Minimap: click jumps to center

[dunkers]

First, I lurve the new minimap. Keep looking at Sublime because of theirs, but just can't be bothered with a text-file config.

So, anyway, first issue is that when one clicks in the minimap, the minimap highlight is moved towards the click position, but the minimap is them moved so the clicked position is in the highlighted part. The result is the mouse is no longer under the clicked position, neither is the highlighted section, and one loses track of what the minimap is showing.

I think the proper action would be to keep the minimap static and move the highlight to where one has clicked (so the click can easily be turned into a drag).

Next, one problem with the minimap is that it takes up space. I would like to see it expand (horizontally) when one moves the cursor over it and then collapse when the cursor leaves, possibly after a short delay, much like an unpinned tool window (but without having to click to expand). Perhaps a thin line down the right in the collapsed state would be sufficient to aim at.

I appreciate that one can set the width, but there is a minimum width where it still remains useful, and when not being used it takes up valuable space.

[Clark]

Glad you like it.

The reason the minimap moves in a seemly odd way is because the minimap is also a scrollbar for the entire file. Interestingly, some of our dev team noticed this as well. If there was a mode to not support using the minimap as a scroll bar, then we could make it scroll totally differently. Hope that make sense. The minimap is a scroll bar for your entire file.

An auto-hide option for the minimap would be pretty cool. I guess we would just have to pick a small hotspot area on the right.

[dunkers]

There is already a scrollbar for the entire file - it's the scrollbar

Hmmm. I don't really see why it can't stay as a draggable scrollbar and just not scroll on a click. The highlight (and thus file position) moves to the click location, so you're achieving the file scroll anyway. It is just the minimap moving at that time that's the issue.

Perhaps it needs another config option

[Clark]

You can make the vertical scrollbar invisible and only show the minimap. You're right, there is some redundancy. Although, the vertical scrollbar also shows markers of things like bookmarks and errors.

I'll try to explain better. Each pixel position of the minimap slider has special meaning based on the top of page line in the edit window. It would need another configuration option to disable using the minimap as a scrollbar. This is a fairly common confusion.

[dunkers]

Thanks for the explanation. My scrollbar comment was mostly in jest, but there we go.

I think I see both sides now. I checked other apps that have minimaps (for instance, Beyond Compare) and they act like I asked for this one to act (that is, the minimap stays static and the highlight moves to the where the mouse is, on click) and the big difference is that the minimap extends below the window but with no indication of how far. In other words, the highlight can be at the very bottom of the window but there is more minimap below. With yours, if the highlight is at the bottom then that's the end of the file, which makes sense.

Hmm. I think there will be a certain amount of click retraining coming on!

By the way, I didn't mention but the tooltip is a stroke of genius in my opinion. Whoever came up with it deserves extra sugar in his coffee.

[Clark]

I haven't seen an apps that do what you're talking about. I just download Beyond Compare. If it has a minimap it's off by default. How do I turn it on?

Glad you like the tooltip. Visual Studio has one but SlickEdit's is better. Check this out. While the tooltip is up, hold down the Ctrl key and move the mouse into the tooltip. It's actually displaying your entire file. You can select text to copy/paste or make editing changes.

[dunkers]

I think 'minimap' may be a bit strong for BC - it shows differences like SE's search does (that is, anonymous blocks of colour) but in principle it's similar - it is a visual scrollbar for the file(s). Enable it with View|Thumbnails and it pops up on the left.

Similar behaviour (for similar tool) in TortoiseGit diff, except that here you get a ghost highlight under the moving mouse to show where a click will be (useful), and you can lose that highlight below the window! Not a brilliant example, then.

That ctrl trick is cool! Once done the tooltip is a proper editing window (without any furniture) and you can even hover over the minimap to move it elsewhere and make a quick edit. I can see that being very useful indeed

[Clark]

Now I know what you're talking about. What you are seeing is something similar to SlickEdit's Document Overview Bar. It appears to the left of the vertical scrollbar when you do something like set a bookmark. It also appears in the diff dialog when you diff two files.

There's a big difference between a document overview bar and a minimap. a document overview bar displays the entire file. That way, there is no need to scroll. A minimap must be almost readable (1 or 2 point font) which can't display the entire file in many cases.

Visual Studio did their minimap differently than all other products attempting the same thing. IMO it's absolutely the worst but you need to look at it. Visual Studio always shows the entire file in the minimap window area. It looks awful for large files and also awful for really small files. I can't even believe they did this.

[dunkers]

OK. So long as you don't go down the VS router I'm happy

[Clark]

Would it be useful to have a mode where you can't use the minimap as a scrollbar? That's the only useful way I can see to do this where the minimap is still reasonably readable like it is now.

[dunkers]

I'm not sure what you're asking there - how would it differ to what it is now? I mean, there would be the highlight that you drag and which scrolls the file? Just that the minimap doesn't move until you drag the highlight to the edge of the window, after which it scrolls up as the highlight continues down (to keep the highlight visible)?

[Clark]

In this "other mode" you would not be able to drag the slider to scroll the edit window.

[dunkers]

Oh, don't fancy that one at all, then.

Probably the best fix is to go for the slider every time and just not click somewhere else in the map. Only take some training