Touchpad Gestures - Experimental

[Jens Reuterberg]

Sry for long wait, there was some misunderstandings concerning touchpad 
gestures based on past work and was set right today that no matter on what 
level we where at, we should pass it onward.

So these are all based on the normal assumptions and understanding of how 
designing something which we don't know the technical limitations of will 
work. 

This it is the design of a pattern, a language (since otherwise its just 
another desktop cube or burning closing of windows) - so if one isn't 
possible, chances are we are back to square one. For example, most of these 
have to do with Windows and Workspaces (giving a quick nod to apps in Pinch-
to-zoom and Rotate) which is intentional. Also note that Windows and 
Workspaces use four fingers to control things, which is also intentional (with 
the exception of the Pinch manouver which is really tricky to do with four 
fingers in the little available testing I could do). The actions SHOULD mimic 
each other so that each one isn't one more complex detail unrelated to 
everything else that the user have to learn. 

While "Four fingers reserved for WM/DE" is a good guide some care have to be 
taken since cramming four fingers onto a touchpad can be tricky. The question 
is if it is technically possible. If not, should "three fingers reserved for 
WM/DE" replace it? This is impossible to tell now of course.

This is a link to the draft of the design document: 
https://notes.kde.org/p/touchpadgestures

The document is split into 
1) Design Notes (information about the idea of the design)
2) Possible Actions (list of Actions mostly focusing of course (see above) on 
the WM/DE)
3) Possible Gestures (a list of gestures ranging from unused now, to probably 
impossible technically)
4) Suggested Combinations (suggested to be implemented as standards)
5) Notes and planning (some notes on planning for the future and the problems 
we will run into design wise)
6) (For reference) Touch Screen notes (early notes of a talk between me and 
Aleix about touchscreens where the initial idea of "reserve N finger actions to 
DE/WM came from)

Finally - these are of course all experimental and tentative design. Anything 
else would be practically impossible.