Re: [E-devel] Support for force sensitive touch screen

[David S. <on...@gm...>]

On Sun, 7 Feb 2010 14:58:34 +0900 Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman)
<ra...@ra...> wrote:

> want. as such pressure is normally senses by radius. your finger is
> soft. the harder you press the larger the radius of your touch (up to
> a point). so i'd suggest using these first unless u literally have
> extra needs.

That might be normal for people with really short fingernails, but a
lot of women, plus a few men, have longer fingernails, and sometimes
even strong fingernails, or fake fingernails.  Guitarists sometimes
grow long strong fingernails on their string plucking hand, etc.  The
point is that you cannot make assumptions about soft fingertips in a
world where a large percentage of the population will be touching with
their fingernails instead.  The next person to ask me how you type with
long fingernails will get laughed at, women have had no problem doing
so for over a hundred years.

So, for me at least, and probably for some experienced guitarists and
women, the only thing that you get from pressing harder into touch
devices is to wear them out faster.  You should see the gouge marks in
my keyboards.  lol

Touch devices made for stylus use tend to be tough, your average stylus
is about as tough as my fingernails, and usually it makes no
difference.  The batteries in my ancient Visor wore out before the
screen ever even started getting worn. This does not apply to graphics
tablet pens, which have some electronics in the pen that my fingernails
are lacking, but the tablets tend to be tough for the same reason.

In summary, pressure sensitive devices are going to be pressed hard by
hard fingernails whether the designers want it or not.  So they better
be designed to take it, and work well with them.