Add center or translate mouse mode

[daniel.larsson@…]

From: Daniel Larsson via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users@…>
Subject: [chimerax-users] Re: Middle mouse click to center and move to atom
Date: October 27, 2023 at 12:30:03 AM PDT
To: Tom Goddard <goddard@…>
Cc: "chimerax-users@…" <chimerax-users@…>
Reply-To: Daniel Larsson

This option is a great improvement to the utility of ChimeraX. But one problem with this implementation is that panning using the middle-mouse button no longer works. It should be possible to "click-and-hold" differently from a plain "click" and thereby retain the panning functionality. If you make that change, I think this should be the default behavior of the application, as middle-click currently does nothing.

Another option use "double left-click" for this, as this is not currently used in the GUI and double-click works better on a track-pad. Actually, it would be nice to have the ability to set the action for double-clicking in a menu similar to the current "right mouse" menu and to set the default option in a preference file.

Regards,
Daniel

[Tom Goddard]

Done.

I added a new mouse mode called "center or translate" that center a clicked atom, bond, pseudobond, residue or volume (anything selectable) if you click and release. But if you drag (a minimum of 5 pixels in x or y) it instead translates the scene. The centering happens on button release. You can make this the default for the middle mouse button by putting command

mouse middle "center or translate"

in ChimeraX preferences, Startup tab, Execute these commands at startup.