The Essentials of Tactile 3D ============================ Controls ======== Move mouse up/down -> Pitch up/down. Move mouse left/right -> Rotate left/right. Shift-Mouse up/down/left/right -> Directional strafe. Mouse wheel forward/backward -> Move forward/backward. Ctrl-Mouse wheel forward/backward -> Move forward/backward faster. Mouse wheel forward/backward while down -> Move forward to object / move backward to current container entrance. Left mouse button single click -> Select object / Press button / Deselect all if not pointing to anything. Left mouse button double click -> Open file / Enter directory / Rotate sort corner mode. Right mouse button -> Context sensitive menu. Wheel double click (middle mouse button) -> Toggle rotation mode. Ctrl-Left mouse button click -> Select multiple. Space bar -> Open Windows explorer or My Computer at current location. Enter -> Move to selected or hovering object (selected has precedence). Backspace -> Move up a directory. Backslash '\' -> Toggle rotation mode. Esc -> Escape from current operation. In order, escapes from rename, quick-select mode, grabbed or copied objects, fullscreen, and maximized. W -> Forwards. A -> Strafe left. D -> Strafe right. S -> Backwards. P -> Lose focus and enter sleep mode. Not exactly "Pause", but close enough. Ctrl-A -> Select all. Alt-'A' to Alt-'Z' -> Select objects beginning with that letter. Alt-'0' -> Select all objects that do not start with a letter. Hold down '1' to '9' -> Associates current location with that number. '1' to '9' -> Jump to associated location. Home key -> Jump to home/root. Delete key -> Delete selected object(s). Shift-Delete -> Deletes objects without placing them in the recycle bin. Works in conjunction with the delete key as well as any delete buttons. Up/Down arrows -> Strafe up/down. Left/Right arrows -> Rotate left/right. Alt-F4 -> Exit. Alt-Enter -> Toggle fullscreen mode. F1 -> Help / Opens this readme. F5 -> Resync with current directory. < or > (no shift) -> Previous/Next one. Cycles sorted objects. < or > (shift) -> Previous/Next five. Cycles sorted objects. < or > (ctrl) -> Reset sort order. Ctrl-1 to Ctrl-6 -> Sort into shape (cube, lines, stadium, double-helix, cylinder, pyramid). Ctrl-N -> Sort by Name. Ctrl-D -> Sort by Date. Ctrl-E -> Sort by Extension (Type). Ctrl-S -> Sort by Size. Ctrl-F -> Sort in Forward (Ascending) direction. Ctrl-B -> Sort in Backward (Descending) direction. Ctrl-T -> Sort Tight packing (no gaps). Ctrl-L -> Sort Loose packing (gaps). Ctrl-R -> Sort Reset (sort all objects). Ctrl-X -> Cut/Grab files so you can move and drop them elsewhere. Ctrl-C -> Copy files so you can move and drop them elsewhere. Ctrl-V -> Paste/Drop files at current position. Ctrl-Q -> Paste/Drop All. Ctrl-O -> Open all selected files. Numeric Key Pad Enter -> Move to selected object. Zero/Dot/Plus -> Toggle rotation mode. 4 6 8 2 -> Directional Strafe. 7 9 1 3 -> Move to corresponding sort corner. 5 -> Reorient to face forwards. Slash '/' and Tab Key -> Toggle quick select mode. In quick select mode, all letter, number, and arrow keys are used for text entry. Minimum System Requirements =========================== Windows XP, Windows 2000, or better. Pentium III or AMD Athlon XP or better. (The SSE instructions are required) OpenGL 1.4 Mouse with wheel strongly advised. Tactile feedback mouse. (OPTIONAL) Decent graphics card (Minimum GeForce2, 32Megs) A sense of adventure Notes ===== Read-only files have a red (emissive) tint to them. Hidden files and directories are displayed with see-throughness if viewing of hidden files is turned on in the options. Rotation rate of files is based on last modification time. A visited file will rotate in the opposite direction. Tactile is smart about resizing itself if you change screen resolutions (while running or not). If you have a file or drive selected and press space, the same file or drive will be selected in the launched explorer window. You can grab (ctrl-x) or copy (ctrl-c) more than one file/folder at a time by having multiple selected. You can also hold up to 6 groups of one or more files/folders at one time. The numbers 1-9 (Jump buttons) work like the radio station buttons in a car. Hold to set station/location. You'll hear a sound when it has been set. Press quickly to go to the set location. Ctrl-A is very handy to quickly orient all objects so