[Sandbox] Multi-touch functionality
 

I know N900 will never support real multi-touch functionality because of resistive screen. But I would like to add some ideas how to implement it with almost same comfort by one touch at the time.

Multi-touch functionality, like zoom and turn, is the one major reason why iPhone is still better than N900. Why not mimic these actions where it is possible and make N900 more attractive for iPhone users? Let say that one finger touches the screen always before the other. You can perform same actions if the first touch position is fixed. It does not make any difference if you hold your finger on this position or you rise it. So you can raise it before making the other touch. The only trick is how to recognize the first touch.

One possibility is to recognize quick jump. There is a limit how quickly you can move you finger from one position to other. This depends of distance of course. If you use two fingers, both thumbs for example, you could cover this distance much quicker by rising one and touching again with other. So the device or software should detect if this happens. It remembers where the first touch position was and marks it with red dot or something, so you could see that you are in multi-touch mode now. This mode will be ended when you raise the finger again. Of course the time per pixel should be customizable. You can decrease it dependent how trained you are or you can set it zero if you don’t want to use this function at all.

Maemo-browser has a nice feature how to get screen cursor - just drag it from the left outside area of the screen. It disappears if you don’t act quickly by fixing it into manipulation mode. Instead of disappearing it should stay where you leave it as point of the fist touch. It should appear as cross, red dot or as fingerprint or something. It should take arrow appearance only if you do the normal fixing action. Now you can do the second touch actions, like zoom and turn, around it. To remove the point of first touch you have to drag it outside of screen or simply tap it.

There is a red dot in Ovi Map application that shows your location. You can fix it into middle of screen. The red dot will be detached from the middle if you drag the screen. Instead of this it should zoom or turn the map. Heading should be restored after moving significantly. If you need to zoom in or zoom out while moving you simply have to drag horizontally on the same level with red dot. To surf around the map you should detach the red dot manually by taping it or by taping the button second time that attached it.

The point of fist touch should appear in the middle of screen while you press some button on top-side of device. I would prefer the switch-off button because it is just in reach of left forefinger and it is in the middle that is logical for this action. You should immediately operate with the second touch on screen to avoid switch-off or menu appearance after releasing the button. It would be safer to use the camera button but you have to use right forefinger for that and it is in use for some widget (camkeyd)

Brainstorm: http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...functionality/

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Hi lenruhenry

This is your opinion, I think that multitouch could be useful nevertheless iPhone is not better than the N900.


Your ideas can be helpful, but we'll never be able to make the N900 more attractive for iPhone users, they'll never like it.

Multitouch is not the reason for iPhone's success.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

At least they claim it is (beside lightness and style). They say – so what that you got more pixels, we can zoom in instantly.
We might never make them like it but we can take all sensible arguments for them. :D

I didn’t want to say that it should be done because of iPhone users. I think these features would be useful for me.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

In your first post you seem to suggest these features just to attract iPhone users. Never mind :)

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

I mentioned iPhone only because it is good example of multi-touch implementation. We can't ignore it.
(Sorry about my edits)

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

I think I got lost somewhere, but as far as I remember N97 and N900 bouth have resistive screen and if I`m not wrong there are multitouch games for N97 (video)

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

From the comments that is also not real multi-touch but is "simulating" it. My understanding is the way resistive works, if you touch two points on the screen then it will click in the middle. So what they have done is tied a click signal to that point in between a combination of two points that triggers as if it was multi-touch.

You could, theoretically (and some comments confirm), simply single touch in that middle spot and also get both green lights.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Take the Sketch program in your N900 and try what happens if you touch the screen by other finger without rising the first one. You will understand how this game is made of. This is illusion because these four points are fixed points and if you touch area between two of them, both will be activated.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

They say that, but it's just bs to cover the iPhone's deficiencies. The real reason they like it is that it's so simple to use. They'll never like anything more advanced unless Apple first tells them it's easy, and then they'll actually spend some time trying to learn new concepts. With anything else, they'll approach it with a negative attitude and bash it when everything isn't immediately obvious.

