How to use trackpad for Resolve - especially panning?

I'm switching from a Windows desktop PC to a MacBook Pro. I am also trying to do everything with the bulit-in trackpad and so far I was fine (some of the gestures I found actually quite useful, few of them are actually better than using a mouse) but I wasn't able to find a solution how to pan around in the viewer when I 'zoomed in' on the image. Do you have any suggestions?

2 fingers

2 fingers

I can only zoom in/out by using two fingers and moving up/down.

Which Viewer window are you navigating?
On my Mac laptop, it's [Opt] + [2 fingers] to zoom ... and [2 fingers] (unmodified) to pan ... this is the behaviour in Edit & Color. In the Fusion Page, you can set the preferred behaviour in the Fusion menu > Fusion Settings window > User Interface panel.

Maybe in this case I wasn't clear. I am talking about the image/preview, not the timeline - the part highlighted in red on the attached image.

Yep. 2 fingers to pan around the viewer... or are you maybe taking about reframing a zoomed image within the canvas frame? In which case you'd want to click and drag (with the Transform Overlay controls active).

Try this: Command + Option and two fingers to move an image up / down - Command + Shift and two fingers to move an image right / left.

Yep. 2 fingers to pan around the viewer... or are you maybe taking about reframing a zoomed image within the canvas frame? In which case you'd want to click and drag (with the Transform Overlay controls active).

Interesting... it's just zooming in/out rather than panning for me. The transform overlay is a different case and I don't have problems with that, this one is more of a challenge of not having a middle mouse button, I guess.

Try this: Command + Option and two fingers to move an image up / down - Command + Shift and two fingers to move an image right / left.

It does nothing for me.

Yep. 2 fingers to pan around the viewer... or are you maybe taking about reframing a zoomed image within the canvas frame? In which case you'd want to click and drag (with the Transform Overlay controls active).

Interesting... it's just zooming in/out rather than panning for me. The transform overlay is a different case and I don't have problems with that, this one is more of a challenge of not having a middle mouse button, I guess.

I've seen this on my MacBook. Sometimes it pans for sometimes Resolve zooms with the two-fingers. Restarting Resolve resets it back to panning. I'm not sure why this happens and I'm not a MacOS expert so I purchased an inexpensive plugin to let me mimic the middle mouse button so that I could click and drag to pan the image. Middle-mouse button is also useful for other operations, of course.

Yep. 2 fingers to pan around the viewer... or are you maybe taking about reframing a zoomed image within the canvas frame? In which case you'd want to click and drag (with the Transform Overlay controls active).

Interesting... it's just zooming in/out rather than panning for me. The transform overlay is a different case and I don't have problems with that, this one is more of a challenge of not having a middle mouse button, I guess.

I've seen this on my MacBook. Sometimes it pans for sometimes Resolve zooms with the two-fingers. Restarting Resolve resets it back to panning. I'm not sure why this happens and I'm not a MacOS expert so I purchased an inexpensive plugin to let me mimic the middle mouse button so that I could click and drag to pan the image. Middle-mouse button is also useful for other operations, of course.

After restarting everything, now the panning works but the zoom is glitchy. So far I could zoom in/out by sliding down/up with 2 fingers, now it's not happening. Pinch zoom basically doesn't work at all and sometimes (seemingly randomly) while panning around, it zooms in to 999%.
I called Blackmagic about this and the only suggestion was to raise a request to the development team, to have settings for gestures within Resolve. So as far as I know he raised this. This would be the best actually, I'm curious if they are going to do anything and if yes, when.

Hold the OPT key when 2-finger dragging for zoom. This is the same as OPT + middle scroll wheel on a mouse.

Hold the OPT key when 2-finger dragging for zoom. This is the same as OPT + middle scroll wheel on a mouse.

Actually it works now. Basically the same as on the timeline. Hmmm... Is it possible the behaviour I experienced is just a bug?

Could this mystery ever be solved? Because it keeps happening to me (Macbook Air M1, Resolve 18.5). It seems to be super random.

