Database Users

multitouch?

How complicated is it to get multitouch going on the Magic? I have the Google Ion developer version, so I'm pretty sure it's already firmware unlocked to install custom builds.
Also, does the multitouch driver enable multitouch abilities in everything, or only for programs written specifically for it? What I mean is, if I write a game in the regular SDK that has two on-screen buttons, will a multitouch user be able to hold down both of them at the same time?

I havent had a android phone since i sold the G1 a few months ago. But if i remember correctly, there is a app out that allows you use multitouch to zoom in/out. But you need to have the phone rooted.

I really don't care about zooming, I'm more interested in whether or not I can write my own app that can sense multiple touch points.

Your opinion on browsing on a tablet (mouseover)

When I got my transformer I immediately felt that browsing on it was a little uncomfortable when compared to the control I have on a desktop computer. I've noticed one poorly executed function was the PC equivalent of a "mouseover" or "hover" function. It made opening hover menus in a browser or controlling a flash video player a bit awkward, although still functional.
I've recently stumbled upon on 2010 article on why a Flash developer believes that flash would not work on the iPad, but many of the points that he makes are very valid given the implementation of flash that we have on our transformers.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/02/20/an-adobe-flash-developer-on-why-the-ipad-cant-use-flash/
I was just wondering if this was something you've all noticed and perhaps if you have your own ideas as to how a mouseover functionality could have been better implemented in android.
Also, I've once tried to bring this up in another topic which ended up getting closed, so let's try to keep that from happening.
Thoughts?

Multitouch. Tap with 2 fingers to "hover".
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

I think that a double tap would be a good solution for something like bringing up flash player controls without pausing the video.
What about scrubbing the video? For instance, with youtube you can use your mouse and move it (without clicking) along the progress bar while being shown the exact time in the video that you are currently pointing at. This obviously makes rewinding and fast forwarding much easier on a computer. I suppose on a tablet you would double tap and then drag your finger, as per this implementation?
EDIT: Wow, I'm sorry I totally misunderstood. You actually mean't using two fingers as opposed to double tapping with one.

LeoBloom. said:
When I got my transformer I immediately felt that browsing on it was a little uncomfortable when compared to the control I have on a desktop computer.
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I'll be brutally honest. You've got what I like to call not-used-to-something-that-is-new syndrome.
I'm sure when the personal computer first came out, people were crying left and right that typing on the computer was uncomfortable compared to the typewriter. In fact, if you go back long enough, I'm sure people were whining left and right that the page turning book format was uncomfortable to read compared to the scrolls. Heck, why stop there? I'm sure writing with ink was really awkward and uncomfortable to those who were used to the chisel and hammer.
The fact of the matter is every time a new technology came up, there would undoubtedly be resistance to the change. I have no doubt that there were arguments against Gutenberg's invention (the printing press).
I say the advantages of the tablet far outweighs the disadvantages. And please don't start arguing that the tablet could never replace your pc. No one is making such claim.

That was unnecessary.
The question here is how to make the "hover" functionality more intuitive.

i think a multitouch or swipe gesture would be the best option.
for example with the mousover menus, if u could quickly swipe across said menu to have it show the options.
not sure if its viable but who knows
or even a double tap. tap once to open the menu, tap again to select an entry or go to the main link

The problem is that a multitouch would register as a zoom function, not a hover function.. Computer analyses aren't good enough to tell the difference between two points of contact with relatively stable distance between them vs two points of contact moving away (because it's sensitive right now..?).

im using an external mouse really like it looking forward to ics for no more keyboard lag
i hope at least
also i would like a scrolling in facebook chat and pictures so you can see comments
p.s typing from it right now

I am using Logitech bluetooth keyboard with touchpad [designed for PS3]. For now it's the best solution for me.