they face you since any selected objects always face the user. If you have an especially fast graphics card and or processor, play with some of the settings in the options page. Turn on Graphics->Text->Display Stats so you can see the framerate. Try increasing the number of objects that can be displayed at once and maybe 4x antialiasing. Double clicking a sort corner will make it go into the next sort mode. Double clicking the corresponding back sort corner also accomplishes this. For example, to go to the next sort shape, double-click either the front or back lower-left sort corner. Tactile will remember how things are sorted and how files are positioned even for CD/DVD ROM disks, removable USB devices, network disks, and floppies (do people still know what these are?). The next time you put in that particular disc, the contents should be arranged in the same way you left them. When you grab or copy files nothing on the filesystem changes until you drop them somewhere. If you want to escape from all your grabs and copies and be left with a clean cursor, just hit escape. Everything will be where it was before you did any grabbing or copying. Dropping stuff inside a sort box will sort it. You can tell if your inside by looking at the item holder. The holder is visible only when the cursor is holding files or containers. It will change colour if you enter the sort box. White means you're inside. You can tell the size of a file by listening to the pitch of the collision sound when you bump into it. If you have a fast machine and want high quality thumbnails on your objects, set the Performance Options to 'High Quality Thumbnails'. It will take longer to generate the first time you visit a new image file, but once it's cached it will be as fast as ever. You can turn of the delete warning in the options under General->Text (strange place for it, yes). But it is hard to justify it being off by default. Tactile 3D places a small hidden tactile.tdb file in directories you visit on your hard drive. This file contains the sort parameters, positions of objects, etc for the directory it is in. Unfortunately most filesystems do not support drive, directory, and file meta-data, so this method is the most resilient. Directories moved or copied when tactile is not running will have their tactile.tdb file moved or copied as well. The next time Tactile 3D is opened, all sort parameters and custom positions will be retained. However, in some cases, having a generated hidden file may not be acceptable. Generation of these files may be turned off from the Options. Select General->Advanced and uncheck "Use in-place database files". When off, all database entried are stored in a single directory where Tactile 3D was installed. Per-directory settings will be correspondingly less resilient when this is off. Credits ======= Development =========== Tristan Grimmer (Project Lead) Jean-Luc Duprat (Development) Casey O'Brien (Modeling) D.G. (Concept Art) Beta Testing ============ Adam Bullied Timmy Lajaunie Daneel Electrik Jesus Joe Steinhardt Thomas Werne Dov Toren Robert "Stonefield" M. Mark Dekker Aaron Krause Victor "Don't Touch The Hair" Hooi AMOBIUS-TEK Robin Paijmans Timo Schinkel Thanks ====== OpenGL www.opengl.org OpenAL www.openal.org See the OpenALReadme.txt Creative Labs Inc. For supporting OpenAL FlySpray flyspray.rocks.cc For a great web-based issue tracking system. NullSoft For WinAmp/ShoutCast and delivering years of musical sustenence. For NSIS, the best Windows script-based installer. Immersion Corp. For their tactile feedback API. FreeType For the freetype2 font rendering library. Used at tool time. GlyphKeeper For a simple interface to FreeType. Ray and Rina Larabie www.larabiefonts.com For wonderful fonts including "Zero Three". Jon Festinger For valuable legal advice and help with licencing and agreements. Jeff Johnston For invaluable feedback. Erik B. Dam \ Martin Koch ) For their paper: "Quaternions, Interpolation and Animation" Martin Lillholm / Flash4All www.flash4all.de For some good quality sound effects. FlashKit www.flashkit.com For looping sfx. Quiet Multimedia www.quietmultimedia.com For sfx. Davide Pizzolato www.xdp.it For the CxImage image library. John-Philip Johansson thumbview.sourceforge.net For a tga thumbnail viewer. Useful during development. Random.org For delivering free random numbers to the masses.