Chapter at a glance
Use
Use touch to view all running apps, page 554
Configure
Configure how fast a double-tap should be, page 556
Configure
Configure Pen and Touch settings in Control Panel, page 557
Show
Show or hide touch feedback, page 559
IN THIS CHAPTER, YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO
If you have a Windows 8.1 computer, laptop, tablet, or other compatible device that accepts touch gestures, you can use the single-touch and multitouch features available with Windows 8.1 in lieu of using a mouse or other pointing device. There are several features to explore beyond touch gestures, however; you can use a pen (stylus) to draw on the screen and use the On-Screen Keyboard to type (see Chapter 17). You can use the Touch Keyboard on the desktop. You can configure touch settings, too, including how you want to use a double-tap or long press. You should also configure and calibrate your display (even if it seems to work fine now). The touch and pen settings are configurable, so you can personalize them to suit your needs exactly.
Practice Files
You do not need any practice files to complete this chapter. For more information about practice file requirements, the section “Using the practice files” in the Introduction of this book.
If you’ve used touch before, you know you can touch tiles to open their respective apps, double-tap desktop apps and desktop items such as Recycle Bin to open them, and use your finger to swipe and scroll while within various apps and desktop apps, including Microsoft Internet Explorer. You know you can tap and hold some items and swipe up from the bottom or down from the top to access an app’s charms features. You might think that because touch works, your hardware does not need to be set up, but it does. At the very least, it should be calibrated.
During the calibration process, you’ll be prompted to do the following:
Choose the screen to use. If more than one screen is available (or if Windows thinks there are multiple screens available), you choose which screen to use.
Calibrate the screen. This involves touching the screen in various places upon prompting to calibrate Windows 8.1 properly.
Choose a rotation option. If your screen rotates, you can configure how the screen’s orientation changes when you rotate it.
In this exercise, you’ll access the touch options and work through the wizard to complete the setup process.
Tip
In this book, if an instruction requires you to click something with a mouse, you can generally touch or tap the item to achieve the same result. If a right-click is required, you might need to touch and hold, swipe up from the bottom, or perform some other gesture.
On the Start screen, type Calibrate.
In the search results area, click or touch Calibrate The Screen For Pen Or Touch Input.
In the Tablet PC Settings dialog box, tap Setup.
Tap the screen to choose a monitor if prompted.
Tap Calibrate.
Work through the wizard as instructed. Tap Yes to save the calibration data.
If your screen rotates, tap Go To Orientation.
Configure the orientation options as desired and then tap OK. Tap OK again to close all dialog boxes.
Flick or swipe in from the right side of the screen to access the charms.
Tap Start to return to the Start screen.
You might already be familiar with a few touch gestures; you can certainly tap a tile on the Start screen to open an app. You can apply many more touch techniques, too.
Here are the general single-touch gestures you’ll want to learn right away:
One tap. Tap once to open an app, to select a desktop icon, to apply a rating in the Windows Store, to open a link in Internet Explorer, to use a Back or Forward button, to install an app, to select an email, or to perform any other task that can be applied with a single mouse click.
A double-tap. Tap twice in rapid succession to open an item on the desktop, to zoom in on a webpage (and tap twice to zoom back out), or to perform any other task that can be applied with a traditional double-click with the mouse.
A long touch (touch and hold). In some cases, to obtain results consistent with a traditional right-click with the mouse. Long-touch a folder on the desktop to access the shortcut menu; long-touch a link in Internet Explorer to access options to copy and open the link. Use a long touch on the Start screen to drag an app to a new position or to simply select it
A fast swipe from the left edge inward. When multiple apps and desktop apps are open, this one-finger motion switches among them.
A fast swipe from right to left or from left to right (while not at the edge of the screen). Use this motion to scroll quickly through a map with the Maps app; to view additional information about the current weather from the Weather app; to change months quickly in the Calendar; to scroll through pages in the Store, Music, Video, and similar apps; to move among webpages you’ve visited in the Internet Explorer app; or to perform tasks such as scrolling from right to left with a traditional scroll bar and mouse.
