New method for board scrolling
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Speaking for myself, right click dragging the map is the most usual way I move around the map, so much that I've actually disabled the ability of moving the view by hovering the cursor over the edge, as I find that way less user friendly than just dragging and having the additional issue that it might happen it will move the view when you don't want to, or you have to be careful not getting too close to the edges. I virtually never use, or should say I would never use, the arrows to scroll the map around, so I've just set them at speed 1, reserving it for rare precision needs related to taking screenshots (nothing about gameplay).
Beside right click dragging the map, virtually the only other way I ever move around the map is by moving around the cursor on the minimap with the right button pressed, and I actually almost never do this while I'm playing (it is more for watching the map while map or mod making, or taking a general look at it, particularly when looking at a new big map).
Yet, while having no doubt that is the best way of moving around the map when gaming, amongst all the available ones, I don't think that right click and dragging the map is really an optimal way to change the screen portion of the gameboard, especially in maps you have keeping doing that a lot.
I think this method has two main issues.
The first issue is that how much you can drag the map per movement is limited to the wideness of your screen, at least, resulting in you having to keep dragging the map, then returning with the mouse all the way back, then dragging it again, and so on, that is far from optimal, especially in very big maps.
The second issue (and this would be a point in favour of scrolling the board by hovering the cursor near the edges) is that doing that likely moves your cursor away from where you want to have it (and likely exactly in the opposite direction), obliging you getting it back after dragging, substantially having you making the movement, in the direction you want to go, twice.
I suggest, instead of the current "dragging" behaviour, having the behaviour that right clicking on the board, then moving the mouse while holding that button, keeps the cursor in the same position, on the screen, while scrolling the board view as per your mouse movement (factually something analogous to what you can already do on the minimap, but slower (as long as 1 pixel on the minimap corresponds to many more pixels on the board) and not requiring keeping moving your cursor to and from the minimap).
Alternatively this could be, especially initially, prompted by some other command than right clicking on the board, then moving while holding the button.
Side note, I don't think it is really useful having clicking on the scroll wheel doing the same thing already covered by right clicking. But, in general, I don't think the scroll wheel clicking is really a good thing to have, so I would assign just nothing to it.
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@Cernel I tend to find the limit is usually how far I can move the mouse rather than the width of the screen relative to the map. Limiting the scroll to how far you can move the mouse rather than the width of the screen sounds very reasonable to me.
w.r.t arrow keys: I tend to use the arrow keys when on a laptop with a track pad where you can't move the mouse very far. In that case the 'ctrl+arrow keys' to move the map fast and then releasing control to move slowly are typically what I use.
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@LaFayette You mean you feel how far you can move the mouse is more limiting than the width of the screen starting with the cursor about at its centre?
Of course, if this suggestion would be reality, it would be good having a pixel setting multiplicator for how fast you move the board when having the right button pressed (default 1).
Under this suggestion, for maps that do not wrap (as well as those that do, if you don't go past the wrapping part for this), the limit would be the dimensions of the entire gameboard (at the current zoom), rather than the screen dimensions, but a multiplicator setting could make it much smaller while maintaining the function highly precise (if you set it at 4, it would be like moving the cursor on a minimap that is 25% of the original, that would be an enormous minimap).
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@LaFayette To be clear, my suggestion would be initially having this as an alternative to dragging (maybe Shift + Right Click), see how it feels. Then substituting the default right click if it is generally preferred.
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I feel like this would be a very limiting way of being able to move around the map.
The current mini map movement is superb with the exception of when you reach the edge.
This would be a tremendously slow and laborious way to move around a larger map if you had units in multiple locations.
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@Hepps Actually, this should not be confronted at all with minimap movement. I made the comparison only for exemplifying, but, as I said, this is meant to be mainly an alternative to dragging the map (right click on the board and drag).
So you should consider doing this instead of right-click dragging the map, not instead of pointing on the minimap, that would remain there as the main alternative to this method like now it is for whatever other method currently available.
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@Cernel Got it. I am less opinionated about the in map options as I pretty much use the mini map exclusively.
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@Hepps Right, basically what I'm proposing is doing on the normal map the same thing that you can already do on the minimap, so that you would have the option either to do the current "minimap movement" on the board (slow pixel-per-pixel) or on the minimap (fast).
Then, if there would be also a setting (as I said), you could set that exactly at the dimensional ratio between the map and the minimap, so that you could practically do virtually the same thing as minimap movement without having to go pointing at the minimap and without being limited in any ways by map bonds (this last item would matter only for maps that wrap, usually only on the X axis, because of being global projections).
Or there could be a "Ctrl + Right Click" option for doing this same thing, but at minimap speed (the program would need to calculate and apply the dimensional ratio between the map and the minimap) (like now you can move with arrows faster by keeping Ctrl pressed (probably something almost nobody knows)).
Anyways, I'm not a developer, so this is just an idea.
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@Cernel you're suggesting that the main map scrolls to the location of the right click? Or are you suggesting that when holding right click the mouse stays stationary and the map moves under it?
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@LaFayette said in New method for board scrolling:
@Cernel you're suggesting that the main map scrolls to the location of the right click? Or are you suggesting that when holding right click the mouse stays stationary and the map moves under it?
Maybe these minimap analogies are confusing more than clarifying. Anyways, I was actually suggesting that the cursor "stays stationary and the map moves under it".
Thinking again about it, you could also have the initial behaviour (for the initial right click only) of centring the map on the board pixel where the cursor is, while relocating the cursor itself at the centre too, in this case. However, this would raise the issue of what to do if you would have not enough board remaining to actually centre it (say, what should happen if I right click on the 0,0 coordinate of a not wrapping map like 270BC), which would be relevant for any maps not having both X and Y wrapping (I think only "Hexglobe", "Feudal Japan Warlords" and "Conquest of the World" do). On this regard, the centre should be the centre of the view, not the centre of the screen (usually the centre of the view is more to the left, if you have no history bar or the history bar is narrower than the main bar).
