user keys

[cdodds]

Is there a way to define a user key that uses a long press of the key?

[Tim Wessman]

No.

The low level keyboard driver in all versions so far has exclusively a "key press" message. There is no key up, and hence no long click by definition.

[Han]

I am probably in the minority, but long-press is a feature I would rather not have on a calculator. On the HP50G, it was annoying at best, and aggravating at worst.

[davetheguru]

I miss the HP-41's action of if you press a button and hold it down, it will show you the function. And if you hold it down longer, will nullify the function and ignore it. Use to save me some headaches when I didn't mean to press a particular key.

[Joe Horn]

(03-17-2014 02:50 AM)Han Wrote:  I am probably in the minority, but long-press is a feature I would rather not have on a calculator. On the HP50G, it was annoying at best, and aggravating at worst.

Here's one non-annoying proposed application of long-press on the HP Prime that would be nice in a future firmware version. Currently, to get help on any menu item, you have to navigate to it using the cursor keys. But it would be cool if instead, long-pressing any menu item would only select it, without executing it, so that you could then press Help. This has already been implemented in the Application Library; you can see the help screen for an app, without actually launching that app, by long-pressing its icon and then pressing Help. Very handy.

[HP67]

(03-17-2014 02:50 AM)Han Wrote:  I am probably in the minority, but long-press is a feature I would rather not have on a calculator. On the HP50G, it was annoying at best, and aggravating at worst.

I just started playing around with my 50g. What key(s) have short/long presses? I'm going through a few thousand pages of doc here!

Edit: and HP, the Advanced User Manual looks great, but 693 pages with no hyperlinks!? Come on, guys

[CR Haeger]

I agree - either a long press as Joe describes, or "context sensitive" help. By that, I mean pressing Help immediately following selection/return of a command brings up the help for that command. Usually, I know what command I want to use, but have not memorized what to insert into the (...).

[Han]

(03-24-2014 04:50 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 02:50 AM)Han Wrote:  I am probably in the minority, but long-press is a feature I would rather not have on a calculator. On the HP50G, it was annoying at best, and aggravating at worst.

Here's one non-annoying proposed application of long-press on the HP Prime that would be nice in a future firmware version. Currently, to get help on any menu item, you have to navigate to it using the cursor keys. But it would be cool if instead, long-pressing any menu item would only select it, without executing it, so that you could then press Help. This has already been implemented in the Application Library; you can see the help screen for an app, without actually launching that app, by long-pressing its icon and then pressing Help. Very handy.

My annoyance with long press isn't that it cannot be made useful, but that "long-press" too easily conflicts with a regular click or some other commonly used gesture. For example, I actually like to hold the catalog menu and scroll it -- sometimes pausing before scrolling some more. So that pause could possibly conflict with a long-press. I do this all the time on my phone when presented with a "scrolling" menu. (A quick tap on the menu item followed by the help key works just as well and is likely faster in place of using long-press. Or even a swipe using one/two fingers...)

[orcinus]

You seem to be confusing long press *on a keyboard* with tap-and-hold on a touch screen.

[Han]

(03-27-2014 02:39 PM)orcinus Wrote:  You seem to be confusing long press *on a keyboard* with tap-and-hold on a touch screen.

Did you miss my quote of Joe's post? The response was in reference to his suggestion about a long press on the touchscreen.

But even when we compare a real key to a virtual one, there is no difference. A long press on a real keyboard can conflict with someone else's regular key press because not everyone presses keys the same way. It's a big issue when trying to properly debounce a keyboard; a long-press just makes it worse. It's the same issue at heart.

[orcinus]

My point was more along the lines of - no, touch screen (and mouse driven) UIs aren't the same as a keyboard w/ regards to long presses. A long press is fairly common in a different context (drag, drag and scroll throug a menu, drag and drop) in touch/cursor based UIs.

Long presses on a keyboard, on the other hand, are *very* uncommon, except for modifier keys (which are easily excluded) and are thus extremely hard to mistake for something else, as long as the length of what constitutes as a long press is longer than a common keypress (which is very short, even with a debounce period included). Think 1 second.

On top of that, asking for a long press is very different than having separate keyup and keydown events exposed to the (user accessible) programming language. Former implies a fixed "long press" length. The latter does not and is infinitely tweakable.