[etoys-dev] Touch Interface thoughts

[karl ramberg]

This is a little similar to the microsoft  xbox 360 environment ?

Also: Some new touch  pads will have touch sensitive backsides to avoid
obsructing fingers.

Some kind of zooming of the interface sounds like a option for working with
touch interface. Screen realestate will more important to manage. Etoys can
get messy fast with several scripts.

Karl


On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>wrote:

> If we had the luxury of starting over, we might make a UI much better
> suited for touch. E.g. I like the UI ideas in this paper:
>
>        http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4257
>
> (try this URL to download touch11submit.pdf if the above does not work)
>
>        http://tinyurl.com/64y98hk
>
> I think we still could get to a reasonably good solution without such
> radical changes.
>
> - Bert -
>
> On 24.06.2011, at 14:31, <kharness at illinois.edu> wrote:
>
> > Hi Steve,
> > I am glad to see this topic being discussed!
> >
> > With so many tablets coming out and so many people expecting to be able
> to touch their screens it seems like we really need to figure out how to add
> touch features to Etoys. It is will appeal to children's enthusiasm for
> touching the things they are curious about.
> >
> > Last year in Wilmington Bert had a start on an adaptation for the iPad. I
> know he was not satisfied that he had solved all the problems. Did you try
> it? I didn't try it but Avigail did and liked the idea.
> >
> > One of the problem areas for young users of Etoys is the size of the
> little green arrows, up,down, add functions etc. They are small and even
> though they get larger under the cursor they do present difficulties that
> will just be made worse if fingertips are at work. I have wondered if it
> would be a good idea to have sets of tiles be enlarged when the cursor is
> any place inside that area. If the cursor moved to another category of
> tiles, the first category would shrink back to the size it is now and the
> new area would increase to the larger size.
> >
> > This spring my students made Catch as Catch Can games and some of them
> included scripted magnifiers and round glass mags.Magnifiers make things
> under the cursor very readable and I think they would be large enough to be
> touched with a fingertip.
> >
> > The description of the Bamboo hover/click sounds interesting.
> >
> > I wish I could be more help to the developers; but so far the best help I
> can provide is to avoid asking for new features. The core developers team
> does an amazing job of moving ideas forward for releases. Thanks to
> everyone!
> > Regards,
> > Kathleen
> >
> > ---- Original message ----
> >> Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 04:01:20 -0400
> >> From: Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com>
> >> Subject: [etoys-dev] Touch Interface thoughts
> >> To: etoys-dev <etoys-dev at squeakland.org>
> >>
> >>  How will we handle multi-touch in Etoys?
> >>  1) Multiple Mice:
> >>
> >>    When you touch the screen with multiple fingers
> >>    you get "many mice"  So, how can I get the mouseX
> >>    and mouseY for each "mouse"?  Thinking about this
> >>    for my version of Slice it. So I can imagine one
> >>    way would be a collection of mice, one could
> >>    iterate through.
> >>
> >>  2) No Mouse Fat Fingers problem:
> >>
> >>    A while back I had a conversation with an expert
> >>    (some 17 or 18 year old kid who had built a
> >>    Theremin remote control for his TV) and the idea
> >>    came to me, I asked him about the power
> >>    consumption, costs and if there were any
> >>    interference issues and from the discussion it
> >>    would seem this may be doable within XO-3
> >>    constraints.  It would operate similar to the
> >>    Bamboo Fun tablet which detects the stylus when it
> >>    hovers over the tablet and you can move the mouse
> >>    without touching the tablet, then it clicks when
> >>    you touch the tablet.
> >>    One issues I can foresee would be when you
> >>    "hover" your finger over the screen if the mouse
> >>    pointer is right under your finger, it would block
> >>    the view of the pointer, so you would have to
> >>    position the pointer "above" the finger.  But
> >>    then when you touch you are not "clicking" where
> >>    you touch.
> >>
> >>  Of course part of my problem my be I am thinking
> >>  like a mouse ;)
> >>  Stephen
>
>
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