Escape gestures in Codea

I would like to request that a feature be added to the main options page to toggle on/off all of the full screen escape gestures, since escape gestures can be manually programmed by Codea users if needed.

There are two gestures that stop my Codea projects from working correctly.

The swipe gesture from the left side of the screen to go back to the editor messes up a few of my projects. My drawing app closes whenever I draw near the left side of the screen, and also problems occur if I place a dpad control near the left side of the screen, since my dpad control works with swipe gestures as well as tapping on the buttons.

The two finger triple tap gesture to exit full screen mode screws up my games that use two finger triple tap gestures. Changing the number of fingers to three or four wont resolve the problem since I’m currently developing rhythm based music games similar to stepmania and jukebeat, which can have four of more fingers tapping on the screen simultaneously.

I agree the first swipe back to editor gesture is useless, if anything it is a hindrance. Many a time have I accidentally exited to the editor whilst building a contraption in my game, not sure why it was put in the last update (possibly for making small programme testing quicker).

The second gesture has been mentioned before, although I’m not sure how it was handled. Try searching for ‘triple tap’ or something similar.

quote Luatee: “The second gesture has been mentioned before, although I’m not sure how it was handled. Try searching for ‘triple tap’ or something similar.”

quote simeon_s: “Runtime - simeon_s - Changed triple tap escape gesture to three touches from two”

The above change to the escape gesture feature wont resolve my problem, since my music games use three and more fingers tapping on the screen simultaneously.

Sorry if I sound like I’m complaining a great deal about this, but these escape gesture features are ruining the functioning of some of the projects that I’m creating in Codea.

Don’t worry about complaining/criticising as long as there is a constructive reason behind it, this is the only way TLL knows how to give the users what they want if they have not already thought of it.

I think there should be a way to disable the triple tap gesture, as long as you have a button to close your game from within. Using the close() function will do this and return you to the editor. However when you come to build the app in XCode, the triple tap gesture no longer works when using FULLSCREEN_NO_BUTTONS if I’m not mistaken.

I also find the “swipe from the left” gesture really annoying, there needs to be a way to turn it off.

Something like

escapeGestures(false)

would be nice

Note that these gestures are disabled when you actually export your project.

But I agree that having some way to disable the swipe-back for projects like drawing apps is a good idea. Can someone log this on the issue tracker as a feature request?

quote: CodeaNoob: “Something like ‘escapeGestures(false)’ would be nice”

I think this is a very good idea if it will make it quicker or easier for the developers to add the feature, compared to placing a toggle switch on the main options sidebar. Also, this would mean that we could toggle the default escape gestures on/off in our projects when required. :slight_smile:

Don’t get me wrong, I do think that the swiping gesture on the left side of the screen to go back to the editor is a useful feature at times, but not when the feature is forced to be used in all projects, all of the time.

I am thinking the solution to this issue is to disable the interactive swipe-back gesture when the display mode is FULLSCREEN_NO_BUTTONS (in which case you must build your own back button).

@Simeon What is happening about the double tap? It has made my game funny, takes about 4-5 double taps to do it properly.

Another one concerning touched: i’ve noticed that 3 simultaneous touches beginning are never captured (only 2 touch events captured). Is this to be expected?

@Luatee good point, we could turn that off entirely — has it ever come in useful for anyone?

@Simeon I think it was useful a few versions ago and for people new to Codea but it’s never been necessary.

@Simeon I would say get rid of the three-finger triple-tap or whatever it is completely. With the swipe-from-left escape gesture, I would say that if you’re not going to have an explicit escapeGestures(false) function (my preferred option), that it would be better to switch off the gestures for FULLSCREEN (as this mode has a back arrow), but leave them ON for FULLSCREEN_NO_BUTTONS (as to me it seems slightly redundant for the user to have to write their own escape function, as anything we write would be just as intrusive as Codeas back arrow).

This would be a good compromise I think, as in FULLSCREEN you’d have no gestures, but you would have the back arrow, saving you the bother of having to write your own back arrow.

@Simeon I use touch.tapCount in a few of my projects…it’s come in very handy.

@Simeon wow-wow-wow! same as SkyTheCoder: i use tapCount every now and then, please keep it here and working, if possible! Thanks.

@SkyTheCoder tapCount is still needed, we’re talking about the triple tap to bring up Codea’s buttons when running your project. Excuse me if I misunderstood you.

I’m of the opposite opinion to yojimbo2000. If I choose FULLSCREEN_NO_BUTTONS then I’m saying that I want total control, and that includes deciding how to exit the program. I might use a menu option, and keep the triple tap for something else. But if I choose just FULLSCREEN then I’m acknowledging that I’m running inside Codea and am willing to let Codea do stuff on top of my code.

But I agree that a command like escapeGestures(false) would be the most useful.

@Jmv38 @SkyTheCoder tapCount is not going anywhere, I’m referring to the triple-tap-with-three-fingers escape gesture.

@LoopSpace that’s how I see things as well.

It sounds like the triple-tap should go.

What about if we make the escape gesture a bit more meta? For example, we could make it so that if you press the home button while running a FULLSCREEN_NO_BUTTONS project, and then resume by re-opening Codea, we convert it to a FULLSCREEN project. So you can still escape if you really need to.

I actually use the triple tap fairly often, generally because I have a program where the buttons get in the way of things so i use FULLSCREEN_NO_BUTTONS but then I need to get out. Obviously i could add my own button that calls close(), and I do sometimes, but this is easier.

What I’m saying is, rather than changing anything, adding escapeGestures() would be best.