Since Windows 8 is out, some PC companies started crafting touch-screen
laptops.
Microsoft now produces its own devices, first with a tablet, now with a
laptop.
With Windows 10, every mayor company is working on surface-like devices,
and some software industries started adapting their programs to touch
and pen usage.
We still haven't seen elecronic music programs working on that. There
are some general music programs (such as Staffpad) which use the power
of the pen to make music writing a lot easier then before. Think about
how some of us had to learn Finale Notepad or Sibelius (or Musescore),
and there are people that work on writing music for others.
I write this because I just tried using LMMS in touch-only mode (using
my touch enabled ultrabook), and I think we can make some little
adjustements for touch usage that will make this program great for that
kind of experience.
Right now, with touch:
- Making a beat in BBeditor is really easy
- Writing in pianoroll is ok
- Loading presets is ok
- Song Editor usage is quite messy
- Any knob or number is hard to move around
- Controlls linking is impossible, as well as automation linking
Now, I think we shuldn't make any change for non-touch usage, the GUI
must be left as it is.
Of the other side, Windows is able to detect what's the PC state,
whether "stand-mode" or not, whether attached to keyboard or not.
So th best possibility would be to ask the system for the current state
and change parts of the GUI accordingly.
But this would require Windows-only code.
Another way is to add a little button to switch to "touch mode" (a
feature we may use in future for live usage)
But what changes in this mode?
In general, anything clickable should be bigger and any knob or number
should behave differently.
Examples:
- Instrument Plugin browser should have each plugin description open
(right now you hover the mouse on them: with touch this is not possible)
- Any other element in the browser should be bigger (even if right now
it's not too hard to long-touch, aka right-click, a preset and send it
to bb editor, song editor or active instument): remember that the
surface pro 4 is a 12.3****'' 2763x1824 tablet... that's even more
pixels than my 24'' monitor
- Knobs should be slower (try one with a touchscreen and you'll
understand what I mean)
- Piano-roll should have a "move" tool
- Anything that sounds /while/ touched, should sound /when /touched
(because long-touch = right-click)
- The keyboard of the plugin windows should hav bigger notes
What do you think about supporting touch experience?
Priority of this matter should be less than Mac support, since there are
more electronic musicians running Mac then running a touch enabled PC.
But remeber that if other programs start to support a good touch
experience, we will end up dicussing this matter!
~DeRobyJ
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