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Old 03-31-2021, 12:53 AM   #1
Phazma
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Default Support smooth scroll/zoom (non-stepped)

Please add support for scrolling and zooming pixel-by-pixel without steps.
It helps following visual changes on screen and considerably reduces eye strain.

Here a video demonstration that shows what I mean by comparison of Reaper with several other software.

The lack of support is a pretty big issue specially on Mac, as the majority of people probably are using the first party peripherals like the Apple Magic Mouse or Trackpad which support this on seemingly every app that I have used except for Reaper.

Here an older thread I made in the Mac subforum, which discusses the scrolling/zooming issue in more detail.

Last edited by Phazma; 04-04-2023 at 08:57 AM.
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Old 03-31-2021, 08:26 PM   #2
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Originally Posted by Phazma View Post
Please add support for scrolling and zooming pixel-by-pixel without steps.
+1
Waiting this feature long time!
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Old 03-31-2021, 10:23 PM   #3
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Yes, thank you.
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Old 04-01-2021, 10:24 AM   #4
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+1

Currently it's a bit jarring…
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Old 04-02-2021, 06:57 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by Phazma View Post
Please add support for scrolling and zooming pixel-by-pixel without steps.

The lack of support for it is a pretty big issue specially on Mac, as the majority of people probably are using the first party peripherals like the Apple Magic Mouse or Trackpad which support this on seemingly every app (including other DAWs) that I have used except for Reaper.

While I can't say anything about Windows, other users claim that also there scrolling works way smoother in other apps than in Reaper, provided they use a pointing device with high resolution (like the Logitech MX series). So it seems to not only be a macOS essential fix but also a significant improvement on Windows.

I guess that laptop touchpads across both platforms are smooth as well (tough I don't know for windows and maybe depends on laptop) so I think this might be useful for anyone using native laptop touchpads too.

I want to mention that the options added sometime last year for disabling mouse throttling on macOS and thus supporting the native inertia were already a huge improvement in the navigation experience. I am still infinitely grateful for these. It makes it all the more irritating tough, that the opportunity has been missed for making scroll/zoom smooth in general, also for very small/precise mouse movements.
+1
Thanks! Hope Reaper Team can add this!
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Old 04-03-2021, 03:08 AM   #6
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Thanks to you guys for supporting the request!

Tbh I expected way more enthusiasm tough.. it baffles me that only 4 people consider smooth navigation enough of an issue to support it.

Last edited by Phazma; 10-06-2021 at 12:53 AM.
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Old 04-03-2021, 03:55 AM   #7
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+1 ^^don't lose faith
A while back when i posted a request to adjust loop section for audio, no one commented, but it was implemented after a month or so.
If the devs find this useful, they will add it.
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Old 04-03-2021, 08:07 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by Vagelis View Post
+1 ^^don't lose faith
A while back when i posted a request to adjust loop section for audio, no one commented, but it was implemented after a month or so.
If the devs find this useful, they will add it.
I think I remember that and thought it was very cool that they implemented it so spontaneously. Was a proof that they actually do check the FR section and implement what they think is useful or can be implemented easily.

It just seems to me that they always prioritize adding raw functionality over improving user experience and specially stuff that makes Reaper "feel nicer" is rarely considered. So I guess if this request doesn't gain a lot of traction they may judge it as unimportant, niche and superficial.

On the other hand I have to admit tough, they have implemented the macOS inertia support seemingly out of nowhere without a lot of user pressure. So maybe it is not even that unlikely to happen some day. I'll just keep advocating it decently from time to time and hoping for it
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Old 04-03-2021, 09:29 AM   #9
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+ 1 as will improve the user experience....
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Old 04-03-2021, 12:57 PM   #10
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I would love if those smooth animations would go to 144 fps and up.
But I know, it might be too much to ask for.
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Old 04-03-2021, 03:05 PM   #11
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I would love if those smooth animations would go to 144 fps and up.
But I know, it might be too much to ask for.
Do fps have anything to do with scrolling/zooming?

To my knowledge that is rather related to other FRs like smoother play cursor (which I also support!).
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Old 04-03-2021, 04:27 PM   #12
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For every frame zoomed, there's gonna be a bunch of calculations that are not hardware-accelerated, I assume. So smooth zooms are difficult.
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Old 04-04-2021, 07:41 AM   #13
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+1 from me too.
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Old 04-04-2021, 08:31 AM   #14
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While regarding the visual feel it would harm, it might eat a lot of CPU power, which might led to funny hops, as most of the available CPU power might be used for Audio which of course has priority.

