Choosing a Set of Gestures to Support

Choosing a Set of Gestures to Support

Choose a set of application gestures that work well together and that fit the functionality provided in your application. Consider the following when choosing your gesture set:

  • Support commonly used real-world gestures such as scratch-out.
  • Keep the number of gestures manageable. Recognition performance suffers as the number of gestures increases. Users may get confused if there are too many to remember.
  • Choose gestures with glyphs that are distinct enough to avoid confusion by the user and the gesture recognizer. For example, don't include both the Up Left and the Up Left Long gestures in the same user interface.
  • Choose gestures with glyphs that suggest the functions associated with them
  • Maintain consistency with the suggested actions for each application gesture unless using an alternate action is both important to your application and does not confuse users.

List of Application Gestures

The following table lists the application gestures provided by Windows Vista. These gestures are enumerated in the following types:

  • The ApplicationGesture enumeration, used with the ink collecting objects in Windows Forms applications and with the GestureRecognizer object in the RealTimeStylus namespace.
  • The ApplicationGesture enumeration, used with Windows Presentation Foundation applications.
  • The InkApplicationGesture Enumeration, used with COM applications

Note  For most gestures, the focal point, which the gesture recognizer reports as the location of the gesture, is the starting point. Arrows indicate a required direction for the stroke. All strokes, except for the arrows and exclamation point, must be drawn in a single stroke.

Gesture Gesture Name Suggested usage and notes
Dd314532.ff84fee3-4435-4ede-be92-fbc3f5753c9d(en-us,VS.85).gif

Scratch-out

Erase content. At least three back and forth strokes are needed. The scratch-out gesture in Tablet PC Input Panel only requires a single stroke; if this might be a source of confusion to your users, you can implement scratch-out as a custom gesture.

Dd314532.2f5faac6-b9dc-4bd3-884c-fa64754b9166(en-us,VS.85).gif

Triangle

Insert

Dd314532.16dc0795-24e0-42a1-a7c8-de0b5c4c8910(en-us,VS.85).gif

Square

No recommended action.

Dd314532.5f43c7d4-2c91-48bd-9627-84443f64cd03(en-us,VS.85).gif

Star

No recommended action.

Dd314532.228da5f7-9789-4a96-b102-ad4ddec960c3(en-us,VS.85).gif

Check

Check-off

Dd314532.58ec6365-5505-45f5-b507-5a657f9b6fbc(en-us,VS.85).gif

Curlicue

Cut

Dd314532.037bc82d-2972-49ce-8520-707a23b6c0ba(en-us,VS.85).gif

Double-Curlicue

Copy

Dd314532.6d276a96-63a1-4c68-89d6-3ff9bf081cf9(en-us,VS.85).gif

Circle

No recommended action.

Dd314532.bfa9cbae-95b3-442c-b8a3-d84b5e91e5de(en-us,VS.85).gif

Double-circle

Paste

Dd314532.646a7982-da0a-4279-ab69-586792a04aec(en-us,VS.85).gif

Left-semicircle

Undo

Dd314532.4c26174c-50c8-403d-b2c0-2bf3f699e215(en-us,VS.85).gif

Right-semicircle

Redo

Dd314532.f024acbc-b90a-4641-9024-a99346ee09cc(en-us,VS.85).gif

Caret

Paste or insert

Dd314532.61984b72-ffb0-4d09-8cec-1091c70000ce(en-us,VS.85).gif

Inverted-caret

Insert

Dd314532.33607caf-7b46-40d3-8cd4-412f3d3acb8a(en-us,VS.85).gif

Chevron-left

No recommended action.

Dd314532.5fc10d84-d394-4678-965e-944ed60a937d(en-us,VS.85).gif

Chevron-right

No recommended action.

Dd314532.2cccf685-ef90-4ef0-91cf-a346a3281334(en-us,VS.85).gif

Arrow-up

Can be drawn in one or two strokes. Draw the shaft of the arrow first. Triangle heads are not supported.

Dd314532.27ec0c7c-9cfa-4fc5-92d8-66ab47dd27a5(en-us,VS.85).gif

Arrow-down

Can be drawn in one or two strokes. Draw the shaft of the arrow first. Triangle heads are not supported.

Dd314532.79b8620d-f797-4be1-a3b7-5cb089e1237b(en-us,VS.85).gif

Arrow-left

Can be drawn in one or two strokes. Draw the shaft of the arrow first. Triangle heads are not supported.

Dd314532.dee2b837-8d39-4633-80c2-bfcf6bbf6cff(en-us,VS.85).gif

Arrow-right

Can be drawn in one or two strokes. Draw the shaft of the arrow first. Triangle heads are not supported.

Dd314532.32eae57d-d426-41c9-9a00-9adc3210a15e(en-us,VS.85).gif

Up-left

No recommended action.

Dd314532.02c34d24-c2d7-404f-b99a-742ba6de7f0c(en-us,VS.85).gif

Up-right

No recommended action.

Dd314532.d8b00c0a-f450-4f71-980f-3bca1b558e4c(en-us,VS.85).gif

Down-left

No recommended action.

Dd314532.d7724327-924a-46a8-b19c-3dd6a2a43d99(en-us,VS.85).gif

Down-right

No recommended action.

Dd314532.b1fbaf82-e50d-4e74-9cc3-b703ad1f7ddd(en-us,VS.85).gif

Left-up

No recommended action.

Dd314532.052fe211-24ba-4556-b8c3-3f855f1dc665(en-us,VS.85).gif

Left-down

No recommended action.

Dd314532.2f837c20-4e0e-4b52-8708-55f4bd97581b(en-us,VS.85).gif

Right-up

Perform an Input Method Editor (IME) conversion.

Dd314532.e79a11cf-09a3-470c-a644-069cfa6d421c(en-us,VS.85).gif

Right-down

No recommended action.

Dd314532.882f074c-a462-4399-934a-1f49508073d8(en-us,VS.85).gif

Up-down

Undo

Dd314532.96c4af99-41b9-4185-9b9a-cc73645e34e7(en-us,VS.85).gif

Down-up

No recommended action.

Dd314532.d6aa0286-c87b-4e6d-8e74-b169fc6c9a51(en-us,VS.85).gif

Left-right

Move cursor left

Dd314532.a1a1cb1b-add8-4fa7-b9f4-756175400b4f(en-us,VS.85).gif

Right-left

Move cursor right

Dd314532.b8988133-9883-4c37-a90d-26fc30011161(en-us,VS.85).gif

Up-left-long

Decrease indent

Dd314532.5e3522d3-2920-4a86-86ae-f29b01d93993(en-us,VS.85).gif

Up-right-long

Tab

Dd314532.b8cb23b5-b947-477d-922f-2ffb42756804(en-us,VS.85).gif

Down-left-long

Enter

Dd314532.786c66e2-b4ab-43a2-91e8-f1356c9d17ee(en-us,VS.85).gif

Down-right-long

Space

Dd314532.a662232c-6a1d-4fe9-a25a-c20a03f786bd(en-us,VS.85).gif

Exclamation

Draw in two strokes. Draw the line first, then draw the dot soon after, placing the dot close to the bottom of the line.

Note  The eight application gestures matching the glyphs for pen flicks are deprecated for Windows Vista and are omitted from this table. Also, the gesture enumerations include definitions for tap and double-tap gestures. These enumeration members are only needed if your application is processing the exclamation point gesture.

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Build date: 12/5/2008