Usually I can zoom using two fingers, move up and down while holding CMD and move left right holding CMD + Shift.
But once in a while, I can pan around using just two fingers. Other times it will just zoom but it stutters.

EDIT: and just now it switched from only zooming to panning + uncontrolled zooming. The only thing I did was change to Safari and back again

The MacBook trackpad is completely unusable with Resolve - it appears to be random in its behaviour and there is no discernible pattern to make it workable -a recipe for insanity. I use an Apple Magic Mouse which is totally consistent in behaviour- zoom in and out, panning, tilting all work perfectly with flicking, command and shift keys.

I've been having this issue on Mac since I started on Resolve 12.5 and have never managed to reframe a zoomed image left and right, only up and down, until today!

It didn't work on v17, but works on v18.1.4 - I have no idea what changed. I'm on OSX 12.4 Monterey on a 2020 intel-based MBP.

I did have a thought about why sometimes it suddenly zooms uncontrollably. When you scroll with two fingers (for example on this webpage) if you only scroll a little bit then when you stop moving your fingers then the window stops scrolling immediately, but if you scroll a little more energetically, when you stop scrolling the window will keep moving like it has momentum. I'm pretty sure this is the mechanism that zooms in to 999%, so if you want to avoid that then just scroll more gently.

It would be great if BM could fix this bug though - it's a long-running one and sure makes it difficult to do some specific things.

+1!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I use a PC mouse, an ergonomic model, even on the road with my Apple laptop for DR.
The trackpad is no joy with DR and I never had a problem with the mouse.

BMD should fix the trackpad issues, though.

when you stop scrolling the window will keep moving like it has momentum. I'm pretty sure this is the mechanism that zooms in to 999%, so if you want to avoid that then just scroll more gently.

Yes but even then it can happen.

It's not the end of the world but strange that it hasn't been fixed in all these years. Going forward, I would expect more and more people ('content creators') to use Resolve on Macbooks without mouse ect and that zoom/pan bug can be really frustrating.

Strange enough, it works pretty well on iPad.

First time I noticed this behavior was in 2017. If I need Resolve for a project other than just some tweaks or trims I use a trackball. The trackpad is also useless under Windows so I'm mostly resigned at this point.

It is a little crazy that it hasn't been addressed. What's truly irksome is that the Fusion page works fine, it's just Color and Edit that seem to be affected. Also irksome is that the zoom modifier is alt on some tabs and cmd on others. Seriously, pick one, this is low hanging fruit.

Good Luck

Also irksome is that the zoom modifier is alt on some tabs and cmd on others.

The Fusion default (Alt) is to maintain compatibility with the standalone Fusion app. You can remap it to the Resolve default (Cmd) in the Fusion menu > Fusion Settings >> User Interface >> Touch Scrolling and Mouse Wheel options.

That wasn't the point but thank you for the suggestion.

Good Luck

Also irksome is that the zoom modifier is alt on some tabs and cmd on others. Seriously, pick one, this is low hanging fruit.

Good Luck

Haha, yes, The Resolve team has superpowers but labeling is not one of them.

Just like when right click on a node, "Node Label" is on top of the second paragraph, but when right click on a still in the gallery it's called "Change Label" and is on the bottom of the second paragraph.

Pick the same location and start with "Label", "Label Node", "Label Name". I'm using both a lot and still get confused.

Or the lowest hanging fruit of all, the numbers of Multicam in Resolve being upside down vs. the numbers on the Speed Editor. I mean...

I HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION:

The ability to pan with a mouse (by middle clicking the mouse wheel and then moving the mouse) can be emulated with the trackpad. If you download an app like middleclick, it allows you to use to set fn + click as middle mouse. You can then pan around an image just by holding the function key while clicking and dragging.

Great workaround! I sure hope BMD fixes this just the same. It's sure to confuse/annoy anyone who comes to the program.

On my Resolve version 18.6, if I hold Option-command keys, it lets me pan up and down. If I hold Command-Shift keys, it lets me pan side to side. Hope this helps.