Chapter 21. Keyboards, mice, touch, accelerometers, and gamepads
This chapter covers
- Keyboard input
- Touch, mouse, and pen input
- Using the accelerometer
- Integrating C++ to use an Xbox 360 controller
Prior to Windows 8, many tablets supported keyboard input only as an afterthought and mouse or pen input as an anomaly. Similarly, most desktop computers weren’t designed with touch input in mind. Each device had its preferred means of input and essentially ignored the others. The apps on those platforms also reflected these input choices.
The WinRT and Windows Store side of Windows 8 has been built from the ground up with the understanding that users will have multiple ways of interacting with the system. We didn’t want to restrict tablets to touch or desktops to only mouse. Instead, we understood that there’s a continuum of devices that span form factors, and that the line between what is a tablet versus a notebook versus a desktop can sometimes be blurry. For example, when I set up the pre-keynote performance at Build 2012, Jordan Rudess (keyboardist for Dream Theater and a performance technology enthusiast) played his tablet app on a 27” touch screen all-in-one computer.[1] This was new territory for him and his developer and something he found really opened up the possibilities of what he’d do with his apps. He also played the same app on Microsoft Surface with Windows RT.
1 You can see a video of his first impressions on my YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/user/Psychlist1972.