Improvements to parameter UI: horizontal Spinners

[Tupaia]

Splitting up this post:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-ideas/improvements-to-parameters-in-the-ui/idc-p/7429821#M238...

The old spinners are tiny - 11x7px. Just too small to be comfortable, since each arrow should be clickable separately.

But even if the input field would be bigger, the arrows would still be comparatively small.

Possible solution: 

The whole input field could be the spinner! In that case, the spinner arrows sould better be to the left and right of the input field.

Like in Blender. 

I don't need range sliders, like e.g. Softimage. An endless spinner does the same thing, uses less space, and it doesn't have to worry about it's range.

(It's a nice feature of Max that the cursor wraps around the screen borders when 'spinning', btw.)

To scrub the parameter: LMB-drag left/right anywhere on the parameter (instead of up/down on those tiny old spinners).

Accelerate spinning: CTRL-LMB-scrub

Decelerate spinning: ALT-LMB-scrub

To place the cursor into the input field to edit: LMB-release

In Max you can directly select text in the input field. This should still be possible, for example with MMB, or SHIFT-LMB etc..

Mockup of horizontal spinners:

Thanks!

[RGhost77]

Disagree. A lot of part of 3ds max uses mouse vertical movement to increase and decrease values. I don't see any valuable arguments to change it.

p.s. @Tupaia but I like your other ideas about UI

[ihooper]

I think this is an interesting concept, but it goes against too many established patterns in Max for this to be a reasonable change. It would simply be too disruptive with too little benefit for our customers.

[electrotoast_old]

Archiving as we have tried similar in the past with other areas and users didn't not like the experience.

[Tupaia]

Fair enough, but those spinners definitely need to be bigger. Don't force people to do pixel aiming exercises, please.

[brentscannell]

We've tried a few things lately around this with a fresh set of eyes...while we're not totally enjoying the horizontal spin experience but we do see some early opportunities just in expanding the area that activates vertical spinning. Stay tuned!

[Tupaia]

Hi!

Sounds good, thanks!

How about simply introducing a user preference for this?

When decisions are made, one will rarely find a solution that suits everyone at the same time (we might even change our own taste and opinion over time). So let users decide! Suits the philosophy that brought the 1000 other existing preferences.

[Kranos_Orphydian]

I think bigger and better spaced parameter boxes would do the job with the current vertical spinners like it was done within the latest modifiers. Isnt that good enough ?

I made a separate topic for this

Update entire Max UI with the new style introduced by the latest Modifiers