Touch Screen

[krooked]

What will you use the touchscreen for really?
in the DS i find its most useful since you hand can lay off the bottom of the device and stay out of the way of your view. also the games are designed for this interactivity.

running homebrew games and the akward position i may find my hand in to stay out of view of the screen since the keyboard is below the screen blocking my hand made me wonder what you plan on using the screen for actually besides the few games people will be designing for the pandoras screen.

to explain further, i am in no way trying to complain or diss on the pandora, just actually trying to find out what people plan to use it for and why they recommended it be added to the design.
thanks

 

[Lorkile]

In general I dislike the touchscreen on the DS, so outside of games, a notepad and drawing I see myself sticking to the gaming controls.

One other thought is while surfing the web, clicking on links with a stylus instead of navigating via the nubs could be nice.

 

[Spray190]

i have an hp jornada 720 (hpc and i know it old but i still get a lot of use out of it) and the combination of full qwerty keyboard and touch screen is really useful for all sorts of apps and if the pandy is utilised as a umpc the touchescreen will probably be very handy for navigation as well as a whole bunch of other features

 

[krooked]

so mainly navigation is what you find most useful. ive seen that with the hp tablets my friends own, but that has the mouse buttons built into the stylus which seems to help their navigation alot.

 

[Consequence_9]

Definitely navigation, i love just having to tap the screen to start an app, other than that I'll prolly use it for jotting down light notes (writing down assignments & such), editing papers, light drawing/photo editing, ds emulation (if its even possible... or worth it...) & whatever homebrew uses it.

 

[krooked]

makes me want to design a mouse in the shape of a stylus so i can use the keys for things like right clicking and dragging over text to highlight, just like the hp tablet and such, but this would be usb

 

[sebt3]

makes me want to design a mouse in the shape of a stylus so i can use the keys for things like right clicking and dragging over text to highlight, just like the hp tablet and such, but this would be usb

Not sure this is realy helpfull. There is a brunch of apps that dont need left click or mouse wheel you know ? And for the wheel, how would hold your pandora ? (hint: don't say me on a desk...)
The mac mouse had only one button for years (I don't know now as there is a long time I didnt see a mac...)
and the human-machin had work this way.
If the right-click is realy needed, a long press on the screen could bring your beloved context-menu. Even WindowsXP do this on tabletPC. And for sure linux does too. And so will the pandora...

This is for those that still don't what could be the usage of the touchscreen on the pandora.

 

[krooked]

yeah i wasnt talking about scroll wheel but just for added functionality buttons readily available would be nice.

 

[God Ginrai]

makes me want to design a mouse in the shape of a stylus so i can use the keys for things like right clicking and dragging over text to highlight, just like the hp tablet and such, but this would be usb

Not sure this is realy helpfull. There is a brunch of apps that dont need left click or mouse wheel you know ? And for the wheel, how would hold your pandora ? (hint: don't say me on a desk...)
The mac mouse had only one button for years (I don't know now as there is a long time I didnt see a mac...)
and the human-machin had work this way.
If the right-click is realy needed, a long press on the screen could bring your beloved context-menu. Even WindowsXP do this on tabletPC. And for sure linux does too. And so will the pandora...

This is for those that still don't what could be the usage of the touchscreen on the pandora.


Touch screens may be able to handle no right click. Mac, however cannot. That's why they added right click functionality to almost all of their laptops and I think even their mice now. Don't underestimate the power of right click.

EDIT: Oh, and in response to the topic, I'd use them whenever I found them easier. Also, if we ever do get DS emulation, then I'd use it for DS emulation.

-God Ginrai

 

[krooked]

twice ds emulation has been mentioned as a possibility, i thought it was completely ruled out.
and yes, i use my laptop right click ALOT, maybe its since i dont like removing my fingers from what theyre doing and finding the keyboard shortcuts, which is sort of what i was going for with the idea of a stylus with interactivity.

 

[surt]

so mainly navigation is what you find most useful. ive seen that with the hp tablets my friends own, but that has the mouse buttons built into the stylus which seems to help their navigation alot.

What navigation functions do you perform with non-left mouse buttons? :blink:
Or do you mean modal middle-mouse-button scrolling? That could be handled non-modally with the near nub.

Right-click can be nicely handled with a trigger + touch.
Depending on handedness middle-click can be handled with a game-button or dpad-direction + touch.
Wheel should be easily handled by a nub axis. If you really wanted a mouse-wheel like feel you could probably even implement a stroking system so only movement away from zero sends a wheel event.

makes me want to design a mouse in the shape of a stylus so i can use the keys for things like right clicking and dragging over text to highlight, just like the hp tablet and such, but this would be usb

There are pen mice, but they necessarily lack what I consider the primary benefit of a tablet/touch-screen: absolute positioning. I find using a tablet stylus in relative positioning mode far inferior to mouse.

 

[God Ginrai]

twice ds emulation has been mentioned as a possibility, i thought it was completely ruled out.
and yes, i use my laptop right click ALOT, maybe its since i dont like removing my fingers from what theyre doing and finding the keyboard shortcuts, which is sort of what i was going for with the idea of a stylus with interactivity.

The DS is not a very complex or highly intensive system. The thing is, if we ever were to get DS emulation on the Pandora, it would probably have to be coded from scratch.

-God Ginrai

 

[Eniko]

Right-click can be nicely handled with a trigger + touch.

