Hello,

Could somebody please tell me how to zoom to wherever the mouse pointer happens to be located on the map by just using the scroll? Currently it zooms to the center of the map I think, I hate that. I am pretty sure Streets and Trips used to do this, Google Maps currently does it. The other zoom options in Streets and Trips are not intuitive and a pain in the ...

I appreciate any help, thanks

Draw a box around the area you want to magnify with the right mouse button held. Click in it using the left mouse button.

Terry

Thanks for your reply. I already know about that one, I think its cumbersome. It would be so nice to just zoom in quick with the scroll and have the zoom centered on wherever the mouse pointer is located, then zoom out by scrolling back, pan and zoom in quick somewhere else at the mouse pointer. Why in the world Streets and Trips doesn't do that I have no idea

Here's what works on my system (Streets & Trips 2010): I double-click the spot I want to zoom to. The map zooms in one level and centers on the spot I double-clicked. I can then use the scroll wheel to zoom in/out.

That is an improved method over what I have been doing. It still sucks, but better.
Thanks

This is what frustrates me about Microsoft products, they never get the little things right. This program has so many nice advanced features, but the overall feel and navigation is cumbersome at best.

I take it no one has found a hidden option to enable "Zoom to mouse cursor" instead of "Zoom to center"?

Microsoft should take notes from Google!

As SnakeDoctor says above, double-click to cursor location. It zooms one level and centers at the same time.

Any of you S&T power-users know how many different ways there are to zoom in/out in Streets & Trips? I'll post them all here unless someone beats me to it.

Don't forget S&T Keys' on-screen buttons.

How does one zoom and center on maps.google.com? Double-click. Sounds familiar...

Yeah, but Google Maps also allows you to scroll-wheel-zoom on the current mouse location. Which is exactly what gpxfiles77 has been asking for. And it isn't even just Google Maps. Microsoft's very own Bing Maps also allows you to do the same thing. And not just in the AJAX client, but also in the rich Silverlight beta client as well.

Here's what I wrote two years ago on this subject (boldface original, emphasis new). My opinion has not changed.

There may be 75 other ways to zoom in, but if you don't have this particular one, then people are going to notice. And they're going to keep thinking:

If this zoom method hasn't already been added to the forthcoming Streets & Trips 2011, then may I suggest to Larry that he open up Product Studio right now and enter it for Mappoint/S&T 2012 as a Priority-1 bug. Copy-paste this thread.

The more ways of zooming, the merrier.

P. S. I don't normally use a mouse with a scroll wheel and most laptops (I think) don't have them. But it is fine if other users would like that feature; go for it!

Then just add one more

Think about this example:

Someone wants to plan a route of "fun" roads, so they are going to be constantly zooming in and out looking at all different types of roads. Simply place the cursor near the area you want to zoom in, and use the scroll wheel to get a better view. Then zoom back out and zoom in on another area in a few seconds. Very fluid, very fast, very nice to use (try it on google maps). If you have to zoom in far using the double click method, you would have to re-center several times on your zoom, which can be frustrating. If it went to the cursor, you could "adjust" every zoom frame. You would move the cursor as you were zooming in to get a perfect spot.

I love being able to zoom in and out with the scroll wheel, like in Google Earth/Maps. Streets&Trips 2010 is close but no cigar. There seems no logical sense to where it zooms to as you zoom in. You have to constantly pan the map to drag the point you want to zoom to back onto the screen, as jaykup described.

Garmin has finally gotten around to adding the zooming with scroll wheel feature to Mapsource in the latest release and they got it right. Wherever you have the mouse cursor, that point stays right there under the mouse cursor as you zoom in and out!!

2 x to Garmin!!

...ken...

Funny, I had no interest in that approach with MapSource whatsoever. Whatever floats your boat I guess.

Terry

I can understand why someone with Streets&Trips experience would not have any great interest in the feature. The way they've implemented it sucks. But the way Garmin implemented it in Mapsource makes it really handy if you need to zoom tight to see something, zoom back out so it's easy to pan a large distance quickly and then zoom back in on the new spot. The spot you want to zoom to stays put under the mouse cursor as you zoom back in.

In Streets&Trips it's nearly a useless feature because the intended zoom location will squirt right off the screen in some unpredicable direction as soon as you start to zoom in.

Of course if you never have the need to do that sort of thing, it doesn't matter whether the feature is implemented well or poorly.

...ken...

I have finally experimented with a mouse, with a scroll wheel, on Streets & Trips 2010 and have found that it zooms in and out centered to the point that has been selected with a double-click.

So, now I am really confused: how is this different from what OP is requesting?

