Pan using middle mouse

[Daniel-Beardsmore]

Pan using middle mouse

[cubiq]

it's right click right now. I think it's more usable.

[Daniel-Beardsmore]

Right-drag in Windows has special meaning, and the middle mouse exists as a navigation button. It's bad enough trying to separate IrfanView (right-drag for no reason) and Inkscape, plus the actual Microsoft software that ignores middle mouse (Explorer in particular).

:headdesk:

[cubiq]

in some situations middle click might be problematic (eg: touchpads or apple mice). Also there's no real standard. In rhino3d pan is with the right button. In blender the middle click rotates the view. In adobe softwares right and middle click do nothing.

If right click is not needed for anything else, I'd use it for panning.

[Daniel-Beardsmore]

On a Mac touchpad you have gesture scrolling — I have no idea how that gets read by the web. (Or for that matter where it is implemented on PC notebook touchpads.) Middle mouse is the physical predecessor to gesture-based scrolling (with that little arrows-in-circle thing that Explorer still lacks to this day), while right-drag indicates a desire to issue a modifier command at the end of a drag (opens a context menu at the target).

In desktop apps you can make it configurable, of course. I tried systemwide mouse gestures with right-drag but it broke so many programs that I bought a five-button mouse to dedicate gestures to a new button.

I'm still hoping IrfanView can switch to middle-mouse drag, but that program is drowning in UI failings that need rectifying. I've had some limited success to date in getting the UI cleaned up.

[cubiq]

pan on touchpads uses mouse wheel events on the browser.

[Daniel-Beardsmore]

Right, so then you'd need to implement support for touchpad panning anyway, and you'd end up with pan on middle AND right mouse as a result.