ubuntu-tablet team mailing list archive

[Henri Sundelin <henri.sundelin@xxxxxx>]

Hi,

I don't thing I'd be happy wearing such contraption on my hand while drawing..:D

I think also we should be able to support all types on pens and multitouch displays. However in technical, and in sometimes use-case point of view, Wacom (and other "real" pen input devices) are specifically meant for drawing and should be supported as such.

It would definitely be nice is we could actively recognize a stylus on multitouch, but I'd be worried that it might never actually work correctly. Getting the touch area size would be good, but such feature might not be available in all multitouch technologies.

In order to have this functionality working properly for all applications would in my opinion call for some sort of framework level support (a library with nice API). This could include some heuristics for stylus on multitouch.


We definitely should collect use cases, user stories & requirements on this and in "tablet-ubuntu" as whole. Is there currently any such activity ongoing?

Cheers,
//HS

On 26 Mar 2012, at 12:20, Christian Giordano wrote:

> HI Henri, I think this is an interesting discussion because pens on tablet, regardless what Apple says, are very hot at the moment: 
> 
> <Google ChromeScreenSnapz017.png>
> 
> A problem currently presence in drawing applications is the detection of the hand touch when you are using one of these pens. To solve this problem, with graphical tablet, it was recommended one of these gloves:
> 
> 
> 
> Some applications are reducing dramatically the problem through algorithms but, if you think that on iOS information like finger size wan't available (not sure 100% if still isn't), this was indeed very challenging.
> 
> I don't know the Samsung Serie 7 Slate pen, but I guess we should support any kind of pen. Even the ones who simply emulate the finger. In this case information like finger size, if available from the hardware, could be used to differentiate a pen from a finger and maybe the drawing application can let the user choose the input (to avoid the hand touch issue). Not sure we should support a pen detection everywhere in the system.
> 
> It would be good to have some use cases.
> 
> 
> Cheers, chr
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:52 PM, Henri Sundelin <henri.sundelin@xxxxxx> wrote:
> [As suggested, reposted this unity-design->unity-tablet]
> 
> Hello everybody,
> 
> I just joined on this list - seems the right place to be as I started my tablet usability hacking (or should this be posted somewhere else?).. I got myself a new Samsung Series 7 Slate, and I've been evaluating latest Precise on it. Works somewhat, lots of more work required though. We'll see..
> 
> So, this device gave me some ideas on how different tablet style input devices like touchscreens, pens etc, should be handled - currently everything is always "on", which means you cannot use the pen if you want to lay your hand on the multitouch screen like you do when drawing on paper.
> 
> I think we could be more intelligent, and at least let the user easily choose.
> 
> I made a quick'n'dirty test on this, so there would be a indicator icon on the toolbar, and some backend logic which dynamically turns off the touchscreen when the pen is present. It seems very usable, now you can actually draw with the pen. You can check it out @ my blog:
> http://henris42.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/touchscreen-pen/
> 
> What do you think - should this kind of functionality be part of Unity?
> 
> Cheers,
> //HS
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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