A touchy problem

[rogue_mother]

This past weekend I was on the road visiting one of the Rogue daughters. While there, I played Chihuahua on her iPad using the Safari browser, very touchy-feely. In general this went pretty well, but I was constantly frustrated when I tried to scroll through my found words list. The space between the words and the margin of the box was sometimes very narrow and my fingers are not, so a very high percentage of my scrolling attempts resulted in my inadvertently "clicking" on a word to open the Wiktionary box. This led to much gnashing of teeth. Is this something that can be fixed, or is there some method I should employ to get around this?

[Alan W]

Your question is a very timely one, r_m, because I'm currently looking into ways of making Chi work better on touch screens.

When I look at Chihuahua on an Android tablet, I find it fairly easy to make the words scroll, without any definitions popping up. (Of course, getting enough words to need to scroll is a different problem, but I can take the easy way out and bring up the solution of a past puzzle.) However, when I try the same thing on an iPod Touch, I strike the same problem as you, r_m. The dictionary display is very likely to be triggered. I don't have an iPad to experiment on, but I imagine it would respond in a similar way to the smaller i-gadget.

You may find the problem is reduced if you use two fingers to scroll, but of course you have to make sure your two fingers make contact with the screen at about the same time.

Actually there's a similar problem that can arise on a computer when using the mouse. There are two things you can do with a word you have already played: you can drag it up the screen to place the word back on the playing rack; or you can just click on it to bring up the dictionary window. When you're trying to do the former, it's quite easy to let go of the mouse button too soon, and get the dictionary. So I'm thinking that in future selecting a word on any type of screen (by clicking with a mouse pointer or tapping with the finger) should cause a little options menu to pop up, so you can select either copying the word to the rack or defining it - or make the popup menu disappear by clicking/touching somewhere else on the screen.

Alerted by your question, I find that this new version I'm working on makes scrolling even harder on the iPod Touch, and presumably on an iPad too. So you can see why I said your post was timely. Maybe I should make it so you have to hold your finger on a word for half a second or so to bring up the options menu, and I should be able to make sure that the popup doesn't appear if your finger has moved an appreciable distance during that half second, which might mean you're scrolling.

[city17 dweller]

Alan, in ref to using an option box... I don't know about anyone else, but when I use the 'return to rack' function, it's a quick, intuitive move when I know I can make a word by taking a single letter from or adding to my previous one.  If I had to stop and click on an option, I'd probably just type my next word from scratch.

Is there any merit in the idea of leaving the dictionary option turned off until the puzzle is closed and the solution available, so it doesn't interfere with scrolling while playing? It's usually when I check to see what words I've missed that I want to look them up.  Again, just going by my own game-play, ommv.

Thanks for all the tweaks, by the way, I love how Chi keeps evolving.

[pat]

Even though I have the latest version of the iPad (the iPad air) I still find it frustrating for playing Chi. You need to tap on the letters quite slowly to get them to transfer to the rack. But the main problem is no keyboard to type the words in. The iPad (and the iPod touch and presumably the iPhone) are 'clever' enough to know when to present you with a keyboard and as far as I know there's no way to force one. If I'm wrong about that I'd love someone to put me right!

[anonsi]

I personally wouldn't like to have to click through an options menu every time I wanted to look one of the words up in a dictionary. I wonder if the scroll issue could be fixed by increasing the space between the words and the scroll bar, or by making the scroll bar a little wider.

[Alan W]

I wonder if the scroll issue could be fixed by increasing the space between the words and the scroll bar, or by making the scroll bar a little wider.

Problem is, web browsers on touch screen devices generally don't put scroll bars on scrollable areas. It's assumed the user will just put their finger anywhere inside the area they want to scroll and move it about. Which is only a problem if the scrollable section contains things that do something when you touch them.

(Actually this doesn't always work ideally, even if the content of the scrolled section is inert. Firefox for Android seems inclined to scroll the whole screen rather then the section your finger is on, so you may have to jiggle it about a while before it does what you want.)

Anyway, I could put a wider margin beside the words, so there's something to grab hold of that won't have any side-effects.

[rogue_mother]

Anyway, I could put a wider margin beside the words, so there's something to grab hold of that won't have any side-effects.

This would be my ideal solution, especially if executing it in code is as easy as envisioning it.

[Alan W]

Referring to pat's comments, the sluggish response to tapping the letters is common on websites that were designed for mouse use and haven't been adapted for touch screens.

Some browsers have a deliberate pause of about three-tenths of a second before responding to a finger tap, to allow time to determine whether the user is in fact doing a double-tap. On an iPad, I think that if you do a quick double tap of the finger anywhere on the screen on most websites, this will cause the view to zoom in or out. The same thing happens in many browsers on touchscreen devices. On Chihuahua it happens even if you double tap on one of the letters. Of necessity, this means that if you tap a letter only once, nothing will happen for a little while, until it becomes clear that there isn't going to be a second tap.