-Michael
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Old 04-04-2021, 11:09 AM   #15
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While regarding the visual feel it would harm, it might eat a lot of CPU power, which might led to funny hops, as most of the available CPU power might be used for Audio which of course has priority.

-Michael
How come that all the other DAWs have no issues with it then?

Of course I imagine it implemented as a preference (like the mouse throttling ones) so users who don't need it and care about that extra bit of CPU can keep it off. And if it really takes considerable amounts of CPU a simple warning in the preference description that says "high CPU cost" could be added, like there is for some other preferences.

Sure Reaper is among the most efficient DAWs because the devs care about CPU but while maybe withholding such features a decade ago could be considered a smart way of saving CPU, IMO nowadays if CPU was the argument against this it is just stingy.
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Old 04-05-2021, 05:09 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by mschnell View Post
While regarding the visual feel it would harm, it might eat a lot of CPU power, which might led to funny hops, as most of the available CPU power might be used for Audio which of course has priority.

-Michael
But at least, give me a chance to choose (even with a "performance disclaimer", if it's necessary), just don't leave me with the impossibility to select between the two.

Also, I don't think it would be so hard to add, and just in some old hardwares it should slow down the navigation.
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Old 04-05-2021, 08:35 AM   #17
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looking at the horrible outdated gui's Reaper has i doubt they will add those features..
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Old 04-05-2021, 10:18 AM   #18
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looking at the horrible outdated gui's Reaper has i doubt they will add those features..
Well we can only push it to the devs to make both happen.

+2
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Old 04-05-2021, 10:32 PM   #19
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-1 * 2
-Michael (trying to avoid preventing improvement on more sensible areas)
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Old 04-06-2021, 02:02 AM   #20
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Originally Posted by mschnell View Post
-1 * 2
-Michael (trying to avoid preventing improvement on more sensible areas)
How would implementing this "prevent improvement on more sensible areas"? What are more sensible ares that need improvement and that wouldn't get it if the devs decrippled scrolling/zooming?

We are not asking for an entirely new feature that needs extensive testing, development time and implementation discussion. It is literally just adding a checkbox to activate it for those who want it and I can't see how that would cause bugs. This really could be just a quick fix in parallel to the main development focus.

Last edited by Phazma; 04-06-2021 at 11:06 AM.
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Old 04-06-2021, 02:08 AM   #21
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And btw look at the people who replied.

Some of them have very low post counts. Probably they are not the usual forum nerds like us who nitpick about everything but just people who want to use Reaper to make music in a smooth way and this is one of the few thing that really bother them.

Probably among the "average users" there are many many more who want this but just don't bother messing with forums. On the Mac side the "average users" probably also don't get special pointing devices, stick with the Apple ones and surely notice Reaper looking way more sluggish than other apps.

Reaper really could be a bit more friendly and inviting in some areas to "simple" creatives who just want to make music. I'd even say smooth scrolling/zooming should be enabled by default to comply with how people expect it to behave and the tech savy CPU guys surely know how to open preferences and disable it if they don't want it.
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Old 04-06-2021, 11:05 AM   #22
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Originally Posted by 12345678 View Post
looking at the horrible outdated gui's Reaper has i doubt they will add those features..
I don't absolutely think it's horrible, (I think is one of the sexiest still remaining very, very functional) and I appreciate their willing to keep Reaper very lightweight, proper to this, I'm just asking for a small feature like this, that would be really nice for many of us!
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Old 04-06-2021, 03:52 PM   #23
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I don't absolutely think it's horrible, (I think is one of the sexiest still remaining very, very functional) and I appreciate their willing to keep Reaper very lightweight, proper to this, I'm just asking for a small feature like this, that would be really nice for many of us!
Keeping it lightweight and fast and having a proper GUI that doesn't look like a windows 95 experimental program don't exclude each other. The amount of ram and cpu to draw a png based GUI is negligible on today's systems. Even less if its svg (vector based). We're not talking about shading or 3d objects here, its a simple render that even cpus/gpus from 20 years ago can do without sweating.

Yes, if we are honest Reaper DOES lack in the UI department. Unfortunately many forum users think that their "engineer" mindset applies to everyone. But from the pov of a person who wants to focus on making music and not constantly tweaking the program some things are just not right.

