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1. Comment - Windows 7 multi-touch SDK being readied for PDC in October

   (May 30, 2008 - 9:16 AM)

   I don't agree multi-touch couldn't be added to the Win32 classic mouse event structure and to frameworks like MFC and VCL. For any mouse event there is already a set of parameters ((X, Y) and [button states]). This is easily expanded to ((X1, Y1), (X2, Y2), [button states]) for two finger gestures, or ([(X, Y)1..n] for an arbitrary number of contact points.
   
   Now how an application should use this information is another thing, it has always been up to the individual application to interpret an event, or to decide to ignore them and let the OS perform the default action.
   
   We can compare this to the introduction of the mouse wheel, first supported in Office 97. Windows 95 did not recognize the wheel natively, but the mouse driver sent wheel events anyway, with a custom message number. Office 97 applications recognized these events and other software could be changed to do so as well.
   
   So how should an application uses multi-touch events? Well, the 'zoom' gesture can be handled the same as the mouse wheel. If an application has no zoomable images, there's nothing sensible to do really. Same applies for 'rotation', 'piano playing' or whatever.
   
   Personally, I always prefer using the mouse buttons and wheel over raising my arm anytime, but when walking around with a tablet pc or electronic white board this could be useful.