Re: [pointerevents] pointerType: 'dial'

> Pointer location
> 
> The use-cases shown in Microsoft website seem to suggest that the 
location of the dial has only a weak association to the content below 
it. If a dial is off the screen, it's location is irrelevant, unlike 
any other pointing device. When the dial is about to touch the screen,
 it doesn't seem to affect the content below it but instead "pops up" 
a new UI widget, and then controls the part of the widget around it. 
"Center of of the Widget upon contact" seems to be the only use of its
 location. Does it have any use case as a pointing device? I didn't 
find any.
> 
> A mouse wheel is not used as a pointing tool (even though it 
"resides" on a pointing device). We don't move the mouse when turning 
the wheel---either for the physical awkwardness of simultaneous 
movements, or to avoid scrolling wrong things accidentally. Dial seems
 exactly like this: meant to be used by our "non-dominant" hand which 
is not an expert for precise movement, at least for me.

The video on the docs page linked above does mention around 18:30 that
 the dial's menu could/should contain different items depending on 
where it's placed on the screen 
[(link)](https://youtu.be/2tajuOfs9p0?t=18m30s). It is also my 
understanding that only the black circle with the white menu icons is 
painted by the OS, other widgets such as colour sliders are painted by
 the app. Although it may be possible to create a higher level API 
that's more useful for simple scenarios, it doesn't seem difficult to 
imagine someone wanting to know the position of the dial to add 
elements surrounding it manually.

I agree with regards to the nature of pointers, however. When the dial
 is placed on the screen, it would be misleading to ever consider it a
 primary pointer, even when it's the first of its type. However, just 
checking if the pointer is primary in event handlers would effectively
 disable  `pointerover/enter` and `pointerout/leave` events for 
secondary hover-capable pens, probably not a great outcome either. I 
suspect the end result would be surrounding alot of event handlers 
with `if` statements to check if the pointer type is not `dial`, 
assuming the adoption rate is high enough for devs to bother, which 
could quickly get ugly if alternative other-hand input devices ever 
spring up.

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Received on Sunday, 6 November 2016 12:30:19 UTC