XPost: alt.comp.os.windows-11
From: nospam@needed.invalid

On Thu, 12/18/2025 4:49 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
> On 2025-12-17 02:15, rbowman wrote:
>> On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 22:07:53 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
>>
>>> Mine has a touch screen. I don't actually use it, but I was curious. It
>>> works as a mouse.
>>
>> Including the greasy little trails? Every now and then I give the phone
>> and tablets an alcohol wipe down when they get too disgusting.
>
> I use an specific screen cleaning product from my local supermarket :-)
>
> No, I mean I was curious to find out if a touch screen could be useful.
>

Touch screens support gestures.

I can give an example at the mall. The mall has a very large touchscreen
for directory lookup. I would touch the screen with a knuckle (as it's
not a particularly high-precision touch screen). There is an OSK on the
screen, you can use a knuckle to tap out the letters of the store name.
I had selected a store and was encouraging the map to move towards
the store in question.

Well, the screen got rotated. I couldn't figure out what to do.

Then I remembered some conversations from here, about Windows 8 gestures.
I put two fingers on the screen, moved the fingers together ("pinch")
and then rotated the fingers. The entire map rotated in response.

That's one gesture that came in handy, at the mall screen. I'm sure any
of the teenagers at the mall knew that, but it took me at least a
minute to dig that up.

Another popular gesture is the "mark of Zorro", which is the letter Z.
If you make a motion like the letter Z, that is "dismiss" and will
close an application window. Without having to touch a knuckle to the
"X" in the upper right corner.

At work, we had CAD software, with gestures. You made gestures with the mouse.
A touch screen is not necessary. Well, my fellow engineers, upon learning
of the "dismiss" gesture, you could look across the room, and it
looked like a "Zorro contest" :-) A bunch of idiots making Z letters
using their mouse :-)

The reason I have to pass that one on to you, is the anecdotal findings
on gestures, is users can only memorize a small set of them. The "suite"
might have twenty gestures. The users might remember two of them. They
can Zorro like crazy... because they don't remember the others. And
that is a simplified account of gestures...

The Zorro crap eventually lost its charm, and the mouse was used
with less flourish because frankly, the staff were exhausted from too
many days of overtime. Our star engineer, used to complain that he
hadn't seen his girlfriend in months. To which we would reply "what
girlfriend?".
As a measure of the hopelessness of the situation.

   Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
 * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)