To be fair, s60 actually is a bit difficult sometimes, but Maemo sure isn't. That's what's so great about it. Almost as easy to learn as iPhone OS, faster to use/customize, and the advanced stuff is hidden so lightly that power users feel right at home.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

liqbase had something similar to this in a demo. Not sure if it runs on the n900, but this pseudo multitouch worked on the n810. Never went anywhere though!

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

If you can get the first point click and the middle in between the 2nd and 1st... than you can calculate the 2nd, no? :-)

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

@lendurhenry

Did you think of something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQTE7Dkhq3U

or better this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvxqIcKzVeY

If those aren't fake I'd agree that it could add a little "touch" to the N900's handling.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Assumption that resistive means no multitouch is soooooo incorrect...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/27/s...ere-awed-agai/
http://www.touchuserinterface.com/20...lti-touch.html
http://www.umpcportal.com/2009/02/mu...-touchscreens/

Resistive screen is so much better than capacitive...

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

I think I know how they did it. And this gives one more idea to add for brainstorm. Or actually it extends one of my ideas. Software has to detect quick movement of the touch, quicker than you can possibly drag it. This means only one – you made second touch without raising the first finger. You can calculate where the second touch is because this single position moved quickly half way there. Now you know two positions and you can always calculate where the second touch moves by assuming you don’t move the first touch. Very clever :rolleyes:

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Did you play the liqflow (can you say) app yet?

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Yes I tried it now. It proves nothing. You can see from thin line where the calculated position moves between two fingers.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

multi touch ok... apart of games and zoom, is there another use-case?

I have multitouch at my netbook and guess what... I am using gestures as they dont depend on scale... zooming in or out from larger or smaller than your screen with multitouch just sucks. Implementing more gestures instead of fancying multitouch would be a good brainstorm...

I tested iphones several times and several revisions and apart of the amount of apps ready yet there is nothing I will miss if I dont have one.

As the N900 is not capable of real multitouch as its resistive screen does not support it (future devices may support it without using a stylus unfriendly capacitive screen, the technology is close to ready), this idea is more like "how to improve multitouch like behaviour on the n900" and thats even more useless than capacitive screens allready are.

Get handwriting recognition and gestures more common and it will be a lot better than any iphone like UI!

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

What is the deal with multitouch?

I've held multitouch devices before and frankly, save for the wow factor, it is useless.

a) You need both hands to do it right. That means changing grip. If you don't it goes all wrong.

b) Save from zooming, it's useless. Drag-while-holding is a gimmick - a gesture like the ones you can do with one finger.

c) Zooming and dragging with multitouch requires precision as a large image is very sensitive to positioning.

d) Can't zoom on small elements. If an image has been scaled down to 1/10 of the screen or less it's stuck. You can't put 2 fingers in there. You have to zoom the whole control and the grab the image, then scroll the page back. This dedicates the screen. Very large elements take forever to zoom out while you pinch the screen looking stupid. With gestures, point-and-swirl.

e) No stylus. If it's small you're *ed.

f) OSK (On-screen keyboard) is incredibly hard to use despite what your iPhone toting friends said. Fingers obstruct keys. Stylus doesn't. Also, zooming each key to you see what you type is a good idea, but it's a workaround. You can't see and you can't feel the keyboard. I'm 3 times faster on the N900 than any of the IPhone toting buddies.

So, what the heck for? We're NOT discussing the advantages of capacitive, which includes brighter screen, or the equivalent savings for same illumination or feather touch, we discuss multitouch.

Other than showoff and a couple of games you play BECAUSE they are multitouch, why?

Rotating with stylus is soooo easy. Anyone used Google Sketchup? Click the object you want to rotate. Sliiide the mouse along one axis, then start drawing a circle. The object 3d-rotates where you want. Want to resize? Click R, then grab and drag a corner. Want to scale? Use the center instead of a corner.

