Touches

[ChioCS]

Touches

Touches are implemented throughout Noticeboard Type Window. It is best experience with a Touch Screen as some handling will not be supported using a mouse, example scaling and rotating. Except for basic Window that do not support Touches, all Type Windows are supported and they are handled in a different manner.

For example a Fixed Window, besides allowing you to pan beyond it's boundary, it also allows you to freely move around any items, scale or rotate them with your fingers. In this case, no additional setting is needed. You manipulate with the object directly.

However in most cases you are going to link this object to a touch item or a series of items. This is how it is implemented.

The above diagram is a standard touch configuration for a Type Window. If nothing is checked, it uses the Type Window rectangle area to display your touch item. This is the default which can be restrictive, example a Button Window where you only define a narrow strip for the Window display area. In this case, you need to display the content of the touch item in another display area ( as shown below the Touch area ). You have 2 choices for displaying your touch items.

1. Touch Board

A Touch Board is a single display area for holding your touch item. A Touch Board supports background graphics which allows you to create a feel for the objects to be displayed.

For Touch Board example see Touch Phone Application with NoticeBoard

2. Touch Pad

A Touch Pad has a header and a content body to display the touch item. The header can hold a series of items where you can scroll through.



Both choices support a hierarchy of touches linking together through the use of libraries or ntb project files (to be implemented).

Follow this example to know how to setup touches within the library.

 

[ChioCS]

Re: Touches and Touch Pad

Touch Item

A touch item can be linked to any objects on the canvas. It can be an item in the library, an image file, a video file, a library or a ntb project file. It can also be a search string for a Search Group. You can daisy chain touch item through a library's item or in a project ntb file.

When a touch item is assigned to a library's item or a image file or a video file, it's quite a straight forward fetch and display.

Howerver for a ntb project file or a library, due to the diversity in some setup, the implementation of touch item can be quite complex.

 

[ChioCS]

Re: Touches and Touch Pad

When dropping a file, image, video and Noticeboard project file (.ntb) into the touch tab as a touch item, the references to these files are tied to the physical location on disk.

Timeout

In the Type Window, you define a default timeout period for all touches within that window, you can always override the value for a specific item.

When dropping a Noticeboard project file, a timeout value is automatically retrieve from the longest duration defined in the project. If touches are hierarchy and nested, the head timeout value determines the maximum time allowed in subsequent touches. Anything beyond, will not be displayed. If the next hierarchy timeout value is less, this value will assume the maximum value for subsequent touches and so on.

Skip Display and show touch item

This applies to Touch Pad where you it will first show you the original object first, you can override it by checking it out.

Handling a ntb project file in a a standard Window Type

A project file assign to a touch item runs independently from it's parent, ie. it has no knowledge about the touch project except keeping a Bin image that allows you to terminate it or auto expires it when the timeout period elapsed.