A fast swipe from the right edge inward. Do this to show the charms (Search, Share, Start, Devices, Settings).
A slow swipe from left to right (in the middle of the left edge). If you perform this gesture while using an app when multiple apps are open, you can snap one app so that it takes a part of the screen and another app takes up the rest of it. When you do this, you can run two apps side by side (such as Calendar and Weather) and interact with both. If you hardware supports it, you can have up to four apps open at once.
A fast swipe out and back from the middle of the left side of the screen. Use this motion to show all running apps in a bar on the left side of the screen. (You can then tap any app to open it.)
Pull (flick) down from top. Depending on your display and resolution and the app you have open, you might be able to pull down from the top of an app and drag it off the screen to close it. If you flick down from the top quickly you might be able to view additional features.
Pull (flick) up from the bottom. While in an app, this gesture might display the available charms for that app.
Tap, hold, and pull. Do this to select and move an item such as a tile on the Start screen.
In the previous section, you learned how to use the most common one-finger gestures. You learned about tapping, double-tapping, long-touching, swiping, and others. There are also a few multitouch gestures you can use, and these require more than one finger to perform.
One of the most-used multitouch gestures is the pinch. With two fingers, you can pinch inward and outward to zoom out and in, respectively. You can do this even on the Start screen. When you pinch inward, all the icons on the Start screen become smaller; pinch outward, and they return to their original size (or zoom out) You can also perform this task with four or five fingers if desired and if your monitor supports it.
If you have compatible hardware, a screen set to the proper resolution, and if you are using an app that supports it, you can use two fingers to rotate what’s on the screen 90 degrees. In addition, as newer releases, updates, and hardware improvements become available, more multitouch gestures will become available, as well.
Touch settings exist. You saw some earlier if you worked through the calibration options. You can access some touch settings from PC Settings, but not many. If you use a tablet, you might have more settings than described in this section if they are provided by the manufacturer. Here, you’ll be concerned only with what’s available with Windows 8.1 and what is common to all Windows 8.1 touch-compatible computers, tablets, and devices.
Tip
The manufacturer of your device might include additional features for it, such as a Windows button on the device itself (which returns you to the Start screen).
To see a few of the touch features and configuration options that are available, on the Start screen, type Tablet PC Settings. In the search results area, click Tablet PC Settings. This opens the dialog box you used earlier to calibrate your device. The settings you’ll want to explore here are available on the Other tab and include but might not be limited to the following:
Change multi-touch gesture settings. To change handedness settings, access the Tablet PC Settings dialog box and then tap Other.
Pen and touch. To configure options that require you to use your finger to interact with items on the screen. You can configure settings for Double-Tap and Press And Hold and settings to show visual feedback when touching the screen and when using a projector or external monitor.
You can access these settings and more from the traditional Control Panel, too. On the Hardware And Sound page, you have easy access to Mouse settings, Display settings, Pen And Touch input settings, and Tablet PC Settings.
In this exercise, you’ll access Pen And Touch settings and configure how quickly you tap the screen when you double-tap and the tolerance for the distance you can move between taps.
On the Start screen, type Pen and Touch.
In the search results area, tap Pen And Touch.
In the Double-Tap Settings window, move the slider for Speed to the right or left to make the speed required for a double-tap faster or slower, respectively.
Double-tap in Test Settings. If the door opens and you are happy with the set speed, continue. Otherwise, repeat step 4 to change it.
Repeat the process with Spatial Tolerance.
Tap OK to close the Double-Tap Settings window. Tap OK in the Pen and Touch window to close it.
A few of the touch options are available in PC Settings. To see these, from the Settings charm click Change PC Settings. Then, take a look at what is available in the following sections:
You should calibrate your monitor, even if it worked correctly right out of the box.
You can use many single-touch and single-finger gestures to navigate Windows 8.1.
A handful of multitouch gestures, such as pinching, require more than one finger to perform.
You can change many aspects of touch features, including how fast a double-tap should be and how close or far apart from each other those taps must occur.
A few touch (and touchpad) settings are available from PC Settings.