FG touch screen functionality?

[shoggothic]

Does anyone have any updates on how the touch screen FG functionality is working for them?

Sorry, I've been out of action for a few, due to real life, you know, that lame stuff...Anyhow, the way I've got my touch table set up is a Vizio M Series 60" laying on its back (I chose Vizio because it has built in metal supports inside the shell that prevents the edges from 'bowing' and the resultant image bloom and parallax). A 60" touch overlay lies on top of the TV, with the whole set-up resting in a 30" high custom table- standard height for chairs.

An advantage of the touch screen table set up is that the players sit around all four edges of the table and are looking at each other or down at the table to move their token(s) or templates, so blocking one another line of sight is a non-issue. I am hooked in wireless to the table with my tablet and usually walk around the table and behind the players, as I describe the scene, to keep tension up.

We don't have any issues with functionality as far as left or right clicking goes. Right-click is simulated by simply holding a touch event on the screen for more than a second, bringing up right-click menus. Likewise, reducing or moving a window out of the way is easy, though some of the buttons are small and may take an extra touch to close or open. Not having native window rotation (like on Smart Devices) is annoying, but we work with it.

A caveat though, my players are using dead tree and dice, and only use the touch screen functions in combination with FG for maneuvering tokens through combat, initiative tracking and dropping templates and conditions. So full functionality, like updating characters, creating items/feats/creatures, or general campaign building hasn't really been tested by us, as we don't make use of those FG options. But replacing mice with fingers hasn't yet created any barriers for our game using FG on a touch screen.

[Nylanfs]

Post pictures! ... And table build plans ... and get us discounts on the tv and touch overlay!

[LordEntrails]

I would love to see pictures and a bill of materials or list of components.

[damned]

Sorry, I've been out of action for a few, due to real life, you know, that lame stuff...Anyhow, the way I've got my touch table set up is a Vizio M Series 60" laying on its back (I chose Vizio because it has built in metal supports inside the shell that prevents the edges from 'bowing' and the resultant image bloom and parallax). A 60" touch overlay lies on top of the TV, with the whole set-up resting in a 30" high custom table- standard height for chairs.

An advantage of the touch screen table set up is that the players sit around all four edges of the table and are looking at each other or down at the table to move their token(s) or templates, so blocking one another line of sight is a non-issue. I am hooked in wireless to the table with my tablet and usually walk around the table and behind the players, as I describe the scene, to keep tension up.

We don't have any issues with functionality as far as left or right clicking goes. Right-click is simulated by simply holding a touch event on the screen for more than a second, bringing up right-click menus. Likewise, reducing or moving a window out of the way is easy, though some of the buttons are small and may take an extra touch to close or open. Not having native window rotation (like on Smart Devices) is annoying, but we work with it.

A caveat though, my players are using dead tree and dice, and only use the touch screen functions in combination with FG for maneuvering tokens through combat, initiative tracking and dropping templates and conditions. So full functionality, like updating characters, creating items/feats/creatures, or general campaign building hasn't really been tested by us, as we don't make use of those FG options. But replacing mice with fingers hasn't yet created any barriers for our game using FG on a touch screen.

Sounds awesome. Slowly the players will start using FG too... thats my bet.

[bullywug]

We've been using FG for a few sessions now on a Lenovo Horizon 27" tabletop PC. It's a multitouch (10 finger) touchscreen. Most everything works well but I have two questions:
1) I asked this in another forum but it may be more appropriate here. Is it possible to edit a theme to make certain elements easier to hit with a finger? Specifically the scroll bars and the attack and damage buttons are hard to hit.
2) We have a problem with the multi-touch pinch and zoom to zoom in on the map. It seems to work inconsistently which makes me think I'm missing something. Any suggestions?

[Moon Wizard]

1) You can make edits using extensions to modify the sizes of elements. You may need to update your extension when the underlying ruleset frameworks are updated. The main consideration would be that all of the sheets are laid out given the existing control sizes, so you may run into some minor overlap issues as you make things bigger.

2) Fantasy Grounds triggers the pinch/expand multi-touch gesture as passed to our program by Windows. I haven't heard of any issues from others on this particular gesture, but I don't think it's widely used with touch either. Currently, the client saves off the current zoom level, and adjusts the zoom level by the difference in the finger distance from initial finger position. There are no special conditions coded, so it should work the same each time. The image control also supports the panning gesture which is two fingers moved together. I wonder if these are getting confused by Windows before being passed to our app? Or perhaps it has something to do with very zoomed in or very zoomed out? Any more information on the details of when it doesn't work are appreciated.

Regards,
JPG

[damned]

Also are you using layers extension and sometimes the pinch and zoom is hitting tokens/objects/images?

[bullywug]

Also are you using layers extension and sometimes the pinch and zoom is hitting tokens/objects/images?

No, I've not had that problem. Other than the very high learning curve the software works well with a touch screen. It's not perfect, for example players tend to accidentally grab their character sheets when they mean to drag dice out from one of the stats but that's a minor issue.

Thanks everyone for your help.

[dgnr8duck]

Personally, I would appreciate the ability to zoom game books and their reference cards. By this, I mean using the pinch motion to zoom in and out on the text and images. As it is now you can move the window its in but no zoom exists. There is definitely room for other improvement as well, but my group is primarily gen-xers and their eye sight(and mine) isn't what it used to be. I have spent hundreds of dollars on books that I can't read on my Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 11e. We already couldn't use FG on a tablet unless it was a windows tablet. The Yoga is from that class of devices I refer to as tabtops. Never heard anyone else use this but it is a fair guess someone some where has.

[ddavison]

You can add this to the Feature Request list.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/featurerequests

I also wanted to suggest you take a look at the built-in Windows Magnifier. It can magnify the entire screen, but I think it works best in Lens mode.

Windows key + (Plus key) to turn it on
Windows key + Esc to turn it off
Windows key + ctrl + M to access the settings. I would try switching to Lens mode and then test it out.


Here is what it looks like over top of Fantasy Grounds.



Windows Magnifier.jpg