RE: [pointerevents] Spec implies mice can't support pressure

Well, a web developer can take that approach, but the different OS implementations and likely different hardware will define what a "force touch" means versus just a change in pressure.

For a concrete example, a web developer wants to integrate some force touch reactions on their site, just like apps can do on iOS and Mac today. Assuming that the pressure characteristics of a "force touch" are different between an iPhone and a Mac with a pressure sensitive touchpad, a web developer would have to have detection code and react differently based on the HW platform. I think that would stink - a web dev should be able to just have code to handle a "force touch" and get a consistent, interoperable experience across any OS and HW platform combination that supports force touch capabilities. 

That being said, I can also imagine scenarios where a web dev would want to control the haptic feedback aspects of force touch - at least the ability to toggle it on and off.

I do not have any data to indicate that web developers are clamoring for this and clearly anything that we were to specify would likely only work on non-Safari browsers, but it is interesting to consider nonetheless.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick H. Lauke [mailto:redux@splintered.co.uk] 
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2016 3:06 AM
To: public-pointer-events@w3.org
Subject: Re: [pointerevents] Spec implies mice can't support pressure

On 21/01/2016 04:27, Ted Dinklocker wrote:
> Sounds reasonable to me.
>
> Also seems like a good opportunity to discuss whether it makes sense to do some work around force touch as well? It is easy to imagine a broader world of touchpads that support pressure and haptic feedback with scenarios for force touch.
>
> Thoughts?

Serious question: I know that Apple went all out inventing lots of new proprietary events for force touch...but are these actually needed, compared to just what pointer events offer with pressure? I guess they abstract scenarios to a slightly higher level (i.e. being able to detect that a force touch is starting, rather than listening to pointerdown and monitoring changes in pressure), but are they worth the extra event? Am I missing other things that currently *can't* be adequately explained with just PE?

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

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Received on Thursday, 21 January 2016 17:58:40 UTC