o1d8oy said:
I am using Logitech bluetooth keyboard with touchpad [designed for PS3]. For now it's the best solution for me.
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are you havin keyboard lag?
i mean if like on facebook it doesnt respon as fast a computer
just checkin if the keyboard is problem or honeycomb

All I have to complain about is XKCD in Google Reader (app), and there's probably an app or greasemonkey script for this already.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

Flash the KRAKD Rom no more keyboard lag
DESIRE HD using ER3BUS ASUS TRANSFORMER on KRAKD

You will find that as more web developers and designers switch to HTML5 and CSS3 (which the stock android browser already supports btw) it will be much more of an experience like a desktop computer. In fact, hover effects implementing CSS3 currently support mouseovers on our transformer. the hover transitions work pretty dang well actually
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium

Spidey01 said:
All I have to complain about is XKCD in Google Reader (app), and there's probably an app or greasemonkey script for this already.
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Yep: https://market.android.com/details?...1bGwsMSwxLDEsIm5ldC5ieXR0ZW4ueGtjZHZpZXdlciJd
Click the title of the item in google reader and it opens in xkcd viewer, and there you can click on the cartoon to get the hover-over.

Yeah its clearly not good, I also frequently miss a keyboard with cursor keys to move around in an input field.

daners85glacier said:
You will find that as more web developers and designers switch to HTML5 and CSS3 (which the stock android browser already supports btw) it will be much more of an experience like a desktop computer. In fact, hover effects implementing CSS3 currently support mouseovers on our transformer. the hover transitions work pretty dang well actually
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
How exactly is the "hover" functionality implemented on the transformer with HTML5 and CSS3, in terms of how the user is able to call on the function?

Yeah, I'm trying to encourage someone who's a developer on a web software I use quite often to add the clickhover property to the default theme instead of pure hover. Not only does that enhance browsing on tablets, but it also supports a11y.

yes, mouse-over or the lack of it is a real pain in the ***. I use Opera Mobile and browsing websites that use mouse-over navigation without the dock is really annoying.
is there a fix/workaround/touch-combination to get the mouse-over effect working?

The problem is that a multitouch would register as a zoom function, not a hover function.. Computer analyses aren't good enough to tell the difference between two points of contact with relatively stable distance between them vs two points of contact moving away (because it's sensitive right now..?).
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This is false. There's nothing magical going on here, a touch UI is only as good as how it's programmed.
Two points of contact with stable distance CAN be discerned from two points moving away. For example a naive method to do this would be to store the last N number of touched coordinates per some time slice in the form of a recency list and then perform some minor arithmetic operations on them to determine the delta and make a reasonable assumption as to whether movement is occurring. It might be harder to discern movements where the quantity is similar to each other but where one quantity is essentially zero movement and the other is any movement, this is not so difficult to do.

d3l1 said:
yes, mouse-over or the lack of it is a real pain in the ***. I use Opera Mobile and browsing websites that use mouse-over navigation without the dock is really annoying.
is there a fix/workaround/touch-combination to get the mouse-over effect working?
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Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=21270831&postcount=30
refer to point number 3

[Q] Multitouch drum apps...

Just a simple question..
I've seen the iPad2 working with Drum Meister or something. Damn, it plays flawlessly, I can play like a real drum set, real amazing.
So I have this Atrix. Gingerbread 2.3.6 and with a modified touch file for 4 simultaneous touch detection. Not really sure if that's the culprit, as on the multitouch keyboard it works normally at my fast typing (and on the touch visualizer program), but when I play the drums on any of my drum apps (DroiDrum, Drum Set and DrumKit), it seems like the multitouch feature is failing.
I can do two simultaneous moves, even four instruments at once, but i cant play two or more instruments, like this video
It skips some touches, some instruments just refuse to play while I'm touching another one (like if I press and hold one), but if I hit them together, they play together.
Is that a bad app programming, or a android/touch limitation/issue?