There are many things that can be done with zero multitouch. All interfaces ever, even movies (save for one or two lately) have no multitouch. It could be so cool, and instead of pushing for something really cool, like graphics, gestures, accelerometer-assisted GUI, shading, shadowing, physics interface you want to pit the development crews to solve finger dance-dance-revolution.

I can list 5000 things I'd rather have before multitouch.

Like a nice, finished-look interface.

Like physics for windows in the UI. Sliding, knocking, sticking, bouncing.

I'd like shaking the device to clear all open applications. When cluttered, just close the kbd and shake it back to its senses.

I'd like to scale an image by holding the cam button and sliding.

I'd like to rotate an image by holding the cam button all the way and sliding.

I'd like slanting the device to skip in songs IF LEVEL so it can used in pocket.

Don't worry, I can produce the rest of 4994 items.

Multitouch. Hrmpf.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Sometimes I see some of those replies just as if people are trying to feel feeling better in spite of the fact that there is a missing feature.

I agree with ndi with the fact that there might be things of higher priority than adding multi-touch to N900. However, why not do it and let applications use it if they want?

I can think of applications that could benefit from multi-touch: music related ones. Play more than one note at the same time. Play a chord. Play the drums (there is already a plea to port hydrogen to N900). Use one, two, three fingers as expression controllers for a synth.

I think that the fact that there are more than one way of doing something doesn't imply that one of them should be automatically discarded.

This same discussion could have been applied when people were discussing if a mouse with two buttons would be better than a one button mouse. Or if a touch screen is really better than a regular screen and a mouse, etc. All advances have their own pros and cons. I, for one, would like to have multi-touch potential on my N900.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

There is one big problem with fake multitouch on resistive screens. The amount of pressure on each point moves the barycenter, so it's most often not exactly in the middle between both points.
This makes it hard to implement precise multitouch operations.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

That is not a valid implementation of multitouch emulation. A double touch at position 0 and 100 is indistinguishable from a touch at 50, thus making applications like keyboard (typing and singing) and drawing unusable.

All demos you saw had 4 buttons on each corner, with the two on top being off-center or closer together than the bottom. This equates to clicking the center, or, if one button is offset, to clicking four buttons right ion the center, at the intersection of lines.

If you put anything on the screen it no longer works.

Also, you don't realize the kind of code quantity you ask for and the level of implementation. Not what seems simple to a user is simple in code. Event filtering alone needs to integrate direction vectors to determine which button pair you pressed.

Proof of concept games with fixed buttons is one thing, having a ready-for-user solution implemented in the OS is quite an undertaking.

ETA: Pycage has a point as well, more pressure on one end also breaks it.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

I didn't think I'd say it, but I think you are right. So many other things need fixing first like Ovi Maps, adding more emulators and so on. Multitouch is coming in Maemo 6 which is probably the end of the year, and will have "proper" multitouch. The workarounds described here will be fine for some applications and games but not system-wide. I guess some people interested in this could try and make something useful, but it shouldn't really be anything Nokia/MaemoTeam should worry about.. fix the media player or add more plugins for conversations instead!

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

I wasn't talking about a particular strategy of implementation or fitness of the examples to that strategy. I was simply pointing out that there are valid use cases for multi-touch, even though some people might prefer to say that there aren't just because multi-touch is not available on their devices.

Now, if there is no way to emulate a general enough "true multi-touch" screen on a resistive screen, so that is not an option, isn't it? ;)

What about having a "multi-touch playground", where the current ideas are tried in some kind of drawing board?

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

My English must be failing me because you seem to accuse some people of the sour grape syndrome.

I mean, it must be a miscommunication, you can't possibly believe that multitouch is great but we say it's not because we're jealous. Right?

I admit that the rest of the post I missed entirely. The sentence structure is "If ... so ... isn't it". I expected a then. Must be the coder in me.

As for the last paragraph, I think you want a drawing app where you can see how multitouch works. In which case, open any draw program, the one that comes with the phone is great. What you see is what you get.