Interface and user experience/perception does matter a lot in the overall workflow - I had to make my own theme to be able to use Reaper without being distracted by not-so-well-thought-out design decisions and ocd triggers. But it still looks like an unfinished product here and there. I still hope in the near future the devs will put some focus on the overall visual experience because it really IS important as it affects the actual workflow by inducing a "not right" feeling that transcends the visual.

Yeah, i know, some will say - but i love my 52354 buttons on my 35 toolbars on the main screen. But most of the users don't. Take my word for it, as i used to work as a ux designer. Its excellent to have that option available, but visual coherence and a "good visual feeling" goes a long way.

My 2c.

Last edited by lerian; 04-06-2021 at 03:59 PM.
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Old 04-07-2021, 12:11 AM   #24
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I agree that UI is important and some work on it would be appreciated, but I do not want this FR to become one of these “make Reaper nicer” threads which only end in offtopics and beef between users.

I am with Markcastle on this, it is a simple feature request, only a checkbox to enable smooth scrolling/zooming. Unrelated to UI design, does not need an overhaul of anything, probably not that difficult and timeconsuming to code or test but a big wish for many of us who use a mouse or similar for navigation.

It is also a practical thing. Sometimes I want to zoom to the exact length of an item or part of the arrangement and it ends up always either too narrow (showing too much) or too wide (not showing all of what I want to see). Yes I know it is possible to zoom and scroll smoothly by dragging above the ruler but that is just not how I (and many others work). As soon as I do that I afterwards instinctively zoom with the mouse and if I want this exact part of the screen again I again have to go to the ruler and drag.

I’d say this FR is more related to editing precision rather than the infamous “aesthetics” or the usual stuff that divides us into 2 categories of users.
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Old 04-08-2021, 02:24 AM   #25
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I agree that UI is important and some work on it would be appreciated, but I do not want this FR to become one of these “make Reaper nicer” threads which only end in offtopics and beef between users.

I am with Markcastle on this, it is a simple feature request, only a checkbox to enable smooth scrolling/zooming. Unrelated to UI design, does not need an overhaul of anything, probably not that difficult and timeconsuming to code or test but a big wish for many of us who use a mouse or similar for navigation.

It is also a practical thing. Sometimes I want to zoom to the exact length of an item or part of the arrangement and it ends up always either too narrow (showing too much) or too wide (not showing all of what I want to see). Yes I know it is possible to zoom and scroll smoothly by dragging above the ruler but that is just not how I (and many others work). As soon as I do that I afterwards instinctively zoom with the mouse and if I want this exact part of the screen again I again have to go to the ruler and drag.

I’d say this FR is more related to editing precision rather than the infamous “aesthetics” or the usual stuff that divides us into 2 categories of users.
Oh, yeah! Quote every single word.

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Old 04-09-2021, 11:55 AM   #26
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+1
Scrolling and zooming goes sluggish to me. Here's an example of a continuous scrolling on playback (gif's kinda heavy; 7mb; cause I tried to catch at maximum frame rate.


There's some micro stutters that drives me crazy..

Not to say about zooming and scrolling with mousewheel.. can't wait to be fixed and get smoother.
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Old 04-10-2021, 02:18 AM   #27
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@Delucci I think what you are describing is related to GUI refresh rate during playback, which probably affects either the playback cursor itself (which is often criticized as being very flickery), or in case of continuous scrolling the entire GUI. For meters we can set up the refresh rate in preferences, so it is a very valid FR to be able also for playback cursor or GUI in general.

I don't think it is closely linked to scrolling/zooming via mouse but I can see how it would make sense to fix both together to reduce flickering, eye-strain and orientation difficulties in Reaper overall.
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Old 04-10-2021, 09:44 AM   #28
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Originally Posted by Delucci View Post
+1
Scrolling and zooming goes sluggish to me. Here's an example of a continuous scrolling on playback (gif's kinda heavy; 7mb; cause I tried to catch at maximum frame rate.


There's some micro stutters that drives me crazy..

Not to say about zooming and scrolling with mousewheel.. can't wait to be fixed and get smoother.
yeah it looks the same for me.. very annoying
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Old 04-12-2021, 02:07 AM   #29
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Also regarding sluggish playhead, gui and such: On my MacMini 2018, the playback head and all track meters goes to and instant freeze whenever I move the mouse cursor over an automation track. When I hold the mouse still, everything runs smoothly.
Whenever I make an area selection and/or time selection, the meters get really laggy, but the playhead still runs smoothly.

