 Likes

You may find Tinderbox 7.5.5 more to your liking.

There’s a lot to be liked about Tinderbox Version 7.5.5. Thank you for that @eastgate.

Are the release notes for version 7.5.5 available?

In the usual place:

Help > Tinderbox Help > Release Notes > 7.5.5

Yes, there they are. Thank you.

I’m travelling and without my Mac. aTbRef should be updated in a few days when I’m back home.