UP or DN touchpad swipe zooms instead of pans

[craig]

When I use a two finger left or right swipe on my touchpad, the model pans left or right as expected. So far so good. When I use a two finger up or down swipe on my touchpad, the model zooms in or out instead of panning up or down. How do I get the Revit model to pan up or down using the two finger up or down swipe on my touchpad?

[Lance.Coffey]

Hello @craig, thank you for the question!

I've been able to reproduce the zoom behavior (two fingers swipe up/down), but not the panning you are seeing by using two fingers to swipe left/right. I suspect we are using different hardware/settings.

Since the two finger swipe up/down is mapped (by default) to a scroll up/down, and scrolling up or down in Revit zooms in and out, the behavior you are describing sounds like what I would expect to see.

If you have a middle mouse button on your trackpad, then you could hold this down, and then pan with a single finger.

If you don’t have a middle mouse, another option would be to remap the middle mouse button to another button. I found the following Microsoft document with information on this for Microsoft Accessories: How do I reassign mouse buttons? If this doesn’t work for you, what trackpad and mouse (if any) do you have?

[craig]

Thanks Lance.

So Revit is hardwired to interpret a scroll as a zoom?

Many years ago I was forced to abandon the mouse due to RSI in favor of a trackball. Since then I've been using the logitech trackman marble which has default left and right buttons, +2 additional buttons that I've assigned to zoom in and zoom out. I'm also using a buttonless trackpad with my left hand to pan left and right, and if I can configure it, up and down.

What does pressing the middle mouse button do that would allow the up-and-down pan using a trackpad? I have a programmable usb foot pedal. Perhaps I could use it.

[Lance.Coffey]

Thank you for the update!

The middle mouse button can be used for multiple view adjustments:

Middle Click -> Pan

Shift + Middle Click -> Orbit (3D views)

Ctrl + Middle Click -> Zoom (up/down)

If you can press (and hold) the middle mouse button, then single finger swipes up/down/left/right would pan in the direction swiped (while the middle mouse button is down).

[craig · Accepted solution]

Thx Lance. Unfortunately the Microsoft mouse control software does not recognize my trackball or touchpad. It seems that the problem here is that Revit is hardwired to interpret a scroll as a zoom with no apparent option for changing that.

[Lance.Coffey · Accepted solution]

In doing further research on this topic, I found this additional option for panning:

Shift + Right Mouse button turns on Pan (also in 3D views if you release the Shift key while holding down the Right Mouse button it will switch to Orbit).

I’m seeing two possible directions to deal with the limitations of the software/hardware/drivers:

• Adjust the options available in the mouse/trackpad control software: This could include things like switching from using the customizable mouse buttons for zoom (in/out) to a modifier key (like Middle Mouse Click, Shift, Ctrl, etc.), which could be used in combination with the trackman/trackpad, and then using gestures on the trackpad to zoom in/out.
• Use a third party automation/scripting program to more fully customize your workflow: There are utilities available that you could use to re-map keys or adjust input behavior so that you can better customize what happens when you press a particular key or take a particular action (you can even setup application specific customizations, so that a button behaves differently depending on the active program).