Turning on the throttle for Move in General->Advanced UI, resolves the freezing issue, but makes scrolling and selecting mor sluggish and laggy in generel.

I am no programmer, but it seems wierd that a simple mouse movement would freeze up so many ui elements..
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Old 04-12-2021, 04:33 AM   #30
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+1 for this one, it has been addressed (by macOS users) several times in several threads. Always on should be the default, with an opt-out for users concerned about CPU-load.

It's noteworthy to keep in mind, that there IS already a perfectly smooth scolling - for items - available as of now: disable "throttle mouse-events" in the advances UI Preferences and move some items around - butter-smooth mit 60FPS.

So it's a pity this doesn't apply - at least to the same extend - to the general scrolling.
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Old 04-12-2021, 01:11 PM   #31
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+1 for user experience. Please :-(
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Old 04-12-2021, 06:09 PM   #32
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+1 !)
Win 10, Kensington Slimblade trackball.
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Old 04-12-2021, 09:48 PM   #33
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plus 1
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Old 04-13-2021, 01:14 AM   #34
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Waiting for them to read this, fix this!
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Old 04-13-2021, 01:21 AM   #35
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+1 for this one, it has been addressed (by macOS users) several times in several threads. Always on should be the default, with an opt-out for users concerned about CPU-load.

It's noteworthy to keep in mind, that there IS already a perfectly smooth scolling - for items - available as of now: disable "throttle mouse-events" in the advances UI Preferences and move some items around - butter-smooth mit 60FPS.

So it's a pity this doesn't apply - at least to the same extend - to the general scrolling.
I think it should be clearly visible, in Reaper (even just don't opening the preferences), if it should heavily affected performances, and so one can consider to disable or enable it.

Unfortunately, "throttle mouse events" isn't available on Windows, for what I see.
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Old 04-13-2021, 01:50 AM   #36
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I think it should be clearly visible, in Reaper (even just don't opening the preferences), if it should heavily affected performances, and so one can consider to disable or enable it.
I don’t really agree.. it is not something that you are likely to toggle during work and thus it would add clutter to the UI and confuse people who don’t know what it is for or have an old mouse and can’t detect the difference anyway. There are many settings in preferences which impact CPU (probably way more than this would) and IMO it is fine in prefs with a disclaimer “attention, if active it will eat considerable CPU”. Depending on how much it eats one could opt for it being on or off by default. But I really think for most modern systems it would be ok to be on by default.
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Old 04-13-2021, 01:56 AM   #37
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Waiting for them to read this, fix this!
I am sure they have already. It keeps popping up in FR (and the other thread in macOS forum) and I even posted a link to the new release thread as other related features have been implemented. Probably they just don’t feel like doing this right now.

I think we can only keep this thread constantly alive with new people agreeing and discussing the implementation and perhaps some day they will see this again when they have time and consider actually implementing it.
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Old 04-13-2021, 06:39 AM   #38
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I think it should be clearly visible, in Reaper (even just don't opening the preferences), if it should heavily affected performances, and so one can consider to disable or enable it.

Unfortunately, "throttle mouse events" isn't available on Windows, for what I see.
Thought it was just me. Couldn't find the pref anywhere!
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Old 04-13-2021, 07:48 AM   #39
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Thought it was just me. Couldn't find the pref anywhere!
I think that is only a switch to either block or pass through the macOS native inertia.
Is true inertial scrolling even possible on Windows with certain pointing devices?
Inertia means that the more intensly you scroll, both the faster and the longer distance the scroll goes. And towards the end it gradually decelerates until it stops (which usually looks smooth but in Reaper it looks very choppy towards the end of the movement).
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Old 04-16-2021, 05:34 AM   #40
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I don’t really agree.. it is not something that you are likely to toggle during work and thus it would add clutter to the UI and confuse people who don’t know what it is for or have an old mouse and can’t detect the difference anyway. There are many settings in preferences which impact CPU (probably way more than this would) and IMO it is fine in prefs with a disclaimer “attention, if active it will eat considerable CPU”. Depending on how much it eats one could opt for it being on or off by default. But I really think for most modern systems it would be ok to be on by default.
So ok, no prob for people like me/us, just hope they add this! 😂

It's 2021, not 2005 anymore, and CPUs are really powerful nowadays 😎
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