I guess that sort of works. It works fine if you only need to zoom in a very small number of scroll clicks. If you need to zoom in a lot, the point you are interested in will still slide off the screen in some unpredictable direction. Then you either need to pan to drag it back from wherever it went. Or you need to scroll/zoom back out, double-click on the desired point again and then scroll/zoom back in.

(Let me clarify .. Sometimes you need to zoom more than you can turn the scroll wheel in one spin. If you have to stop the scroll/zoom to move your finger and take another spin at it, you have to remember to double-click again before the next scroll or the desired point will take off on you.)

So, yes, it will solve the original poster's requirement if they don't have a memory as bad as mine and can remember to double-click before every scroll. I never do.

...ken...

Hmmm, I don't have that problem, Ken. The double-click centers the map on the cursor point and then I can zoom in and out without displacing the map focus.

I'll have to go along with SpadesFlush on this one. A feature I'd never used but seems to work as described when the GPS is off. The double click displaces the cursor because the point of interest moves to the center of the screen but the scroll works fine regardless of interruption.

Terry

Perhaps you just aren't zooming for enough.

I still have the default template. When I open Streets&Trips 2010 it opens to a picture of North America that is mostly America and a thin strip of Canada across the top. There's just enough of Canada to see Regina in the centre top of the screen.

If I double-click on Regina and start to scroll, Regina pops to the middle of the screen and stays there until you can start to see that it's a city rather than a dot. E.g. you can see a couple of major freeways but no street detail. As soon as I get that far (the zoom slider on the toolbar is just about exactly in the middle) and try to scroll in to get street detail, Regina starts to slide off the screen. By the time street detail starts to appear (slider in toolbar is about 3/4), the city is almost entirely off the screen.

But if I double-click on Regina again, when the toolbar slider shows about half, the city will stay put as I scroll/zoom to get street detail.

...ken...

Again, Ken, hmmm, that's odd.

First of all, my default map goes all the way up to north of Edmonton. It is a 1920x1200 resolution.

Second, if I double-click on Regina (as you did), I can wheel-scroll-zoom down to the 1200 block of Angus Street without any hitches. I can then zoom all the way out (to the wrap-around view) and back multiple times.

The problem is with the map zoomed out all the way, you have no idea what you are picking as the spot to zoom in on.

Terry

SpadesFlush, I'm running 1680x1050 and I have four lines of menu and toolbars at the top. Mine stops somewhere near Red Deer.

Terry, I think you're right. When it's zoomed out that far it's nearly impossible to hit that tiny dot in the middle or even be sure you hit it at all. So part way through the zoom you have to double-click again to make a more accurate selection.

...ken...

This is exactly why zoom-on-cursor-location is so useful. As you're zooming in, your hand is already on the mouse, so you're controlling it without even realizing it by moving the mouse a pixel or two in any direction. Because the adjustment is so small, it feels totally natural.

Of course, the other problem is that Streets & Trips abruptly "jumps" the zoom level instead of doing an animation. But this is harder to fix without replacing the 1997-era graphics engine.

Hi Tao,

Yes, the method used by Garmin and Google Earth feel totally natural and so simple to control.

I don't mind the jumping between zoom levels in Streets. It's redraw of details at each new zoom level is noticably quicker than Garmin's Mapsource because of the lack of "animation". I just wish it would keep jumping to the cursor location instead of where I clicked to get the whole thing started. But I guess I've beat that one to death...

...ken...

I want to thank you for telling about the Left Click and draw a box for zoom. I have been a Streets and Trips user since around 1997. The draw box has been the standard for most graphical programs like CAD and Document Management for years and was one of the desired features of S&T for years. I thought MS removed it and was really upset. Unlike the other user, I find the Draw and zoom considerably easier than any of the other options. The reason Google maps doesn't do it is because it can't. It is an internet application with limitation associated with internet applications.

Note that if you go to help, only the scroll wheel is discussed.

I would like to see an easy zoom out feature like “Ctrl double click” or “double right click”.

No, that's not why it doesn't exist in Google Maps. Internet apps have a lot of limitations, but this is not one of them. They didn't put it in, but that doesn't mean they can't put it in. (Distance measuring, for example, is one of the most useful tools in Streets & Trips. It's not in Google Maps, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. They just don't implement it. It's there in Microsoft Bing Maps.)

The help topic is called "Zoom in on a specific area," and it tells you to drag with the right mouse button. But as we all know, practically nobody reads the help -- other times, as in your case, some people read the help but can't find the page. The lack of feedback in the UI is what's preventing people from discovering this feature.

Try shift+double click to zoom out. It works in S&T 2010 - I can't remember if it was in 2009 also.