My Ideas for Long-Term touchscreen UX/UI improvements:
- Automatically disable automatic focus on text boxes when applications launch, conditional upon whether the Virtual Keyboard is active, having the keyboard pop up without user input is jarring.
- Fix that bug where searching with the Virtual Keyboard in the default apps menu makes it fullscreen (permanently on without touchpad/mouse)
- Make all Tablet mode changes optional, such as the increased size of tray items or forced extra spacing in the Icons-only Task Manager
- Make long-touching the desktop right click instead of edit mode. If I wanted edit mode I would’ve entered it from the right click menu, right click is more important to be quickly accessed.
- Alternatively, make it changeable in the mouse button behaviors in Configure Desktop. Android has a Two-Finger Pinch gesture as a way to edit Widgets and Pages, this could be a good alternative.
- Customizable edge swipe gestures zones: Current touchscreen gestures but with definable fractions of the edge instead of the whole edge (preferably with a new option to launch apps. There could be a cool effect with a translucent/blurred rectangle overlaid with the app icon sliding onscreen from the edge or corner, scaling up, and then getting replaced by the newly loaded app window).
- A swipable handle screen overlay that can execute Gestures/Hot Corner options as well, similar to the Edge Panels handle on Samsung phones or the (One Hand Operation +) Good Lock Module, also on Samsung phones.
- Some sort of clone of the Fly-Pie gnome extension, perhaps with a panel/desktop widget version that could be controlled like the thumbstick on a Nintendo 3DS?
- Volume and Brightness pop-ups that are touch controllable.
- A port of the Plasma mobile Quick Controls/Notification Center to Desktop, as a widget or Hot Corner/Gestures option.
- A Universal Back system like Android’s Back Button/Gesture for Plasma Mobile and Convergent Apps, with ESC being used for non-compatible apps? (If there were to be a widget I suggest having a hypothetical back-arrow switching to text saying “ESC” or whatever the equivalent is in the user’s language).
- Button remapping support for pens
- The ability to manually open the virtual keyboard arbitrarily: implemented as a gesture or widget, as well as a full keyboard layout or two in Maliit with Arrow Keys, Modifiers, and optional Function keys.
- A better first-party fullscreen application launcher, with app folders.
- The list-view homescreen (not appdrawer) of Plasma Mobile could be interesting as a Desktop Layout (Like Folder View in “Configure Desktop and Wallpaper”) for users who dislike Desktop Icons due to how disorderly and chaotic they are.
- An off-by-default user definable widget grid for Desktop widgets, as opposed to freely movable widgets. This would essentially just be copying Android and iOS. I find that my widgets never line up and it really bugs me.
Any Comments, Feedback, or Ideas?