[Sugar-devel] long-press touch actions in Sugar

[Gary Martin]

Hi Sridhar,

On 28 Aug 2012, at 03:41, Sridhar Dhanapalan <sridhar at laptop.org.au> wrote:

> It appears [1] that long-press is becoming part of the Sugar user
> experience on touchscreens:
> 
> "Touch and hold _should_ trigger full display of palette content (like
> a right click, no extra delay)"
> 
> I have some reservations [2] about long-press actions.

Thanks, I'd seen your comments on the wiki.

> They don't seem
> to be very intuitive or discoverable.
> 
> How are the Sugar Design Team managing this problem?

So yes, I agree long press is not immediately discoverable/obvious (a similar situation as we have had with right click), though I'd disagree with you about long press intuitiveness as a gesture. Once it is discovered, I'd say it is more intuitive to use than a right click. Here are some of the UI/UX changes we are undertaking to improve on previous right click interactions, and upcoming touch support (Note: we need to support both trackpad and touch based UI interactions).

 - Amendment of various widgets in Sugar that only responded to right click or cursor hover (left click or a tap now raises their palettes).
 - Modification of a number of, but not all, Sugar widgets that have overloaded functionality (e.g. widgets with a primary action and a palette full of sub actions), so that the primary action is removed and replaced with an action to immediately expose the palette on left click or tap (provides safer UI exploration and removes need for some right click , hover, long touch interactions).
 - Exploratory mockup work and discussion looking at the possibilities of visually marking widgets that contain long press features (not sure if we'll land this cycle).
 - Long press gesture on widgets that support it will show a timed animation while you hold to provide visual feedback.

You should find many of the working patches already on this mail list (if you have the chance to test any and provide feedback), and the links [1], [2], [3], [4] should help provide more background on touch related items being worked on. Feedback/review/suggestions welcome!

Regards,
--Gary

[1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Touch/Development
[2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Sugar_Shell_Touch_Input
[3] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:Design_Team/Sugar_Shell_Touch_Input
[4] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Activity_Touch_Input

> [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Sugar_Shell_Touch_Input
> [2] http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/24460/press-and-hold-or-long-press-gestures-unintuitive
> 
> 
> 
> Sridhar Dhanapalan
> Engineering Manager
> One Laptop per Child Australia
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