Fortunately there are ways to prevent this happening, in situations where it's not wanted. This is what I'm working on. When a letter is in its home position on the X or triangle, a finger tap on the letter should send it to the playing rack immediately. If there is a second tap on the same place, it should hit the green arrow that is displayed where the letter was, which will attempt to play the word on the rack.

Allowing the use of the on-screen keyboard for playing Chi could be trickier. Perhaps there wouldn't be much call for it if touching the letters on the display worked more smoothly.

[pat]

If there is a second tap on the same place, it should hit the green arrow that is displayed where the letter was, which will attempt to play the word on the rack.

Ah. I wondered why I sometimes get messages telling me there's no such word when I haven't even (deliberately) tried to play it. It's obviously my frustration making me tap the letter again because it hasn't moved. Any impatient people who care about their percentage hit rate should definitely not attempt to play Chi on their iPads!

[Ozzyjack]

The iPad (and the iPod touch and presumably the iPhone) are 'clever' enough to know when to present you with a keyboard and as far as I know there's no way to force one. If I'm wrong about that I'd love someone to put me right!

Try hitting the big back arrow that brings up the previous word played.  On my Ipad this always brings up the virtual keyboard

[Alan W]

Of course, this is another thing that happens on touchscreens that isn't meant to happen. Maybe this is the point you were aiming to delicately make, OJ.

In any case, it doesn't solve pat's problem because letters typed on the keyboard don't actually get played.

[greenone]

Pat, I use my I-Pad every day to play Chi. I'm not sure having a keyboard appear would help. You still have to "tap" to make a letter. On my PC it is much easier because I can type on the real keyboard a lot faster. Have not tried using  my Apple keyboard as an added extra to the I-Pad to play the puzzle.

In general, these devices are very touch sensitive, but I've found after being a user for a few years, that my fingers have learned how to deal with that 95% of the time

The Chi puzzle is my breakfast ritual. I have 2 choices. Play on the pc which is much easier but means I sit facing a wall inside my house or play on the I-Pad sitting outside on my deck with the sun shining in and the fresh air surrounding me. Easy choice for me, although in my part of the world (Brisbane, Australia), the morning sun sometimes gets a bit too hot - even in Winter!

[pat]

Hi, greenone.

You're right that I'd still have to tap a keyboard to get a letter so in that respect a keyboard wouldn't make too much difference on the iPad, and if the letters moved to the rack more speedily it wouldn't be a problem anyway. I tend to play the games on the PC and then if I use the iPad for something else I sometimes open Chi to see if I can find a few more words. When you're struggling with the last few common words, using the iPad is adequate.

The Chi puzzle is my breakfast ritual. I have 2 choices. Play on the pc which is much easier but means I sit facing a wall inside my house or play on the I-Pad sitting outside on my deck with the sun shining in and the fresh air surrounding me. Easy choice for me, although in my part of the world (Brisbane, Australia), the morning sun sometimes gets a bit too hot - even in Winter!

Oh to have such a problem! Sigh...

[Ozzyjack]

Of course, this is another thing that happens on touchscreens that isn't meant to happen. Maybe this is the point you were aiming to delicately make, OJ.

In any case, it doesn't solve pat's problem because letters typed on the keyboard don't actually get played.

On this occasion, Alan, I wasn't being delicate as I was unaware that bringing up the virtual virtual keyboard by pressing the back arrow over Submit was an accidental rather than a designed feature.  I use it all the time when I am using the Ipad because although you have to tap each letter on the virtual keyboard and so there is no apparent saving, I find the virtual keyboard is more responsive.  It also has some of the advantages of using the key board on the PC to perform shortcuts.  The back arrow on the virtual keyboard removes only the last letter on the selection being played which can save keystrokes in entering a new word but I haven't found a  one keystroke short cut in removing the whole word except by repeated back arrows.  ".", "," and "0" perform the same functions as on a PC keyboard.  The big disadvantage of the Ipad keyboard over the PC keyboard is that you can't selective reorder the letters in your selection.  The advantage of the Ipad over the PC as GO mentioned is its portability.

I didn't understand the point about letters typed on the keyboard not being played as I do not have this problem.

I was tickled with your contraction of my name to OJ and shall use it from now on although it did remind me of the extremely politically incorrect biblical parody Simpson and Delicious which I am much too delicate to repeat in this forum - even if I could remember all the details.

Cheers
OJ

[Alan W]

Well blow me down, OJ, I never knew you could do that!

(Incidentally, I still think of OJ as meaning orange juice. I probably wouldn't have abbreviated your handle in that way if O J Simpson had come to mind.)

The reason I said the letters typed on the virtual keyboard are not played is that on my Android tablet, they're not. (Also I never designed it to happen. In fact when I first implemented the keyboard option, even the iPhone was yet to be released. So the fact that so much works for you on your iPad is something of a lucky fluke.)

Now that I try it out on an iPod Touch, I see that it works just as you describe - not that it's a very practical way of playing on such a small screen.

Since the virtual keyboard is of some use to iOS users, I'll put a button on the screen, specifically for bringing up the keyboard. Also I can designate a key for returning the whole word. But can I get the same thing working for Android devices? Only time will tell.