I appreciate the response, but "get a bigger screen" isn't really a solution.
Once more:
The issue I'm struggling with is that for every detailed adjustment, I have to click the "zoom in" button many times, make the adjustment, and then zoom back out (over and over and over...). If I could move points with extremely fine detail from the zoomed-out view, it would save significant time and head-ache when I'm setting up for a show.
I've taken the time to prototype this concept with a simple java applet I made in processing (note: I had trouble getting the applet to load in Chrome but safari worked fine). Please (especially you madmapper developers..) take a look and see what you think..
http://benpurdy.com/mouse_demo/Short version:
In the left-hand view, position the gray box over the red box 10 times, you can zoom and pan with the keys just like madmapper to do fine adjustments. After 10 times it will show you some data about the test. Try it with left-click drag and keyboard ONLY, then try it again using the right-click-drag for fine adjustments without zooming.
Long version:
The goal of this demo is to line up a gray point with a red target point. The gray point represents a quad corner point, and the red point represents the exact location for the corner point so it looks good on the stage (or wherever you're projecting). The applet has a split view, the right-hand view represents your view of the actual projected content, it's always centered on the target point and is fully zoomed in. The left-hand view is a simulated madmapper editor, you can drag, zoom, pan, etc. You can only interact with the left side of the applet since that's the editor.
Keyboard control works like madmapper (arrow keys move the view when the point is not selected, and move the point
according to the zoom level when the point is selected). The plus, minus, and equals keys will zoom in, out, and reset just like madmapper. You can also use the little icon buttons with the mouse.
However, you can also use right-click-drag to move the gray box in very tiny increments,
which is exactly what I'm asking for in this thread.My challenge for anybody reading this: perform the test a few times and see how much faster it is when you use the right click drag.. Then imagine if madmapper worked just like that for moving points, rotating, scaling, etc.
Here's what I get:
no right-click-drag: 120 seconds
302 keys pressed (!!!)
43 mouse clicks
using right-click-drag: 44 seconds
0 keys pressed
26 mouse clicks
To compare, that's a 36% increase in speed, infinity reduction in keyboard input, and 60% fewer clicks.