If i had to guess, i'd say it's probably more along the lines of app programming more than it is a limitation with multi-touch on Android devices. It could also be having the mod to enable more touches to be recognized. I'm sure it helps to have that mod in some scenario's... but i'm pretty sure apps aren't really designed around the idea of having more than two or three touch inputs at once recognized, simply because of screen real estate. That's probably the main reason why devices like the iPad, or even the Motorola XyBoard or Xoom support more than two or three finger multi-touch.

I too am a lover of bangin on my black classic maple Ludwig set and gotta say i have searched and searched but no android app competes with the one on ios....

Try the reaindropfix. our beloved atrix go crazy if u continue to press screen for more then 15 sec.
search for it.

xateeq said:
Try the reaindropfix. our beloved atrix go crazy if u continue to press screen for more then 15 sec.
search for it.
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Oh god, at first sight it looks like that's the problem! Gonna test it and in a few minutes I'll be back
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Nope, but it'll sure fix a bug I was experiencing when playing multitouch games

Cornerstone? Multi Window goodness.

http://www.onskreen.com/cornerstone/
would be fantastic to have this capability on the Nexus 10. but nobody ever seems to work with it. any particular reason why?

>http://www.onskreen.com/cornerstone
>but nobody ever seems to work with it. any particular reason why?
No interest. Probably why it went open-source (it wasn't originally). My guess is that pushing bits for 3 concurrent apps would require more than a simple launcher swap, ie low-level optimization, and the OnSkreen peeps weren't up to it. Something like this would need to be done by Google.
The reason for lack of interest is obvious. Up till recently, Android's focus has been on phones, and muti-windowing is irrelevant on those. Even now, phone is Android's primary focus given its market size. The tablet's unique traits are still mainly left unexplored. Witness that multi-user acct--an arguably essential feature--was implemented only now in the latest 4.2 release.
IMO, the 3-pane fixed layout looks clunky (and ugly, but aesthetics can change). The need to configure each panel is clumsy as well, as opposed to, say, Win8's split-window scheme where one can config each window on-the-fly. Win8 does have the advantage of edge-swiping, which gives it an extra layer of configurability.
The underlying weakness of both this and Win8's fixed dual-windows layout is the Achilles' heel of touch UI (relative to mouse UI)--the lack of a precise pointer that would allow easy manipulation of multiple, possibly overlapping windows. Pen input is an option, but is likely not the answer.
The issue is resolvable, and for mobile OS'es to take the next step up from phone displays to larger form-factors, it will need to be resolved. Take this and Win8's split-screen as the first baby steps.

e.mote said:
>http://www.onskreen.com/cornerstone
>but nobody ever seems to work with it. any particular reason why?
No interest. Probably why it went open-source (it wasn't originally). My guess is that pushing bits for 3 concurrent apps would require more than a simple launcher swap, ie low-level optimization, and the OnSkreen peeps weren't up to it. Something like this would need to be done by Google.
The reason for lack of interest is obvious. Up till recently, Android's focus has been on phones, and muti-windowing is irrelevant on those. Even now, phone is Android's primary focus given its market size. The tablet's unique traits are still mainly left unexplored. Witness that multi-user acct--an arguably essential feature--was implemented only now in the latest 4.2 release.
IMO, the 3-pane fixed layout looks clunky (and ugly, but aesthetics can change). The need to configure each panel is clumsy as well, as opposed to, say, Win8's split-window scheme where one can config each window on-the-fly. Win8 does have the advantage of edge-swiping, which gives it an extra layer of configurability.
The underlying weakness of both this and Win8's fixed dual-windows layout is the Achilles' heel of touch UI (relative to mouse UI)--the lack of a precise pointer that would allow easy manipulation of multiple, possibly overlapping windows. Pen input is an option, but is likely not the answer.
The issue is resolvable, and for mobile OS'es to take the next step up from phone displays to larger form-factors, it will need to be resolved. Take this and Win8's split-screen as the first baby steps.
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It doesnt help that when Cyanogenmod was considering baking Cornerstone into their builds, Google threatened to blacklist their roms from accessing the market/Google Play if they didnt change their mind due to potential compatibility issues... since then its seemed nobody wanted to risk touching it. Too bad, while I agree three panes were clunky, two panes like WinRT does could have been quite nice.

