This is an old discussion on EOG. Although I agree this breaks the EOG HIGness, mouse wheel zooming is, ironically, one of the user favorite features in EOG. I'd prefer to get some feedback from the usability team to make the right decision here.

Comments?

Maybe it would even be possible to combine the best of both worlds:
Have the mouse wheel scroll and introduce some fancy slider control for zooming that also accepts scrollwheel input (when the mouse pointer is over). 

but the awesome thing about scroll weel zooming is that it zooms to the point were the mouse is over, it doesn't generizally zoom to the center

I agree that zooming is very nice but what I miss from gqview is the way to change images without using the keyboard, what about some mouse gestures to do this? may be "rocker" features like in opera or some mouse gesture extensions for firefox, I mean:
"If right mouse button is pressed, and then the left one is pressed" -> Go back
"If left mouse button is pressed, and then the right one is pressed" -> Go forward

I think it is not big a big problem to give user a choice in preferences window. Personally, I would like mouse scroll to change images...

The scroll wheel should scroll.  This is what it's for.
The Gimp teaches: Shift + whell = zoom

In general, when in dubt and when possible, I suggest following The Gimp's conventions, since that is the leading graphical app for Linux.

> In general, when in dubt and when possible, I suggest following The Gimp's
> conventions, since that is the leading graphical app for Linux.

...with the worst user interface ever. 

We shouldn't automatically follow it.
Web browsers use CTRL+wheel to zoom, for example.

> > In general, when in dubt and when possible, I suggest following The Gimp's
> > conventions, since that is the leading graphical app for Linux.

> ...with the worst user interface ever. 
> 
> We shouldn't automatically follow it.
I didn't mean "automatically".
Let me correct what I said to: "when in dubt and when sane".

> Web browsers use CTRL+wheel to zoom, for example.
But eog is not a web-browser.  It's a program to handle images, so it is more similar to Gimp then to Firefox.
Ideally all programs should use the same conventions.
Sadly this isn't always true and, in that case, I think that it's better if similar programs share similar conventions.
So, in this specific case, I again vote for Shift+Scroll_wheel.

And again, I vote for scroll_wheel = scroll the image.
Some proposed scroll_wheel = next image, but I see it to be problematic for 2 reasons:
 1. it's non-intuitive (I know, maybe this one is subjective).
 2. too often scroll wheels are not linear.
That is, the same amount of wheel scrolling by your finger can cause 1, 2 or even 3 scroll steps on screen.  This would mean that sometimes you jump forward more than 1 image at a time.  Many mice (mis)behave this way.

This, of course, leaves unsolved the problem of people who desire to change image without resorting to the keyboard, but at least gives you a way to scroll images with your mouse.

MS Windows Image Viewer uses scrollwheel to zoom the image, and image grabbing to move it, just like eog does it right now. Using the scrollwheel to scroll may look the natural way to go, but how would you scroll horizontally without using the keyboard?

From HIG:

"If present on the mouse, the scrollwheel should scroll the window or control under the pointer, if it supports scrolling. Initiating scrolling in this way should not move keyboard focus to the window or control being scrolled.

Ctrl-scrollwheel-up should zoom into the window or control under the mouse pointer, and Ctrl-scrollwheel-down should zoom out. Zooming in this way should not move keyboard focus to the window or control being zoomed."

Here's what I think: I should follow HIG. We can follow the guidelines as it is with the addition of having shift+scrollwheel to scroll horizontaly. To not let some EOG users that love this scrollwheel-for-zooming pissed off we can provide a gconf key that makes EOG behave just like it's now.

Comments?

Cool, and please add a gconf key to switch images on scroll wheel events[1].
I already sense the speed and power of this. Way back in the days ACDSee32 switched images with the wheel.

Scrolling images with the wheel is not that intuitive BTW. Most images are landscape, and I (off the cuff) assume that granny will never find Shift-Wheel to scroll left and right.

[1] I have an MS mouse with a non-linear accelerated wheel, and this still works. You just scroll slower then.

Yay! Yay! Yay!  +1 for following HIG.

Every time I get EOG (because it's the default image viewer in GNOME), I try to scroll the image with the mouse wheel, become confused when it zooms, close EOG and open that image in gqview.

FYI: this was commited to eog-ng branch. Closing this report as there are no plans to put this in trunk as we're string and feature frozen now.

2007-02-21  Lucas Rocha  <lucasr@gnome.org>

        Added a GConf key to define the mouse scroll wheel behavior. Defaults
        to FALSE to be HIG compliant. By the default,
        Ctrl-Scroll-Wheel-[Up|Down] zooms in and out respectively (Fixes bug
        #341935).

        * src/eog-window.c: keep track of scroll wheel zoom GConf key to set the
        according behavior to EogScrolledView.
        * src/eog-scrolled-view.c: use GConf key to determine the mouse scroll
        wheel behavior.
        * src/eog-config-keys.h, data/eog.schema.in: added GConf key to define
        the mouse scroll wheel behavior. If true, use the wheel for zooming.

*** Bug 478881 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I just upgraded my debian-unstable to see this change in. It breaks eog so unbelievably. I know there is a gconf key, but this is a ridiculous change.

(In reply to comment #15)
> I just upgraded my debian-unstable to see this change in. It breaks eog so
> unbelievably. I know there is a gconf key, but this is a ridiculous change.

Pat, have you ever read our Code of Conduct[1]? If not, please read. If you want to be heard and contribute in any way, please, present clear arguments instead of those harsh and useless comments.

[1] http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct

I know the code. I was just furious. Later I opened another bug dealing with the real issues, bug #479884. But I guess that bug has been noticed.

(In reply to comment #16)
> (In reply to comment #15)
> > I just upgraded my debian-unstable to see this change in. It breaks eog so
> > unbelievably. I know there is a gconf key, but this is a ridiculous change.
> 
> Pat, have you ever read our Code of Conduct[1]? If not, please read. If you
> want to be heard and contribute in any way, please, present clear arguments
> instead of those harsh and useless comments.
> 
> [1] http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct
> 

I agree with Pat Suwalski. This is a really horrible change, which has really ruined eog for me. 
At the same time, I'm also very upset about the fact that you can't click and drag on the image using the left mouse button; apparently now you must use the middle button. This is also horrible and pointless.

These so-called 'improvements' are enough to make me start looking for alternative image viewers.

(In reply to comment #18)
> (In reply to comment #16)
> > (In reply to comment #15)
> > > I just upgraded my debian-unstable to see this change in. It breaks eog so
> > > unbelievably. I know there is a gconf key, but this is a ridiculous change.
> > 
> > Pat, have you ever read our Code of Conduct[1]? If not, please read. If you
> > want to be heard and contribute in any way, please, present clear arguments
> > instead of those harsh and useless comments.
> > 
> > [1] http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct
> > 
> 
> I agree with Pat Suwalski. This is a really horrible change, which has really
> ruined eog for me. 

Do you know about this gconf that restores the "old" wheel zooming and dragging behavior? You can just activate it once and use EOG as you used to do.

> At the same time, I'm also very upset about the fact that you can't click and
> drag on the image using the left mouse button; apparently now you must use the
> middle button. This is also horrible and pointless.

This is fixed in 2.20.1. If you activate wheel zooming, the dragging with button1 will work as well.

FYI: I'm still pondering if there should be a preference UI for that in EOG. Let's see...