Windows 8 Trackpad Gestures

K

koppah

Bit poster
Hi Parallels crew,

When do you guys think you'll enable support for Windows 8 gestures on the trackpad? Would make using the OS that much more pleasant :)

Cheers,

Jonathan
 
The following gestures would very much enrich the experience. Some of these, you are simulating via Parallels, but might be better to let Windows handle them, as there are problems such as acceleration and speed being off with your existing solution.

Pinch zoom. You can pinch (and reverse pinch) on the trackpad surface to zoom in compatible apps and experiences, such as a photo youre viewing in the Photos app.

Pan and scroll. You can use two fingers to pan and scroll. To pan, which is basically a horizontal scrolling (typical for multi-screen Metro-style experiences, including the Start screen), you drag two fingers from left to right (or vice versa) across the surface of the trackpad. Scrolling works as it does today: You drag two fingers up and down on the trackpad surface.

Charms. To display the Charms, you slide in on the trackpad surface from the right edge of the trackpad.

Switcher. To access the new Switcher interface, you slide in on the trackpad surface from the left edge of the trackpad.

App bar. To display an apps (or the Start screens) app bar, you slide in on the trackpad surface from the top edge of the trackpad.

Rotate. An uncommon gesture (and disabled by default), this lets you use two fingers to rotate an onscreen display, such as you might want to do in an image editing solution.

Source: http://www.winsupersite.com/article...lease-preview-trackpad-gesture-support-143246
Click to expand...
 
As I mentioned, scroll is not working very well.

Also, are you turning the command into a DPI increase, or is it getting passed in as a proper Windows 8 gesture?
 
I don't see you mentioning scroll issues anywhere. Can you you elaborate?
Zooming via touchpad was available long before Windows 8, it boils down to mouse wheel events or application specific keyboard shortcuts injected by driver helper. It has nothing to do with DPI, BTW.
The the three new Charms/Switcher/App bar "gestures" are also mapped to keyboard shortcuts. I doubt they can enrich user experience to any degree.
 
So, let me get this straight. A customer is telling you that having these would enrich the experience, and you are telling them that their opinion doesn't matter? I am starting to question your customer service skills at this point...

The whole idea is that there is a multitouch trackpad, and that you want your customers to use Parallels instead of Bootcamp. Windows 8 supports native multitouch gestures. You should not be translating a scroll gesture to a mouse scroll - you should be letting Windows make that decision. This generalises to any multitouch gesture, given that Windows 8 apps will be able to take advantage of the new touch input SDK. By translating gestures before they get to the Windows Touch layer, you are removing that ability completely.

You can find out more about the access applications have to multitouch gestures at MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/xaml/hh465387.aspx

I'm hoping this convinces you that Parallels will be at a disadvantage if you cannot support multitouch gestures correctly, especially for Modern Windows 8 Apps.
 
Lets clarify. In your first post you're asking when multi-touch gestures will be enabled. So I'm trying to figure what exactly needs to be done beyond what's already in the product. I'm saying is that two-finger panning and zooming have long been available, these gestures are passed to any Windows guest not just 8. Also, the way PD integrates with OS X puts some restrictions on which OS handles low level events. So, we don't normally pass user input to Windows as is.
Again, can you describe what doesn't work in Windows 8 right now (besides charms) to give me user perspective?
 
I understand there may be technical hurdles to cross, I'm just saying that they would be useful.

As to existing behaviour, I can't get a clear repro, but scrolling sometimes goes WAY too fast. I'm not sure how to fix it, and I *suspect* it may have to do with running in HiDPI mode. It becomes very difficult to accurately scroll in many applications, such that sometimes, I need to switch to the keyboard. Scrolling in OS X allows me to adjust between fine-grained scrolling, and fast page-by-page. Is there a setting somewhere I can tweak to play with it?
 
These don't work in PD 8.0

koppah said:
The following gestures would very much enrich the experience. Some of these, you are simulating via Parallels, but might be better to let Windows handle them, as there are problems such as acceleration and speed being off with your existing solution.
Click to expand...

So while they work in Windows, this doesn't meant they work when in full screen mode in PD for Mac 8.0. I tried all of them and the trackpad on my MacBook Pro and on a Magic Trackpad to no avail.

Like the original poster said, it would be good to get support for these gestures.
 
I agree with the original poster. If you have a Macbook Air or Macbook Pro, open up any side-scrolling app in Windows 8 (the weather app. will do, for example). One will immediately notice that scrolling with two fingers creates noticeable stutters and, in turn, creates a bad user experience. Furthermore, if you swipe back and forth very quickly (i.e. momentum scrolling), the screen will sometimes jump uncontrollably.

I'm not too sure what the limitations are for implementing better trackpad gesture support, but it's certainly something I'd like to have because the current support is sub-par. Serv, if you cannot replicate this, I will create a video and post it on YouTube at some point to clarify/elucidate any confusion.

Thanks,
 
Enriched user experience

I also would like to say that supporting the Windows 8 charms gestures would definitely improve the user experience. I will be really disappointed in Parallels 8 if they don't bring out support for these gestures.
 
Hi,

PLease update your Parallels Desktop 8 to the latest build (Parallels Desktop > Check for Updates...)

The latest update lets you open the Windows 8 Charm sidebar with one finger swipe.
 
How do you get charms to come in? I tried every one finger swipe I could find. Charms never showed up.

Update: got it to work. Nice.
 
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iHeartRadio has no audio but does show album cover information. Netflix definitely doesn't work at all.

Update 2: looks like a new Parallels Desktop is being pushed out today. Am upgrading and seeing if it works better ...

Wow, quick!

UPDATE: Netflix and Hulu Plus still don't work. Says Windows graphic driver is failing and needs to be updated. iHeartRadio stlll won't play music.
 
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Sorry for being a bit dim here, but how do I turn off charm swiping? Its awful - I'm constantly bringing up the charms when I'm coding by just brushing against the trackpad.

Thanks in advance :)
 
I could do with knowing how to turn this off as well. I've got a Windows 7 install, and brushing the trackpad wrong brings up Flip3D. Not fun.
 
Hi,

If you wish to disable this feature, please do the following:
Locate your Virtual Machine .pvm file (usually in ~/Documents/Parallels). Right click and show package content.
Open config.pvs file and search for the following node:
<Gestures Enabled_patch="1" dyn_lists="">
<Enabled>1</Enabled>
</Gestures>
Click to expand...
Change this node from <Enabled>1</Enabled> to <Enabled>0</Enabled> and save the config.pvs file.

We are considering to make this as a GUI option in upcoming updates.

Thanks,
Alex
 
These gestures were working with two-finger left/right swipes on my Magic Mouse UNTIL this latest update released today. The gestures are enabled in the PVS file. Any idea how I can get them working again?
 
I have found the that the single finger Charms gesture the top/bottom menu gesture, and the single finger open apps gesture work, and then stop working. Then for minutes they will not work, then all of a sudden begin again. I cannot find any pattern to this stop and start pattern. This is with the latest build which came out today. I am use an Apple external bluetooth trackpad.
 
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