Default touch screen edge gestures

[Martin Gräßlin]

Am 11. April 2017 13:13:11 MESZ schrieb Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen <admin at leinir.dk>:
>On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 11:32:18 BST Martin Gräßlin wrote:
>> Am 11. April 2017 11:23:01 MESZ schrieb Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen 
><admin at leinir.dk>:
>> >Heyhey :)
>> >
>> >i do rather like the idea of edge gestures, however i would also
>quite
>> >like
>> >to keep in mind applications here...
>> 
>> we discussed the proposed implementation at the affenfels sprint. Why
>did
>> you not raise this concern there?
>
>  i did mention it, but i realise my voice does not carry well.
>
>> I explicitly asked for the "go for it!" prior to spending time on
>> implementing. Now coming up with additional requirements after the
>> implementation is rather unfair.
>
> As you say, you have already worked on the implementation, and i must 
>confess to have not quite realised that (having been somewhat busy in
>other 
>areas). I retract my statement - while having the corners included, it
>is too 
>late to consider this now. Perhaps it might also, arguably, be too many
>
>options for something which is supposed to be a type of sloppy
>interaction. At 
>any rate, departed trains and sailed boats and whatnot.
>
>Arguing against myself, too, I guess it would make sense to perhaps
>have a 
>different set of gestures for when touch is a secondary input (touch
>enabled 
>laptops and whatnot), and for touch-first devices (phones, tablets...).
>It 
>would not be entirely out of step with what i have advocated with the
>whole 
>Gemini thing for a while now, that one size does not fit all ;)
>So, again, i retract my early morning comments, and quite entirely see
>your 
>reason for being displeased with what i am sure will seem as a drive-by
>info 
>drop (rather than the hopeful helpful comment it was intended to be,
>and which 
>obviously, in hindsight, it does not exactly manage).
>
>Now, to try and be at least vaguely useful: Might i suggest that
>running 
>applications full screen would be something of a special case, and that
>in 
>such a case, the edge gestures might be expected to be different?
>Specifically, 
>it might be expected that the top (or bottom) edge would somehow
>function as 
>an escape function (say, present windows for example), while the
>remaining 
>edges are given to the full screen application?
>I mention this because, after using systems where this does not happen,
>it 
>is quite annoying when such accidental activations happen. Again, this
>is 
>only, specifically, for full screen applications, not for the general
>case, 
>where the rest of the system is visible.
>  Hope that is an at least marginally useful comment on the topic.

I haven't tested it yet, but for mouse screen edges are reserved for fullscreen applications. As touch shares the screen edge code this should also be the case there. But as said: I haven't tested yet.

>
>> >Specifically, other touch-focused
>> >UXes all
>> >have some kind of concept of edges given over to the applications
>> >rather than
>> >the system. Windows has the bottom edge, Android has both sides,
>Jolla
>> >has the
>> >top edge, and iOS has... both sides as well if i'm not too far
>> >mistaken.
>> >What i imagine we might do is to make it eight locations rather than
>> >four,
>> >to allow us to emulate various options (which i suspect would be
>very
>> >useful
>> >for experimentation as well). That is, the four edges, and the four
>> >corners.
>> >The most important point i am trying to make here is, though, that
>if
>> >you
>> >have a maximised application on screen, it seems to me that if we
>are
>> >aiming
>> >for convergence, might it not make sense to have similar gestures as
>> >the
>> >default for all the form factors our software runs on?
>> >
>> >On Saturday, 8 April 2017 10:24:04 BST Martin Gräßlin wrote:
>> >> Hi Plasmates,
>> >> 
>> >> now that we have touch screen edge swipe gesture support both on
>X11
>> >
>> >and
>> >
>> >> Wayland we could define which actions to put on each edge.
>> >> 
>> >> My suggestion would be to put a sensible action on each of the
>four
>> >> actions.
>> >> 
>> >> Personal proposal:
>> >> 
>> >> *Left Edge:*
>> >> Window Switching as the default alt+tab theme is on the left side.
>> >
>> >Also
>> >
>> >> on Windows 10 this happens on the left edge.
>> >> 
>> >> *Top Edge:*
>> >> Present Windows as 4 finger swipe downwards on touchpad triggers
>> >
>> >present
>> >
>> >> windows.
>> >> 
>> >> *Bottom Edge:*
>> >> Desktop Grid as 4 finger swipe upwards on touchpad triggers
>desktop
>> >> grid.
>> >> 
>> >> *Right Edge:*
>> >> Application launcher
>> >> 
>> >> 
>> >> What I dislike about the proposal is: Present Windows and Alt+Tab
>are
>> >> kind of redundant. Given that a better default edge would be nice
>for
>> >> top edge. KRunner would be a nice fit as it's also on top, but
>it's
>> >> rather useless on touch.
>> >> 
>> >> The application launcher is rather disconnected in the default
>setup
>> >
>> >if
>> >
>> >> we swipe in from left screen. What I personally would prefer if we
>> >
>> >could
>> >
>> >> trigger the application dashboard. Of course we still don't have
>> >
>> >working
>> >
>> >> touch support in the application launchers, so if we go for that
>we
>> >
>> >need
>> >
>> >> fixing (same applies for alt+tab btw.).
>> >> 
>> >> So please comment and propose your own ideas.
>> >> 
>> >> Cheers
>> >> Martin