Comment by duped
If you've ever used pro audio software you come to love rotary over linear sliders. They're simply more flexible and dense when you have many parameters to tweak.
If you've ever used pro audio software you come to love rotary over linear sliders. They're simply more flexible and dense when you have many parameters to tweak.
Yeah but that doesn't have much value as you lose the value indicator.
If you don't need a value indicator, you don't need a circular knob as an affordance. You can have a whatever as it just reacts to your input.
If you do have a value indicator which is "infinite", such as a numerical value display, it's better to make it interactive and place the interaction on top of it, instead of splitting the UI between a value indicator and the input.
A lot of software does this.
You'd have a discontinuity. A knob naturally rotates back to its start. A slider never does and would have to pacman-wrap itself back to the start.
There's no motion you could make that would infinitely increase without a break. A knob you can just move your cursor in a clockwise circle infinitely.
Linear sliders are also finite, while rotary encoders can spin forever.