Gestures implementation in Animated Widget 2.1

New version Animated Widget 2.1 is just released. Key feature of new version is support of gestures. The purpose of this article is to explain detailes of implementation and show ways to use this feature most efficiently.

Previous versions of Animated Widget allowed only one way to execute shortcuts(=actions) - using two taps: first tap opens widget, second tap starts shortcut. New version adds new way to execute shorcut - using tap+gesture: tap opens widget, then gesture opens shortcut.

What is advantage? It's pretty simple. To make tap on shortcut you should find out the shortcut on the screen. It always takes time. To make gesture you don't need to find out anything. You should only remember that "scroll to top starts call", that's all. Need to start call? Open widget and make scroll to top. You even don't need to look on the opened widget.

In general, "tap+gesture" way is much faster for frequently used actions, "tap+tap" way is more convenient for rarely used shortcuts. If you forget what gesture is connected to specified shortcut - no problems, just look on the screen. Animated Widget shows gesture animation above shorcut icon as a hint.

AW 2.1 supports 29 variants of gestures:

• pinch and zoom;
• 9 gestures for 1 finger - swipe to right, swipe to left, scroll to top, scroll to bottom + 4 diagonal gestures;
• 9 gestures for 2 fingers;
• 9 gestures for 3 fingers.

Pinch and zoom don't depend on gesture direction, all other gestures do.

Process of configuration gestures is pretty easy. Open Widget Properties and select tab "Gestures". Then bind actions to gestures one by one:

All types of widgets allows to set gestures automatically. But alghoritms are different.

• Contact. 1-finger gestures are used for primary phone, 2-fingers gestures are used for secondary phone. Scroll to top is used for phone call, scroll to bottom - for SMS, swipe to left/right - to emails. For viber/skype calls top-diagonal gestures are used - top + right, top + left. For SMS with preselected application bottom-diagonal gestures are used - bottom+right, bottom+left.
  
• Group contact. For first 9 subcontacts: 1-finger gesture is assigned to phone call, corresponded 2-fingers gesture is assigned to SMS.
  
• Application launcher and Bookmarks launcher. Gestures are assigned to shorcuts one by one according to the order of the shorcuts in the list of shortcuts.

When you open widget, selected gestures are shown above shortcut buttons as a hint-animation.

This animation can be disabled in the application settings.

Group contact has a slightly different implementation of gestures then other types of widgets. You are able to set gesture not only for "action" (opening subcontact), but also for "sub-action" (action of selected subcontact).

As soon as several gestures are assigned to subcontact, you will see several hint animations above the subcontact on opened Group widget. These animations are shown one by one.

In previous versions of Animated Widget any accident gesture on the screen was handled as a tap. New version distinguishes taps and gestures. If you prefer old behavior you are able to switch gestures support off in the settings of the application. If gestures are disable new version of applicaiton handles gestures exactly in the same way as previous versions.

If you have any ideas how to improve gestures support in Animated Widget please don't hesitate to send us email or leave a comment on vote-page.