Why is the "Fit" zoom option now hidden by default in 2.0.1,909?

[michaelbuffington]

There's a bug when using a Mac's built in trackpad that very often zooms the view out so far that a design is only a few pixels tall. The fix for when that happens used to be to simply click on the once visible "Fit" icon in the Navigation Bar.

That is no longer possible.

To click the "Fit" icon you must first on the tiny little arrow next to the "Zoom Window" icon, click the "Fit" button.

Or you can press F6 to zoom the view to fit the design. But that's not ideal. The default behavior for the function keys on a Mac laptop require that you press the Fn button to use those buttons as F1-F12 buttons. It's not difficult to do that, but it introduces more cognitive load than it needs to, and certainly isn't as quick as it used to be: a single click.

That seemingly simple change means the frequent camera freakouts are now a real problem because to recover from them requires a lot more interaction.

Frankly, I find it baffling that someone thought it'd be valuable to nest that button it in a more difficult place. Was it to save space? Because if it was, how is it that the zoom and pan buttons weren't hidden instead? Those buttons are redundant - using a mouse or trackpad you can probably use Fusion 360 without ever clicking on those icons. The same can't be said about the fit button.

I'd love some insight into the "UI design" process for Fusion 360. It feels like a lot of the quirks in Fusion 360 are the result of someone with good intentions just throwing something in without consulting any usuability experts. Did you use usage data to determine that hiding the button was ideal? Did someone copy and paste some old code in and it made it past your tests? Did someone, just on a whim, spend time and effort making the functionality worse than it was before?

[haughec]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the feedback.  I understand your frustration.  If Fusion remembered your last-used command in that menu and kept it in the toolbar, would that address the issue?

Thanks,

Charles

[michaelbuffington]

Remembering my last used command on the Navigation Bar would mean the button would only be there if it was the last command I clicked on in the Navigation Bar. It'd only address the issue some of the time.

It'd be a lot simpler if the button was there 100% of the time. Nothing to remember and would always solve the problem.

The entire issue would be moot if the camera didn't lose its mind half the time when using a trackpad to change the view. Even when the icon wasn't nested the tool was only useful for undoing a very disruptive camera issue. When given the choice of pinching/spreading over and over again to get back to "normal" versus fighting against Fitts' law* Fitts' law was the quickest way out of the hole. There's never a time I'd use that icon when the camera was behaving. A drag of the finger and maybe a pinch beats the pants off of seeking out the "Fit" icon, nested or not.

* Fitts' law: the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the ratio between the distance to the target and the width of the target. In other words, the smaller the target, and the further away it is, the longer it takes to move the mouse cursor there. So when you nest it and require I click on an even smaller target to get to it, it takes even longer than it used to get to the point where I can even see the icon, and then I need to repeat the seek/click pattern on a smaller scale.

[jakefowler]

Hi Michael,

We’ll certainly reconsider this. This toolbar is intended to be compact (not a problem for larger displays, but adding too much to this could cause it to become overwhelming on smaller screens), but there may be better ways to arrange this. For now, if you PM me with your email address, I can provide a temporary solution to add Fit back to the toolbar.

However, since you’re using this mostly to mitigate against a bug, really we should try to fix that issue. How often does the zoom issue occur? And do you have a feeling/idea of what triggers it? It might also be useful to know whether or not you're using a Force Touch trackpad, and which settings you have unchecked in the Trackpad system preferences.

Thanks,

Jake

[michaelbuffington]

Here's a link to a video of the zooming issue:

https://youtu.be/EhZyHXs6j-U

It took ages to capture. Often when it happens, it happens a lot. Up until now every time I launch my screen cap software the issue has stopped. This is the first time it appeared while I was capturing it.

So perhaps there's something about that - maybe switching away to another app "resets" the behavior somehow? I can tinker with that idea further.

In the meantime, the attached video shows a new variation of this bug that I've never seen. You'll see it rapidly zoom out and then back again. This never usually happens. It usually zooms out so far you can't see anything, and that's it. It happens a lot in complicated designs, but I've also seen it happen on designs with just a sketch with a single rectangle.

Regarding Force Touch - I've definately had this happen on a Macbook Pro that didn't have ForceTouch. The one I used to capture this video has ForceTouch.

I've included screenshots of the trackpad settings for the machine that the the video was taken on.

[jakefowler]

Many thanks indeed for the video and details Michael - that's a lot of info to go on. We'll set up a test environment here and try to reproduce it. Will let you know if there are any follow-up questions/updates.

Again, if you want a temporary solution for now, just send me a PM.

Thanks,

Jake