My First Windows Mobile 7 App

I have developed a simple Full Screen Multi-Touch* Silverlight App with WP7in mind (http://fromthemalverns.com/Spot/) My plan is as follows:

• Tailor it to fit to the announcements/SDKs etc released at MIX.
• Submit it to the App store (I know, I know, before you say anything ..)
• Publish the results here.

So that is it in a nutshell.  Who's with me?

* "The way I figure it you hold the phone in one hand then move the magnifying glasss with your index finger of the other hand and when you spot a difference, tap the screen with one of your spare fingers".

 First Gaff: That should be Windows Phone 7!

NB If there is a kindly moderator would like to modify the title I would be most grateful.

Second Gaff: Please don't mistake this as any kind of Windows Phone 7 showcase App. (Hopefully that is obvious)

I would center the mouse pointer on the crosshair: right now you can't reach the right side and the bottom side, because as soon as the mouse pointer leaves the Silverlight surface the magnifying glass stops moving.

First of all: there's no oversized text being clipped off the side of the screen

Secondly: With a touchscreen, you get events only when the finger is touching the screen. So you have have something follow the touch position as if it was a mouse pointer, but then you have no mechanism to detect a 'click'. It's usual in touch apps then to not have anything like a mouse pointer. And it would be redundant anyway since the user can see where their finger is pointing!

Maybe you could use the frontal webcam to look at the user, track where his eyes are looking and move the magnifying glass to that spot. Then he/she can use his/her finger to click the differences. Shouldn't be very hard to do, right?

Wow that is one huge graphic on the pointer you have there... It does love to get stuck on everything....

rhm said:

First of all: there's no oversized text being clipped off the side of the screen

 

Secondly: With a touchscreen, you get events only when the finger is touching the screen. So you have have something follow the touch position as if it was a mouse pointer, but then you have no mechanism to detect a 'click'. It's usual in touch apps then to not have anything like a mouse pointer. And it would be redundant anyway since the user can see where their finger is pointing!

Thanks for the feedbackl, it is appreciated.

First of all: there's no oversized text being clipped off the side of the screen

I am being dumb, but I don't understand what you mean?

Secondly: With a touchscreen, you get events only when the finger is touching the screen. ....

Take your point(s) but I developed this on a touch screen laptop so I am hoping it will work in the same way on the phone.  (I had to create an offset so that instead of your finger being in the way of what you select, you are holding onto the handle of the Magnifying glass with one finger and 'clicking' with another - granted its not actually a click event!)

TommyCarlier said:

Maybe you could use the frontal webcam to look at the user, track where his eyes are looking and move the magnifying glass to that spot. Then he/she can use his/her finger to click the differences. Shouldn't be very hard to do, right?

That sounds great, I had in mind some cool  Ch9 collaborations on this.  Can you send me the code for the eye tracking gizmo and I will plug it right in?

ManipUni said:

Wow that is one huge graphic on the pointer you have there... It does love to get stuck on everything....

Stuck?  "IT WORKS ON MY MACHINE!" Seriously though, what is it getting stuck on?

(granted, it is one mother of a cursor)

Ian2 said:

ManipUni said:

*snip*

Stuck?  "IT WORKS ON MY MACHINE!" Seriously though, what is it getting stuck on?

(granted, it is one mother of a cursor)

The edges of the canvas.

Ion Todirel said:

I like your enthusiasm, but that's not a WP7 app as the title mentions  

Yep, but I'm hoping to take this app and use whatever goodies are announced at Mix to create a real Windows Phone 7 App (with the same functionality).  The idea is just to demonstrate for my own edification, and for the amusement of CH9 onlookers, just what kind of a mess I can get myself into!  (That said, I hope that the journey will be an incredibly smooth one)

TommyCarlier said:

I would center the mouse pointer on the crosshair: right now you can't reach the right side and the bottom side, because as soon as the mouse pointer leaves the Silverlight surface the magnifying glass stops moving.

"I would center the mouse pointer on the crosshair: right now you can't reach the right side and the bottom side, because as soon as the mouse pointer leaves the Silverlight surface the magnifying glass stops moving."

You will have to take my word for it that this isn't a problem - the alternative (center on the crosshairs) was where I started, but I found that your finger just got in the way!

Admitadly it wouldn't be difficult to fix, but I would have to lose some of the image (or make it less than full screen), which I didn't want to do.

