Is Hammer crazy or is it me?
I have a button on a wall, so it's vertical, rather than horizontal. When I press the button, it moves out (i.e. towards me). No worries, right? I change the Move Direction from "0 0 90" to "0 0 -90", but the button still moves out instead of in!
I've re-created it many times but it still happens. Even more maddening, when I turn the button 90 degrees, or lay it on the floor, it works! 90 moves down, -90 moves up (or vice versa).
I've attached the map in case anyone cares to save me from going crazy...
Thanks.
The two buttons that don't behave correctly are the two closest the player when you load this map. There is a "help" decal on the floor to indicate the two problematic buttons.
The other buttons in the room are there to show that the buttons work at different angles and orientations.
So my question is, why does it happen that when the buttons are vertical and oriented the way they are, the func_door always comes out towards the player, but at every other angle and orientation it works correctly?
It could be some small thing or setting I've done or overlooked, but I doubt it so I was looking for a sanity check, or wondering if someone else had come across this problem.
The third axis seems to have no effect with regards to buttons, so both your buttons were being treated as oriented to 0 0 0 (east in the overhead view).
Wow, then I totally don't understand Pitch/Yaw/Roll works... I understand NocturnalGhost's explanation that the Roll didn't affect the buttons and therefore they both defaulted to the equivalent of "0 0 0". But I don't get why "0 0 0" goes one way for the button and "0 180 0" goes the other way.
Well, they're 180 degrees different, I get that. But I don't understand how you're supposed to figure out to use the second number in this case and how you know which ways 0 and 180 correspond to.
I don't suppose someone cares to explain to a newbie...? 
This circle is used to set the direction quicker but only allows to set the movement on the XY plane. You can also use an angle that combines movement on the X and the Y axis, like 39? (to the right and to the top), 217? or 347?. If you want something to move along the Z axis, you should use the Pitch Yaw Roll field or the drop down menu just besides the circle, where you can set "Up" or "Down".
See: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Yaw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_coordinate_system