button tapping idea for ipods with scrollwheel

[willemmerson]

In some of the games for the original ipod firmware you can actually control things by 'tapping' the buttons on the ipod, i.e. not actually pressing them down. This means that the play/ffwd/rewind buttons still do what they are supposed to do even while you are in the middle of the game. This got me to thinking that the same thing could be implemented in rockbox, possibly, so for all the menu's, plugins and viewers you use button taps, leaving play/rewind/ffwd always dedicated to playback. You could even make it so the scroll wheel is a dedicated volume control. In theory you are adding twelve more buttons - the four directions and options of single tap, double tap and hold.
I had a quick look to see if someone had had the idea before but couldn't see anything.
I also had a look at the source code and though I could possibly make a plugin as a sort of test but then realised button 'tapping' probably isn't exposed by the API so concluded that it is completely beyond my capabilities.

[zajacattack]

Well, I recall hearing this suggestion over at iPodLinux, but here's the problems:

1) Pressing the button down would also register as a tap, which could easily cause problems.
2) Scrolling on the scroll wheel registers as taps as well.
3) I'm not sure if one could code to make it tell the difference between a "single" and a "double" tap.

[willemmerson]

Yeah, its certainly got its problems but surely not impossible:

1) Pressing the button down would also register as a tap, which could easily cause problems.
Pressing the button down would cause a tap but then a 'button down' event straight after so could be distinguished by this.

2) Scrolling on the scroll wheel registers as taps as well.
Scrolling is only scrolling when the sensors underneath the wheel are triggered one afer the other. If you tap the scroll wheel currently it doesn't cause scrolling.

3) I'm not sure if one could code to make it tell the difference between a "single" and a "double" tap.
Er...there's got to be some way or differentiating this, but its not that important anyway, that was just an extra.

I guess the problem is it needs someone who can program AND is interested in the idea. I have difficulty just making a WPS so thats me out of the equation. I don't even know if rockbox has access to the information from the sensors or whether it just gets a scolling type event.
It would be very cool though, the taps could be user definable so for instance from the WPS you could go straight to the playlist. I just need to go on that crash course in programming, pardon the pun.

[zajacattack]

Yeah, I see what you mean, but then the question is: can all of that be coded and NOT be super sluggish?

[cool_walking_]

Rockboy already uses these "taps". Plugins have complete control over what they do with button events, and I like it this way.  To make this work, you're effectively taking away possible button events that plugins could use.  Some plugins are too CPU-intensive to allow playback to continue while running them.

[zajacattack]

Yeah, unless you have super optimizing powers.

[JdGordon]

Some plugins are too CPU-intensive to allow playback to continue while running them.

and this relates to the discussion how exactly?

touches are entirely possible (and relativly easy to get working with actions), but I dont own an ipod so dont have any interest in implementing this... if a patch were to appear it would be looked at