>It doesnt help that when Cyanogenmod was considering baking Cornerstone into their builds, Google threatened to blacklist their roms from accessing the market/Google Play if they didnt change their mind due to potential compatibility issues...
Didn't know that, but it makes sense. Fixed layouts like this (and Win8's) rely on specific criteria to work, ie a widescreen aspect in landscape mode. While MS can dictate the form-factor for Win devices, Android devices come in varying shapes, and fixed layouts are doomed to fail.
For multi-windowing to work, layout needs to be adjustable, as well as dynamically adjusts to both portrait and landscape orientations. Secondly, multi-window needs to be supported by all apps, not just some (like in Samsung's implementation). This means it needs to be in the OS, not an add-on.
Samsung's multi-window scheme is a more elaborate version, and is probably a precursor of what we'll see in Android. Note however that the Galaxy Note 10.1 in this example has pen input support, which obviates the Fat Finger syndrome. A platform-wide scheme will need to accommodate "imprecise" adjustments, which IMO will likely mean a snap-to-grid windowing system.
Edit: I added video for the 5.5" Galaxy Note 2 below. Even though the Note 2 supports S-Pen, apparently the cascading/adjustable window portion was dropped, and only the adjustable dual-window remains.
This makes sense for screen sizes 7" or smaller, and would be an improvement over Metro's current scheme. But the missing piece is for larger sizes WITHOUT the precision (and fiddliness) of pen input. This matters especially when tablets gain the use of external displays via Miracast. Again, my opinion is that cascading/overlapping windowing is still doable for Sausage Styluses, rather than just tiled, but snap-to-grid would be needed.

really unsatisfying touchscreen

i have seen a lot of threads about the touchscreen being unresponsive and have pretty much tried everything from disabling currents sync to editing the build.prop (cant remember exactly what the settings were but they were supposed to increase touchscreen responsiveness)
i have tried stock rom, cm10.1, smooth rom etc but using the touchscreen is still a pretty crappy experience
basically, the inertia of swiping up and down is near non existent. it takes me a million swipes just to get back to the top of a webpage.
its not as bad in non web browser apps such as reddit sync or facebook but its still there
ive tried every browser known to man (chrome is nearly unusable, firefox beta is the best, dolphin is ok) and theyre all pretty bad, my galaxy s1 is better than this.
is it possibly a bad unit or is this just how the nexus 7 is?

Without seeing what you are observing, it is hard to know if there is a problem with your tablet, or if you have unreasonable expectations. (You didn't *quantify* what you meant.)
This page:
https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/
is 2203 lines long, but I can scroll the length of the page in either the AOSP browser or Chrome from top to bottom with three FULL swipes. (Portrait orientation, CM10.1 Nightly ROM, no tweaks afaik)
Hope that helps you figure out if there is a problem with your unit.

It's just how it is. It's very sensitive to touch, so when you scroll down (with your thumb as if you were on the phone), sometimes it picks up the last drag before lifting your thumb to reposition as a stop. And they can't say, "Oh, it's because Nexus 7 is bigger than your phone! So you have to swipe a further distance!" because my 7" Galaxy tablet and even the HP Touchpad (10") hacked with Android has better touch experience and scrolls nicely with smooth inertia to the bottom or top of the page depending on how fast you swipe.
Everyone swipes differently, and I think those who swipe with our thumbs at an angle are the ones that are really noticing this. So yeah, Nexus 7 touchscreen sucks for people like us. You can see many threads about this if you search "nexus 7 inertia" or "nexus 7 scrolling" etc. It is quite crappy but I've become used to it some. Looking around for something better, though.