This seems like the best solution to me too. How would one set this up to be possible though? Especially across all software? I'm thinking there's probably some way easy way to do this and I'm just missing it cause I'm tired...

 

[Consequence_9]

twice ds emulation has been mentioned as a possibility, i thought it was completely ruled out.
and yes, i use my laptop right click ALOT, maybe its since i dont like removing my fingers from what theyre doing and finding the keyboard shortcuts, which is sort of what i was going for with the idea of a stylus with interactivity.

The DS is not a very complex or highly intensive system. The thing is, if we ever were to get DS emulation on the Pandora, it would probably have to be coded from scratch.

-God Ginrai

I just figured the biggest issue with DS emulation was screen size & placement. It would be hard to find a good placement for games that use both the touch screen and standard controls, although a combination of different settings could be used. For games that do not heavily use touch, or use the bottom screen for little else than a map, a sort of picture-in-picture setup could be used. For games that are primarily touch based and use the standard controls very little, the pandora could be held in a book-mode & the emulated screens could be stacked. Maybe side by side would be possible as well if both screens were scaled down, which would work, but it would kinda suck at the same time. *shrug* just some ideas if anyone decides to take this on, but personally I would love to see DS emulation.

 

[fischju2000]

twice ds emulation has been mentioned as a possibility, i thought it was completely ruled out.
and yes, i use my laptop right click ALOT, maybe its since i dont like removing my fingers from what theyre doing and finding the keyboard shortcuts, which is sort of what i was going for with the idea of a stylus with interactivity.

The DS is not a very complex or highly intensive system. The thing is, if we ever were to get DS emulation on the Pandora, it would probably have to be coded from scratch.

-God Ginrai

I just figured the biggest issue with DS emulation was screen size & placement. It would be hard to find a good placement for games that use both the touch screen and standard controls, although a combination of different settings could be used. For games that do not heavily use touch, or use the bottom screen for little else than a map, a sort of picture-in-picture setup could be used. For games that are primarily touch based and use the standard controls very little, the pandora could be held in a book-mode & the emulated screens could be stacked. Maybe side by side would be possible as well if both screens were scaled down, which would work, but it would kinda suck at the same time. *shrug* just some ideas if anyone decides to take this on, but personally I would love to see DS emulation.


This is going rather off topic, but I must add this

Pandora with 1:1 DS screens
Screen size and placement isn't the largest concern at all - there is an open source emulator with the compatability of just a couple dozen games, while the very compatible no$gba isn't on linux and the newest version costs $2.50. They both require a lot of cpu power.

 

[God Ginrai]

twice ds emulation has been mentioned as a possibility, i thought it was completely ruled out.
and yes, i use my laptop right click ALOT, maybe its since i dont like removing my fingers from what theyre doing and finding the keyboard shortcuts, which is sort of what i was going for with the idea of a stylus with interactivity.

The DS is not a very complex or highly intensive system. The thing is, if we ever were to get DS emulation on the Pandora, it would probably have to be coded from scratch.

-God Ginrai

I just figured the biggest issue with DS emulation was screen size & placement. It would be hard to find a good placement for games that use both the touch screen and standard controls, although a combination of different settings could be used. For games that do not heavily use touch, or use the bottom screen for little else than a map, a sort of picture-in-picture setup could be used. For games that are primarily touch based and use the standard controls very little, the pandora could be held in a book-mode & the emulated screens could be stacked. Maybe side by side would be possible as well if both screens were scaled down, which would work, but it would kinda suck at the same time. *shrug* just some ideas if anyone decides to take this on, but personally I would love to see DS emulation.


This is going rather off topic, but I must add this

Pandora with 1:1 DS screens
Screen size and placement isn't the largest concern at all - there is an open source emulator with the compatability of just a couple dozen games, while the very compatible no$gba isn't on linux and the newest version costs $2.50. They both require a lot of cpu power.


Like I said, one would have to be coded from scratch. We have devs that are capable of this. It's all about whether they are willing to do it.

-God Ginrai

 

[surt]

Right-click can be nicely handled with a trigger + touch.

This seems like the best solution to me too. How would one set this up to be possible though? Especially across all software? I'm thinking there's probably some way easy way to do this and I'm just missing it cause I'm tired...

I'm no expert on such matters but I expect that it shouldn't be too difficult to configure the X server (maybe kernel?) so that any software running on it will recognise the combo as a normal mouse click.

 

[krooked]

I was just trying to think of a way to easily use mouse clicks without needing to press buttons on the pandora keyboard, this is due to the fact that one hand will be holding the pandora, the other will have a stylus. i cant be pushing buttons with both hands taken, i would probably drop the thing if i were to try while riding the bus.

 

[surt]

I was just trying to think of a way to easily use mouse clicks without needing to press buttons on the pandora keyboard, this is due to the fact that one hand will be holding the pandora, the other will have a stylus. i cant be pushing buttons with both hands taken, i would probably drop the thing if i were to try while riding the bus.

You've never held a dual analog-stick gamepad one handed before? Try it some time and see what controls you can manipulate without dropping the thing. You don't hold it with your thumb or forefinger, you clamp it between two or three minor fingers and your palm. Same with the P.

 

[torpor]

I'm planning on making Pandora my primary target platform for MIDI-/OSC-control and synthesizer/effects software, so for me the touch screen is very welcome. It'll be very nice to have a Pandora sitting on the mixing console and just touch the GUI when needed ..