Touchscreens and their related direct touch protocol provide a versatile, space efficient, and intuitive computer user interface that is particularly enabling for mobile, small screen smartphones, and has proven valuable for larger touchscreen tablets. However direct finger touch control limits selection accuracy due to the selecting finger blocking the view of what is being selected, the large finger contact area, and any correlation inaccuracy between the information pixel locations and touch position measurement system. This dictates the use of large selection targets, and ultimately limits the functionality of direct touch controlled operating systems and applications. For smartphones, which target high mobility applications, games, and other consumptive uses, the major limitation is unreliable selection of small selection targets and constraints on how information can be formatted. For larger screen tablets and laptop display sized units, direct touch control significantly limits their utility, capability, and compatibility in addition to limiting their selection reliability.
The Intermediate Cursor Protocols use the touchscreen as a display sized touchpad to control an intermediate cursor that in turn controls the computer processing of information and the operating system. Its precise cursor selection capability provides a solution for direct touch selection limitations. More importantly, it also provides for enhanced system and application capabilities as well as functional compatibility with conventional cursor based computer operation while also providing significant advantages over alternative cursor controlling means.
The protocols define a critical array of gestures and associated computer responses that provide a finger touch vocabulary that can provide the ability to create, position, actuate, and terminate a cursor display that is intermediate between the finger contacts with the touchscreen, and controlling the computer. The gestures are also constrained to be compatible with both the multi-touch capability of the touch-sensitive display and not limit use of critical direct touch gestures.
The cursor and gestures also provide for being able to probe how the image display is organized prior to selection; achieving deft and intuitive selection capability comparable to direct touch; and eliminating the need to search for the cursor's location. Direct touch functionality is retained for virtual keyboards and games requiring immediate computer responses, and selection of application icons, if desired.