Author Topic: Handy trick to make your onscreen buttons tactile!  (Read 390 times)

Phoensoul

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Handy trick to make your onscreen buttons tactile!
« on: July 03, 2016, 05:34:13 pm »
Hi, all!

I've been using Tablet Pro since November 2015 with my Surface Pro 4, and I love it! One thing I found tricky, though, was keeping my fingers in the right place to use the floating track pad/mouse. I wanted a way to FEEL the buttons, without compromising visibility or the sensitivity of the screen. I came up with a great solution that's super-effective, extremely cheap, completely customizable, and can be undone instantly with no ill effects for my machine!

Here's how to do it:
1. Purchase a sheet of static cling window decorations. I'm talking about the ones that are basically images printed on clear vinyl and then die-cut so you can peel them off and put them on your windows. Make sure they are NOT sticky on the back! You can usually find them in the holiday/seasonal decoration section at dollar stores.
2. Find a blank area between the printed area that will suit your needs, then cut out the shapes you want. For the track pad, I cut a hollow rectangle, about 5mm thick with an open area in the middle that matched the dimensions of the track pad without the scroll bar. For individual buttons, I just used a hole punch to make little circles.
3. Place your clear buttons and guides on your screen, so they line up with the buttons or pads you want to use without looking. For the track pad, I made it so the right side of the rectangle was directly over the up down scroll arrows. For L/M/R mouse buttons, I found I could just put down one dot on a non-button area as a reference spot, and then find the buttons by their direction and proximity from that spot.
4. Try them out! Your fingers will be able to feel the edges of the static clings, and will not stray nearly as easily. Best of all, you can make the layout completely transparent and see right through the static clings with almost no distortion.
5. Stash them away. When you're not using them, just leave them where they are if you aren't using your pen. Or, peel them up and stick them somewhere for quick retrieval. I just stick mine to the underside of the kickstand for my Surface Pro 4!

Obviously this is best suited to layouts that only have a few buttons, since if you put too many on, it'll be hard to tell which is which without looking, which defeats the purpose. I've considered adding texture using drops of clear glue to help differentiate them (before applying them to the screen, of course!) but I haven't tested that yet to see if it messes with the sensitivity. So far, just having a few tactile reference points has done the trick for my needs.

If you try my method, let me know what you think, and if you came up with any improvements!

Cheers!

Paula

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