Since the arrival of the ARM-based Mac (M1… M3…) and the system macOS 11 Big Sur, Weather4D Routing & Navigation runs natively on our favorite computers (¹). But this happy event was not going to, since then, without a few small restrictions. The most annoying one for users was, to date, loss of distance calculation. This is done on touch devices by a two-finger long press, there was no function to translate this gesture on Mac. The mouse has only one pointer, not two !
With the publication of macOS 14 Sonoma, what was my surprise, thanks to an informed user, discover the presence of a new alternative function, without any lines of code being added by the developer…
Once opened, the app displays the classic menu bar that covers all Apple apps. It includes, by pulling the "Weather4D" drop-down menu, a "Settings" sub-menu that I had totally missed. There is an "Alternatives to Pressures" option which, once activated, will solve our concern.
"Alternatives to Pressures" option
This option allows you to, by maintaining the Alt/Option key of the keyboard, and simultaneously making a two-finger long press on the TrackPad, generate the famous distance vector commonly used on iPad/iPhone.
This action first displays two white circles on the screen, and after a few tenths of a second of pressing, the distance vector is displayed. All you have to do is move the ends with the mouse or the TrackPad. As with mobile devices, clicking on the distance label clears the vector.
Formidable ! But…
As is sometimes the case with medical remedies, unwanted side effects may be encountered. Unfortunately, this "Alternatives to pressure" option is no exception. We discovered that it blocked the sorting of items in list windows : Routes, Location, Instruments (Instrument Bar). Moving items with the ≡ icon does not work. It's not impossible that there may be other inconveniences that become apparent with use. To resolve this issue, you need to disable the option, carry out sorting, such as the order of the data labels in the instrument bar, and then re-enable the option once the operation is done. Warning : The application must be relaunched after each change to this option, otherwise the application will freeze.
Still, this feature should make more than one user happy !
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(¹) Weather4D with Mac M1
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Thanks to the user who gave you this "option" !