GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 586995
zooming levels should be based on the total timeline length
Last modified: 2012-11-17 15:48:30 UTC
Instead of having fixed zoom levels, they should change dynamically so that the first zoom level ("fully zoomed out") is always = the length of the timeline + a little more (for dropping stuff at the end). This ensures that you have adequate zoom functionality even if you have huge timelines (25 minutes, 1 hour, etc.). Zooming in should go as far as being able to "feel" individual frames when scrubbing, if possible. The rest inbetween should be calculated from that.
I see where you're coming from; however, one consequence of this is that the zoom factor would change with the duration of the timeline. In other words, adding removing or moving sources in such a way the the timeline duration changes. If we were to implement this I'd want to delay any change in zoom ratio at least until the user finishes whatever operation they were performing, or until they change the zoom ratio themselves. Or did you mean that the zoom steps should be fixed, but the minimum and maximum zoom levels should be set based on the current duration?
I meant the 1st option you mentionned. This means: - The maximum ("zoomed in") level is fixed (doesn't vary), and is very, very large (the distance between two frames is the entire width of the screen, for example) - The minimum ("zoomed out") level is variable depending on the duration of the timeline when the user has finished dragging, inserting or deleting a clip (I guess that's what you meant by "until the user finishes whatever operation...") In vegas' case, for the minimum zoom level, they handle it like this: - Adding clips makes the project duration longer, so the minimum is lowered immediately. This is instantly perceived by looking at the scrollbar that gets narrower because the current zoom level's relative position has changed. - However, removing clips does not reset the minimum zoom level Not saying that their behavior is the best though.
The current zoom levels still allow you to fit a 1.5 hours long timeline in a 1920x* screen... for a 3 hours movie, you just have to scroll a little. After all, this is quite acceptable, so let's keep things simple and keep the current approach.