Thanks for the feedback. (I will be buying everyone a virtual cake at the end of this)

ManipUni said:

Ian2 said:

*snip*

The edges of the canvas.

Oh, I see what you mean.  My thinkling is that your finger will be 'off the phone surface' in this scenario so it doesn't really matter (as I said, what I could do is shrink the image a bit).

Thanks for the great feedback.

Ian2 said:

TommyCarlier said:

*snip*

"I would center the mouse pointer on the crosshair: right now you can't reach the right side and the bottom side, because as soon as the mouse pointer leaves the Silverlight surface the magnifying glass stops moving."

 

You will have to take my word for it that this isn't a problem - the alternative (center on the crosshairs) was where I started, but I found that your finger just got in the way!

 

Admitadly it wouldn't be difficult to fix, but I would have to lose some of the image (or make it less than full screen), which I didn't want to do.

 

Thanks for the feedback. (I will be buying everyone a virtual cake at the end of this)

You could rotate the magnifying glass according to the position on the screen. so if you are on the top, bottom, left or right you would always have the magnifying glass facing to the outside edge.

Also allow some single finger or single mouse action by using the double click.

Good luck,

Peter

Ian2 said:

rhm said:

*snip*

Thanks for the feedbackl, it is appreciated.

 

First of all: there's no oversized text being clipped off the side of the screen

 

I am being dumb, but I don't understand what you mean?

 

Secondly: With a touchscreen, you get events only when the finger is touching the screen. ....

 

Take your point(s) but I developed this on a touch screen laptop so I am hoping it will work in the same way on the phone.  (I had to create an offset so that instead of your finger being in the way of what you select, you are holding onto the handle of the Magnifying glass with one finger and 'clicking' with another - granted its not actually a click event!)

The first bit is just a joke about the bizarre visual style of the WP7 user interface.

Second bit: Microsoft's (and to fair a lot of other vendors as well) approach to both pen and touch input has in the past been to just treat it as a proxy for the mouse. You really have to use an iPhone for a while to see how retarded this is. There's no mouse pointer; scroll bars are unnecessary since the most natural way to scroll a document is to just grab it and drag it (like the hand tool in Abobe reader for example). It's all little changes that make it much more natural to use. There might be some special situations where it makes sense to leave something on screen at the point where the user last touched it, but they are few and far between.

rhm said:

Ian2 said:

*snip*

The first bit is just a joke about the bizarre visual style of the WP7 user interface.

 

Second bit: Microsoft's (and to fair a lot of other vendors as well) approach to both pen and touch input has in the past been to just treat it as a proxy for the mouse. You really have to use an iPhone for a while to see how retarded this is. There's no mouse pointer; scroll bars are unnecessary since the most natural way to scroll a document is to just grab it and drag it (like the hand tool in Abobe reader for example). It's all little changes that make it much more natural to use. There might be some special situations where it makes sense to leave something on screen at the point where the user last touched it, but they are few and far between.

OK, I see where you are commng from.  I still have my old iPhone and agree that is sets the standard for touch usability.  I

 Will take this on board and see what I can come up with.

Thanks again for the feedback. 

PeterF said:

Ian2 said:

*snip*

You could rotate the magnifying glass according to the position on the screen. so if you are on the top, bottom, left or right you would always have the magnifying glass facing to the outside edge.

 

Also allow some single finger or single mouse action by using the double click.

 

Good luck,

Peter

The rotation idea apealed to the programmer in me but I suspect might look a bit confusing in use. ( I would probably go for the 'shrink the image, use the leftover space for status' approach).

Re single finger/mouse approach.  Definitly if this was anything but what it is (and OK I might do it anyway!).

Thanks for taking the time to feedback.

Ian2 said:

PeterF said:

*snip*

The rotation idea apealed to the programmer in me but I suspect might look a bit confusing in use. ( I would probably go for the 'shrink the image, use the leftover space for status' approach).

 

Re single finger/mouse approach.  Definitly if this was anything but what it is (and OK I might do it anyway!).

 

Thanks for taking the time to feedback.

From a development point of view it's of course interesting, indeed from a user side of view it's challenging to make it intuitive. You might use two fingers to control the angle of the magnifying glass, or the dragging direction controls the angle. For example the glass is always in front of the dragging direction, this could work intuitive enough, and just average the last few coordinates so it's not too jumpy.

Greetings from a fellow Silverlight programmer,

Peter