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Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra--I've noticed that when using stylus for annotations, with "enable touch input" (to scroll/move the page with my finger while entering annotations with the stylus), oftentimes the annotation "breaks" while I'm trying to write/draw if my palm is resting on the tablet. It happens more if I have more of my hand on the screen, and less if it's just a knuckle or single point for support.
I noticed in 3.7.2 there was a log entry for toggling the touch mode with stylus but I'm not sure how that is supposed to work? There's always been an "enable touch input" in annotation settings, so I'm assuming this new feature is different?
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If you disable touch input while stylus mode is active, that will ensure that touch input from your hand/palm is always ignored. If you turn it on, then the input should be ignored, but the logic for this is a little complicated as there is no built-in palm rejection in Google's framework. The touch detection looks to see if the surface area of the input is larger than a certain value, and if it is, then it is considered a palm and is ignored. If your palm rests in such a way that two separate parts touch the screen and each has a small surface area, that would look like a pinch gesture to MobileSheets and it would certainly interrupt the annotations. In version 3.7.2, I added a toggle to turn off palm rejection - this was mainly done as I've had a few users whose devices would report touch events with a massive surface area, and they would be ignored as MobileSheets thought it was a palm. Those devices seemed faulty in my opinion, but this was the only way to allow those users to annotate with their fingers.
Mike
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03-10-2023, 03:06 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-10-2023, 03:07 AM by Elguano.)
That's a super clear explanation thank you!
A couple of points of feedback:
1. The "help" text for Stylus mode seems incorrect. It says "pages will be panned when dragging with a finger" and also that pinch zooming and multi-finger taps are supported. However, this is not the case, on my Galaxy Tab tablet, turning stylus mode on ignores ALL finger input, unless "Enable Touch Input in Stylus Mode" is also enabled. I think this can be clarified, with "If Enable Touch Input in Stylus Mode is enabled, then pages can be zoomed..."?
2. Is there a way for stylus input to take priority over touch input? On my Samsung, hovering the stylus near the display shows a reticle. On my Pixel slate, there is no hovering, but it is still a smart stylus that knows when it is touching the screen. I strongly feel that even with "Enable Touch Input in Stylus Mode" turned on, all touch inputs should be intrinsically ignored while a stylus is drawing on screen. Once the stylus is lifted, touch input can be restored. Is this possible?
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Well there is separate help information next to the "Enable Touch Input in Stylus Mode" setting that pretty much explains all that. I think it would be somewhat redundant to put it in both sections.
As for your second question, yes, I probably can change the code to set a flag to ignore all touch input when a stylus is down. I'll take a look at doing that for the next update.
Thanks,
Mike