Timing-based Mode and Gizmo-based Mode

Two modes have been added for interacting with the DesignSpark Mechanical touch interface:

• Timing-based: This mode automatically chooses touch functions based on the amount of time a touch signal is maintained. For example, using two fingers moving together to immediately drag invokes panning, while holding two fingers down for a while, then moving them, invokes what are normally right-mouse-button drag mouse gestures.

• Gizmo-based: This mode is intended to transition existing DesignSpark Mechanical users to the touch interface. Existing mouse buttons and popular keyboard buttons are placed in an on-screen gizmo, to clearly map existing functions onto the touch interface. The benefits in terms of usability are not as apparent with the Gizmo style, but users are encouraged to experiment with it. Because the gizmo buttons act exactly like the mouse and keyboard buttons, use of the gizmo will not be explicitly described here.

  An exception is that using the gizmo does not allow for flicks, so to select objects that are under other objects, you must place the gizmo over the object, then drag the Select gizmo button around the gizmo circle, and it acts like rotating a wheel (and therefore more directly maps to the mouse wheel function.)

  The mouse experience is characterized by a cursor that is always visible, whose default mode is to innocuously move the cursor around the screen. Nothing happens with a mouse until a button is pressed, or a movement is made with a button pressed. Conversely, with touch, there is a lack of an always-visible cursor (and it would be obscured by a finger anyway). And so in DesignSpark Mechanical, the default mode is innocuous pre-selection, until a selection is made (in various ways described below.) In the timing-based paradigm, once a selection is made, then following touch movements act as mouse-button drag actions. Here the important difference in the Gizmo is the most apparent--as ALL touch movements are interpreted as pre-selection actions--and only touching the screen using the gizmo button labeled Left acts as a drag (same as the left mouse button.)

  Additionally, precise sketching is made possible by the gizmo, since it is difficult to draw lines when the endpoint of the line is under the fingertip (in the timing-based scheme.)