spiegel-keyman/developer/docs/help/guides/develop/touch-keyboard-tutorial/gestures.md

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Using Gestures in Keyman Developer

Keyman Developer offers Longpress keys, Flicks, and Multitaps for touch keyboard layout. To allow gestures onto your keyboard, go to the Touch layout tab and define the keys as followed:

Tips

• We can use both flicks and long presses in a single keyboard. Generally, we recommend only having flicks in one direction--south (down), and long presses work well with this pattern. See, for example, sil_euro_latin.
  • You’ll also notice on sil_euro_latin that the south-flicks on the base (and shift) layers correspond to the numeric/symbol layer, which is also helpful for remembering and discovering.
• Flicks in multiple directions are possible, but currently Keyman does not support hints for multiple directions, so they are not very discoverable.
• Long presses are more discoverable, but flicks are faster. We suggest using south flicks along with long presses, and including the flick output in the long press for maximum discoverability and optimum ergonomics.

Caution

• Flicks near screen edges tend to be problematic--once you drag off the screen, then Keyman can no longer tell that you are flicking (or you may end up activating system controls on the bottom edge):
  • On the bottom row, south flicks are not recommended.
  • On the top row, we have the banner space reserved in order to be able to support flicks and long presses up into that region of the screen--not an ideal solution, but it works.
  • Left/right screen edges, horizontal flicks are not the best practice.

See also

• The Winchus keyboard
• The GFF Amharic keyboard