Proposal for additional system-wide gestures (swipes and taps)

asked 2019-01-13 23:07:21 +0200

BH
136 ●7 ●13 ●16

updated 2019-12-31 19:13:10 +0200

Introduction

The following proposal aims at making the gesture based user experience of Sailfish OS more consistent throughout the entire system and eradicate the need for “makeshift” solutions in certain apps, that do not fit into the basic concepts of this user experience or hamper the “all screen real estate is yours” paradigm.

Although some of the described gestures might already be existing as patches, having them natively (out-of-the-box) from Jolla in Sailfish OS would be the best.

Swipes FROM the screen edge

In Sailfish OS, we currently have “Swipe from the screen edge towards the screen center” gestures:

• A swipe from the right screen edge takes you to “Home”, with the covers of all your currently running apps.
• A swipe from the left screen edge takes you to “Events”, where you can see your current notifications.
• A swipe from the bottom screen edge takes you to the app grid, from where you can launch apps.
• A swipe from the top screen edge closes the currently used app (when done from either corner), or takes you to the top menu (when done from the middle), where you can switch ambiences, trigger quick actions and toggle settings.

Swipes AT the screen edge

In addition to those “Swipe FROM the screen edge” gestures, this proposal introduces “Swipe AT the screen edge” gestures. They are performed by simply placing one finger at the desired screen edge and moving it along this edge (instead of moving it towards the screen center). Here is what they'll do:

• Right screen edge: One out of two possible actions, depending on whether you currently are in an item view (e.g.: picture, web page, document, etc.) or in a list view (e.g.: gallery grid, message list, artist/album list, etc.):

1. Zoom in/out (for item views):
   An additional, but much more practical way compared to the well known 2-finger-pinch gesture, because you need only one hand to conveniently do it. Be it that you only have one hand free because you are carrying/holding something with your other hand, or that you cannot use your other hand at all because it is injured/disabled/missing, this gesture greatly improves accessibility.
2. Aimed scrolling (for list views):
   Quickly and precisely scroll to a desired location within the current list with the help of displayed clues. This is especially helpful for very long lists and (partly) eradicates the need for a search or filter feature. When you start moving your finger, the clues will appear (relative to your current location in the list). Continue moving your finger until you are at the desired location (clue), then lift your finger to immediately scroll to that location. The displayed clues depend on the list content. Following are a few examples:
   .) Gallery grid: Date on which the picture/video was taken, user-configurable as absolute date (January 2018, August 2018, etc.) or as relative date (6 months ago, 1 year ago, etc.).
   .) Message list: Date on which a message has been sent/received. Clues are similar to those of the gallery grid.
   .) Artist/Album list, Contact list: Letters of the alphabet.

• Left screen edge: Open top/bottom pulley menu
  No need to scroll up/down the entire page in order to access a pulley menu (if one is available). With this gesture, it's immediately accessible no matter where you currently are on the page.

• Bottom screen edge: Actions specific to the app currently being in the foreground
  Every app can have different actions here. Following are 5 examples:

1. Browser: Go backwards/forwards one page (no need to bring up the navigation bar)
2. Gallery: Go to previous/next picture or video (no need to entirely zoom out or scroll to the picture edge)
3. Email: Go to previous/next e-mail
4. Media: Skip to previous/next track
5. Documents: Go to previous/next document page (no need for scrolling to get there)

• Top screen edge: Actions specific to a “chosen” (background) app
  The best example for this gesture is the Media app. If you are listening to music while using a different app in the foreground, you can instantly skip to the previous/next track in your playlist without having to switch to the Media app first. The app that receives these swipe events can be chosen in different ways:

1. By selecting an app in “Settings” that will automatically get this status once it is started (ideally with the additional option to only do the assignment if no other running app is the currently chosen app).
2. By adding a corresponding button to every app cover in the “Close/Rearrange apps” view (the one you get by long-pressing in “Home”), that allows both selecting/switching and deselecting an app.

Double-taps AT the screen edge

By introducing “TAP at the screen edge” gestures, another set of actions is implemented. For the sake of user experience simplicity, this proposal only considers double-taps. Like with the swipes, every screen edge triggers a different action when double-tapped:

• Right screen edge: One out of three possible actions:

1. Reset zoom level to default (for item views):
   Pretty much straightforward and fits perfectly with the swipe gesture of this screen edge (see above).
2. Manually enter desired scrolling location (for list views):
   Display a date selector, letter selector, etc. (depending on the list content) for even more precise control compared to the swipe gesture of this screen edge (see above).
3. Alternative function (user-configurable – instead of the two actions described above):
   Trigger one of the left screen edge actions (see below).

• Left screen edge: 2 possible actions (user configurable):

1. Switch between the 2 last used apps (convenient if you want to do copy-and-paste) or between the currently used app and the “chosen” app (see above).
2. Go to the “Permissions” screen of the currently used app (yet to be introduced in Sailfish OS), where you can modify all access permisions for this app on-the-fly as well as check when, how often and how long this app has accessed or attempted to access certain resources of your device, such as your address book or any positioning data (convenient for privacy management and for finding out, if an app deserves your trust).

• Bottom screen edge: Actions specific to the app currently being in the foreground
  Again 5 examples:

1. Browser: Go to the tab selection screen
2. Gallery: Close the current picture/video and go back to the gallery grid
3. Email: Close the current e-mail and go back to the containing folder
4. Media: Pause/resume playback
5. Documents: Close the current document and go back to the document list

• Top screen edge: Actions specific to the “chosen” app
  To stay with the example from above, by using this gesture, you can pause/resume playback of the Media app without having to leave your currently used app at all.

Tooltips for screen edge swipes and taps

To assist the user in knowing/remembering which gesture does what, tooltips are used. If the user places one finger at any of the screen edges without swiping or tapping, icons will appear that tell what will happen if the user swipes into a certain direction from the current position or (double-)taps at this position. If the user lifts the finger without having moved it, the icons will automatically disappear and no action will be triggered.
In case of the app-specific actions (bottom and top screen edges), these tooltips can also include additional information, such as for example the title, elapsed time and remaining time of the track currently played by the Media app.

Swipes and taps on "Home"

Last, but not least, this proposal also introduces additional gestures for the app covers.
Currently, we have the following possibilities on “Home”:

• Tapping an app cover switches to that app.
• Tapping the cover button of an app triggers the respective cover button action.
• Long-pressing anywhere on the screen switches to “Close/Rearrange apps” view.
• Swiping left or right from anywhere inside the screen takes you to “Events”.
• Swiping up from anywhere inside the screen takes you to the app grid.

With the exception of “swipe up”, all of these gestures remain unmodified. For the “swipe up” gesture, it now makes a difference if the swipe is done on a free spot inside the screen or on an app cover:

• Swiping up on a free spot inside the screen takes you to the app grid.
• Swiping up on an app cover will display up to 4 additional cover buttons (depending on the app).

A similar differentiation is made for the “swipe down” gesture:

• Swiping down on an app cover dismisses the additional cover buttons (if they were displayed) or closes the app (if the additional cover buttons were not displayed).
• Swiping down on a free spot inside the screen takes you to the top menu.