The emulation has no other info than what you see drawn there. The whole talk was about interpreting some gestures (like very quick swipe) to multitouch.

Re: [Sandbox] Multi-touch functionality
 

back to topic please, this is about how to get "fake" multi-touch working no matter what... it will seriously drain battery, it will need lots of CPU time and so on, not to mention the coding needed in first place... there is a way, maybe many to do this, maybe its not important, that is highly up to the people implementing...



if....

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Didn’t I write any in first post? Forget games! Map application and browser would be the most common use for multi-touch-likeness.

I know, there is no car holder available for N900 and even if there was you should not operate with navigation while driving. But let’s assume you do that. What would be easier? To find a button touch it accurately several times to achieve correct scale or to wipe (drag) horizontally away from centre and maybe using kinetics to zoom more than there is room in screen to wipe? I think the last one is much easier and quicker solution. And I think it would be easy to turn the map (while not moving) simply by wiping vertically at the side of the screen or circling around the centre point.

Maemo browser is a nice app but I can’t find a way how to define page width. This is sometimes frustrating, especially when using it vertically. I have seen lot of pages trying fit into this narrow width and they look really silly. So one use-case would be to zoom out and the page will resize itself into new screen scaled with. Next step would be to zoom in back. Maybe I am a bit naïve but I imagine it as two simple wipe actions.

Re: [Sandbox] Multi-touch functionality
 

"games and zoom" well rotation then...

do we now continue with "what and how and why" or is this going to be a brainstorm? we already know what is wanted and what cases it might fill...
but if there is no algorithm and no code there will be no implementation, does anybody know an implementation of fake multi-touch? not the one with fixed points multi-touch-like behavior stuff ;)

another idea would be to get a resistive "multi touch enabled" screen upgrade to the n900 and just close this... (yes there is... not for n900 but there is...)

Re: [Sandbox] Multi-touch functionality
 

Have you seen this?

http://forums.internettablettalk.com...147#post469147

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Ok. This was definitely a huge eye-caching post. I just had to respond it. :rolleyes:

Some comments:
a) Yes, is it bad? I use it most of the time by holding it with both hand.
b) I do not agree with you, I hope I am not the only one.
c) I don’t understand where is the large image a case?
d) It is confusing. Why are you talking about images? I would zoom surrounding with image not only image itself.
e) What is about stylus? You can use it if you like. Drag a fixed point from left side of screen (like hover mode) and do your zooming around it. Or hold a button on top of device and use the fixed point in center of screen.
f) I agree but using zoom for on-screen keyboard is not a good use-case.

I sense some criticism against me. I read it three times just to be sure it really didn’t say anything beside emotional opinions. Do I have to explain myself?

I posted this brainstorm just to get some ideas off from my head, hoping that maybe somebody will pick some of them up for good use. Because someone has 5000 other ideas does not mean that I did something wrong? Or does it?

So, let's talk about ideas regarding this brainstorm not others. And feel free do add some.
Henry

Re: [Sandbox] Multi-touch functionality
 

There's a reason pages don't fit into the browser: the page has been written with at-least-this-high controls for usability and alignment. Break the rules at your own peril. As for zooming, swirl and volume buttons. In portrait, they are under your finger.

As for "I'm driving and pinching is easy", so is swirl. And the (hw) zoom buttons. And double tapping. And I know I'm going to get stares for saying this, but it's a laptop with a GPS, not a PNA. It will never be. Put it near any of my navigation devices and several points will strike you as neigh-unusable. I won't get into them here. And a PNA is about 1/6th price.

It's a good idea in principle, but its uses are quite limited.

Chemist:
You are technically right, we are off-topic somewhat, but I'm trying to make a point: Make sure you (all) know what you vote for. This isn't multitouch, except emulated. This is a poor substitute for a limited function feature that is a side effect of another touch technology (like pens are to resistive).

