Introduce a "pass through" mode for touch gestures

[nvaccessAuto]

Reported by k_kolev1985 on 2014-01-15 11:09 Since I've started using NVDA on a portable computer with a touch screen running windows 8.1, I've noticed that while NVDA is running, some of the touch gestures of the operating system cannot be performed. Examples of such gestures are:

• Touch and hold (eg. for invoking a context menu).
• Scrolling of lists and other similar controls (even with 2, and not only with 1 finger).
• Activating controls, witch don't have defined actions for them (even triple tapping does not work on such controls).

Yes, there's a "pass through" command in NVDA, but:

• It works only for keyboard commands and not for touch gestures.
• It can be invoked by default only from the keyboard and if the touch screen device does not have a keyboard, the command can't be invoked. Maybe we can assign a touch gesture to the "pass through" command via NVDA's settings, but I haven't tested that yet.

So, can something be done so the "pass through" command will work for touch gestures as well, and not only for keyboard commands?

My configuration:

• NVDA: latest next snapshot (same results with the stable 2013.3 version).
• Operating system: Windows 8.1, 32-bit, with regional and language options set to "bulgarian".
• Device: ASUS Transformer Book T100.

[nvaccessAuto]

Comment 1 by nvdakor on 2014-07-06 12:13 Hi, From examining touchHandler and keyboardHandler, what I can tell is that we need a way to let touch handler know not to treat next gesture as NVDA gesture. As you said, there is a script that allows next keyboard command to be passed through the operating system, but this only calls passthrough on keyboard at the moment. So in order to fix this, we need to first add a method (one or more) that'll let touch handler not deal with the next gesture, and call this method in passthrough script so touch can be taken care of. Thanks.

[nvaccessAuto]

Comment 2 by jteh (in reply to comment 1) on 2014-07-06 22:53 Replying to nvdakor: With keyboard, the hook can specify whether a key should pass through. I can't see any explicit way to do this for touch. Maybe calling DefWindowProc instead of returning 0 will work, but I doubt it. Failing that, we might have to re-inject gestures, but that is far from ideal and could cause unexpected results.

[bhavyashah]

@josephsl Since you were analysing this feature request from an implementation standpoint in https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/3779#issuecomment-155315808, could you please respond to certain concerns that @jcsteh expressed in the same regard in https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/3779#issuecomment-155315809?

[josephsl]

Hi, it would be better to ask Mick now at this time. Cc @michaelDCurran

From: bhavyashah [mailto:notifications@github.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2017 5:11 AM To: nvaccess/nvda nvda@noreply.github.com Cc: Joseph Lee joseph.lee22590@gmail.com; Mention mention@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [nvaccess/nvda] Introduce a "pass through" mode for touch gestures (#3779)

@josephsl https://github.com/josephsl Since you were analysing this feature request from an implementation standpoint in #3779 (comment) https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/3779#issuecomment-155315808 , could you please respond to certain concerns that @jcsteh https://github.com/jcsteh expressed in the same regard in #3779 (comment) https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/3779#issuecomment-155315809 ?

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[Qchristensen]

As touch-screen devices become more prevalent, we're starting to get asked about this more. Has there been any movement on this one?

[josephsl]

Hi, a prototype implementation is part of Enhanced Touch Gestures. At the moment this implementation will let users perform any touchscreen gestures for up to ten seconds, or let profiles disable touch support entirely. Thanks.

From: Quentin Christensen notifications@github.com Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2018 6:34 PM To: nvaccess/nvda nvda@noreply.github.com Cc: Joseph Lee joseph.lee22590@gmail.com; Mention mention@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [nvaccess/nvda] Introduce a "pass through" mode for touch gestures (#3779)

As touch-screen devices become more prevalent, we're starting to get asked about this more. Has there been any movement on this one?

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[josephsl]

Hi,

2024 update: while not a complete solution, one way is temporarily disabling touch support (Control+Alt+NVDA+T), perform a gesture, then re-enable touch support. This won't work on pure tablets as it requires keyboards.

Thanks.