Add visual cue to show scrolling area vs. gesture area

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It would be nice to see some sort of visual cueing on screen to indicate the 
distinction between the 
pie/gesture area and the scroll area when the screen has been tapped. Maybe a 
slightly opaque 
vertical overlay on the scroll area, similar to the controls shown in iPod mode?

Original issue reported on code.google.com by elit...@gmail.com on 23 Aug 2007 at 5:22

[GoogleCodeExporter]

A thin vertical line dividing the two regions would work fairly well for the 
moment, though there should 
eventually be a more elegant way to scroll and input gestures without dividing 
the screen.  I think that two-
finger scrolling over the full screen would work just fine if that could be 
done.

Alternately, make gestures work when the keyboard is up and scrolling work when 
it's hidden.  Chances are 
good that if the keyboard is up, you're needing to type something and if the 
keyboard is hidden, you're 
needing to view something.

Original comment by RobertDy...@gmail.com on 23 Aug 2007 at 6:05

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Where would you tap to open/close the keyboard?

Maybe an up and a down arrow at the top and bottom of the scroll area that are 
initially visible, but fade out 
and are not seen again?

Original comment by vaum...@gmail.com on 26 Aug 2007 at 4:00

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Oops.  I apparently didn't notice that last message before going out of town 
for a while.

Regarding opening the keyboard, how complex can you make gestures?  Can they 
have multiple directions?  
Looking at the Sketches app, it seems that you can get lines out of the 
touchscreen.  If so, something like a 
quick down-up swipe might work with an up-down to dismiss the keyboard.

Alternately, some kind of status bar at the top of the screen with indicators 
for Meta, Alt and Control and a 
button to bring up the keyboard.  That might work best, since other control 
characters are nice.

I don't like controls at the top of the screen.  I'm a big Newton guy and I've 
read all of the HIGs for it that Apple 
spent so much money researching and they *all* say to put most controls at the 
bottom, but in this case, you 
would want something static.  My favorite idea would require a handedness 
control in the preferences, but 
should be pretty easy to implement.  Make a top bar in the terminal small 
enough that it doesn't have actual 
buttons.  Instead, trigger them with vertical swipes from the top of the screen 
down through them and into the 
terminal area.  That way, the top bar would only need to be 16 pixels or so 
tall.  Use color indicators for the 
control keys.  Red for meta, light blue for Alt, yellow for Control or 
something like that.  Have the keyboard 
swipe area on the far right or far left (this is where the handedness 
preference comes in) so it can be triggered 
without your hand covering the rest of the screen.

I doubt that that would be terribly intuitive, but it's the best way I've 
thought of so far to condense all of that 
functionality into the smallest screen space while still being usable with 
fingers.

As for the scrolling, I figured out that with the variable-width font used in 
my copy of 161, the scroll/keyboard 
area is to the right of the text.  Anywhere that text can be displayed is the 
gesture area.  That works for me for 
now, but in the future, something clearer would be nice.  Either two-finger 
scrolling or perhaps a modal 
control somewhere to switch between the marking menu and scrolling.

Original comment by RobertDy...@gmail.com on 11 Sep 2007 at 5:41

[GoogleCodeExporter]

implemented in the unstable version (250)

Original comment by monsterk...@googlemail.com on 1 Apr 2008 at 3:51

• Changed state: Started

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Original comment by monsterk...@googlemail.com on 22 Apr 2008 at 11:54

• Changed state: Fixed