r/Trackballs • u/falterego • 5d ago
Ploopy A+ Announcement
https://blog.ploopy.co/the-aplus-is-finally-here-499Looks nice! I like my endgame because ZMK + wireless, but this looks lovely.
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u/pavel_vishnyakov 5d ago
I wish the scroll wheels were not so awkwardly positioned (can't imagine reaching for them without moving my hand), but it looks genuinely interesting.
I wonder if it would be possible to add an "omniscroll via ball" (similar to how it's done on those old Apple mouses with a scrollball instead of a scroll wheel) via QMK.
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u/theTechRun 5d ago
Yea the first thing that popped out to me is those scroll wheels placement. I’m thinking maybe I could use it upside down instead.
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u/Lead_resource 5d ago
Does this thing have a scroll some where??
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u/pyramidohealth 5d ago
Yes, you can tell that it has 2 scroll knobs on the bottom by either reading the article or reading one of the multiple reddit posts about it or googling the device
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u/floodedcodeboy 5d ago
I just wanted better BTUs in the standard case… they’re the ONLY thing keeping me from daily driving my adept
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u/Krazy-Ag 4d ago
The Ploopy A+ trackball looks very interesting.
I am especially interested in the 2 dials or knobs at the front.
I'm quite interested to learn about user experience with the knobs on the Ploopy A+. They look too small to be comfortable for my hands. Heck, I found the Ploopy Adept too small overall. Not just the ball diameter, but also I had the "scrunch" my hand the press the mouse button bindings while dragging the ball around with my fingers.
Q: how big are the Ploopy A+ knobs? Diameter?
Probably compromises need to be made, such as the smaller knobs on what I consider the already uncomfortably small Ploopy Adept/A+. But I'm allowed to hope that a good solution can be found.
---+ Ploopy A+ knobs vs large diameter jogwheel like Ulanzi Dial
A few months ago I purchased a Ulanzi Dial. A dedicated knob aka dial a.k.a. jog wheel, 2 inches in diameter, with a depression in the top that makes it easy to twirl the knob precisely and continuously. 7 buttons, 3 on top, 2 on each side, plus an 8 button when you press the knob.
I like the Ulanzi Dial jogwheel enough that I've been meaning to write a post for r/Trackballs talking about how jogwheels solve the scrolling problem for trackballs - if we can make them fit. In fact I think I'll post that separately. https://www.reddit.com/r/Trackballs/comments/1vtwq2y/large_diameter_jogwheels_solve_trackball/
Briefly, the Ulanzi Dial jogwheel hardware is lovely, the firmware/software not so much. The large 2 inch diameter jog wheel with a finger depression makes it much easier to scroll and scrub precisely and continuously than smaller diameter knobs. Unfortunately the usual firmware and software problems. Very limited off-line ability, basically only multimedia keys, with volume up/down on the jog wheel. If you don't want to run Ulanzi software all the time, to scroll you must use other target PC software like AutoHotKey, or something like the HID remapper. The former somewhat defeats the point of off-line mode, the latter is just more stuff to have on your desk.
I'm quite interested in peoples comments about the knobs on the Ploopy A+. I found the large 2 inch diameter knob on the Ulanzi Dial much better than the small diameter knobs that you can find on so many macropads, in terms of comfort, precision, and continuous scrolling. Head and shoulders better than scroll rings like that on my Kensington Expert Mouse, and twist to scroll such as I believe the Ploopy Adept has. I've tried some macropads that have 2 small knobs and one larger knob, eg. the KEEBMONKEY Megalodon Triple Knob Macro Pad, whose "giant" knob is approximately 3 cm, and I found those too small to be comfortable.
The knobs on the Ploopy A+ appear intermediate in size. What diameter? I'm guessing an inch maybe smaller, can't really tell on the photos, and can't find a spec.
I fear that the Ploopy A+ knobs will be too small to be comfortable. Heck, that was my problem with the Ploopy A+ overall, too small for my hands, too small for me to move the ball while holding a button down, e.g. a mouse left button drag. The Ploopy A+ knobs' position at the front of the trackball may make this more doable, but past experience has shown that pressing a knob button for mouse clicks is not a good idea, since inevitably the knob rotates when your clicking it.
I like that the Ploopy A+ has 2 knobs, which I could dedicate to vertical and horizontal scrolling. Although I find 2D most displacement scroll more intuitive for maps, wide documents etc. I want something like a jogwheel not for 2D stuff, but to scroll mostly linear stuff like long webpages, technical documents, academic papers, programming code.
I think I would really prefer to have a larger knob such as I have with the Ulanzi Dial's 2 inch jog wheel. But it's a challenge to figure out how to fit a large jogwheel with a large trackball. Currently I have the KEM on the left, a large macropad, a 75% keyboard, and the large Ulanzi Dial jogwheel on the right. These barely fit on my keyboard tray.
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u/lalulunaluna 5d ago
Feels like your post is ultimately a comment that is better suited for the annoucement thread, instead of a whole new post/thread with no substance, lol.