I would hate for this to get started, or even finished and then to hear "Awwww, I can't zoom images like on iPhone! Maps is shaking when I hold my finger down! I can't click 2 buttons at the same time! You said this is multitouch!", actually wasting man-hours of some critical people who write this thinking we know what we want.

--

Anyway, I have very little else to say in this matter, most of what I wanted to get through is already posted. I just hope people actually skim through the thread first.

As for HOW, was this ever up for debate? Emulating MT on a resistive screen is based on the fact that muti-touching a resistive screen starts at the first point, then as you touch the second, the actual detected point is the vector average of the said touch points.

The whole shebang works on the principle that if you move from point A to B in one single poll cycle, you might have just used a second finger.

Ex:

xxXxxxxxxxxxxxxxx T0
xxXxxxxxxxxxxxxxx T1
xxxXxxxxxxxxxxxxx T2
xxxxXxxxxxxxxxxxx T3
xxxxxXxxxxxxxxxxx T4
xxxxxXxxxxxxxxxxx T5

This is a swipe. You can see the user touches, moves, then stops. If the T5 is missing, it's a kinetic swipe (user wiped and released, T5 is all small x).

However:
xxXxxxxxxxxxxxxxx T0
xxXxxxxxxxxxxxxxx T1
xxxxxxxxxxXxxxxxx T2
xxxxxxxxxxxXxxxxx T3
xxxxxxxxxxxxXxxxx T4
xxXxxxxxxxxxxxxxx T5

Above is a multitouch. You see, as the screen registers the second finger, the touch point jumps in one screen poll. First finger is at grid 2, the second is at grid (say) 12. This results in the point jumping from 2 to grid 6 very fast. Once that happens, the touch point is considered multi-zoom or multi-rotate around the initial touch.

There are several issues with this, among others that
* Normal filtering of events, as is, has to be rewritten. Because:
* Right now very fast swipes are likely errors and filtered or averages out.
* Large contact patches are also ignored: you can swipe the screen with your hand if you do it right and maintain a very large area.
* As soon as the cursor moves over 5 pixels or whatnot, it dismisses the "touch" event and moves into hover/drag. You can no longer push buttons until you release - otherwise lists are unscrollable.
* All kinetic scrolling needs to be rewritten, as second touch sends them flying (that's they are filtered). The GUI is also filtered in many instances because you should not be able to scroll through desktops at fifty/second. Any control that is not multitouch-prepared will flail wildly.

Note that as the cursor moves to the intersection, it's then stopped so it's not like it scrolls forever, just very fast.

Also, error/noise filtering will be shot. Tests this: Put both your fingers on the screen. Now vary the intensity of the push, but don;t take your fingers off. It should maintain touch, just vary the touch point. It clicks.

As a final observation, this is very hard to do system-wide. An application could work, though, recognizing the sudden movement and interpreting them as gestures for rotating, zooming. There is nothing keeping an application from doing this now.

Fire up sketch and draw a zoom gesture. It looks a bit like a slice of pie. That gesture could be implemented as zooming.

ETA: Some of you posted while I was writing it, and my reply overlaps with some of your posts so it might make a little less sense now.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

You do? I apologize, sometimes there's a language barrier in my posts.

I never meant this to be a stab at anyone. Sorry.

As for your points above, I agree with some, or rather you agreed with me. For example, holding a button and swiping is not multitouch per se. It could be used as such, which was my point. We could and should use gestures, button holding and whatnot instead of grabbing onto emulation and not letting go. I'm all for gestures.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

the liqbase playground exists :)
its been mentioned multiple times.

buried deep inside every mouse event is the multi touch code I built into original liqbase demo.
there is an additional set of coordinates additional to the normal mouse coordinates returned which indicates the position and validity of a second finger point :)

http://github.com/lcuk/libliqbase/bl...easyrun.h#L108


someone could have a dig around one one of the released apps to see if they could play.
its already been mentioned about liqflow, this is ideal since it uses the mouse event handler and you could do things with the second finger ;)

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Man what did you write there? It's completely useless. That program doesn't even work. You just imported the integers. Nothing else.