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<!DOCTYPE concept
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<concept id="GUID-581A8E4B-12BE-41C0-A20E-3087A80FEECF" xml:lang="en"><title>Tactile
feedback</title><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody>
<p>There are two methods where vibration or audio of the device is used as
an output method (when mobile device users interact with the device touch
screen):</p>
<ul>
<li><p>As a <i>tacticon</i> to inform users through physical feedback, that
an important event is occurring in the device. For example, when a new message
arrives or a warning note is displayed.</p></li>
<li><p>As <i>tactile feedback</i> to indicate to the user that an interaction
event has been successful. For example, users receive tactile feedback when
they press a button on the touch screen.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>As with sounds, tactile feedback must be used carefully so as not to desensitize
the user to the vibration; the attention grabbing quality remains and functions
so long as the feedback is not too frequent.</p>
<p>Tactile feedback is enabled for all the Symbian platform UI components.
Tactile feedback can be disabled for the common UI components in an application.
However, this is acceptable only if tactile feedback causes interference with
other device functions.</p>
<p>The user can choose the level of tactile feedback and turn tacticons ON
and OFF.</p>
<p>The following table lists the tactile feedback effects:</p>
<p><table id="GUID-4969AEA7-3BE4-4644-8232-1FA26D49010B"><title>Tactile feedback
effects</title>
<tgroup cols="2"><colspec colname="col1" colwidth="0.40*"/><colspec colname="col2" colwidth="1.60*"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry valign="top"><p>Effects</p></entry>
<entry valign="top"><p>Description</p></entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Sensitive button</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides single pulse effect on repeated key presses with buttons.
It is also possible with other similar components.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Basic button</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides stronger single pulse effect to buttons. It is also
possible with other similar components.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Sensitive list</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides single pulse effect to lists and grids. Effect is used
with move (drag and flick) when new item appears on the screen.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Basic list</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides stronger single pulse effect to lists and grids. Effect
is used with touch down and release when tap makes an action. </p><p>In hierarchical
list, collapsing/expanding item provides basic list effect with touch down
and release.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Bounce effect</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides pulse effect when list returns to its normal state after
boundary effect.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Sensitive slider</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides pulse effect with scrollbar and slider thumbs. Effect
is provided with touch down and release in thumb area.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Smooth slider</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides continuous smooth feedback when dragging scrollbar or
slider thumb. This can also be increasing or decreasing depending of the slider
type.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Hold slider</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides sensitive pulse effect when touch down and hold on the
slider or scrollbar area. Slider thumb starts moving step by step towards
the touch point. Every step gives one sensitive pulse. If slider thumb moves
directly to the touch point, then basic slider effect is provided.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Pop-up</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides sensitive pulse effect when pop-up is opened or closed.
If the theme animations are ON, then pop-up effect is used with opening event
after increasing long touch effect. In this scenario, there is no pop-up effect
while closing. <note> All pop-ups does not have theme animation.</note></p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Pop-up close</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides decreasing smooth feedback while closing pop-up and
when theme animations are ON.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Increasing long touch</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides increasing smooth feedback. This can be used with either
long tap animation or pop-up opening theme effects. If the theme effects are
ON and long tap opens a pop-up, then feedback is provided only with long tap.
This is followed by pop-up.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Basic tab</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides strong pulse effect with touch down event in tab area.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Smooth flick</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides smooth feedback with drag when horizontal movement is
possible.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Sensitive flick</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides sensitive pulse effect with touch release when horizontal
movement is possible.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Sensitive edit</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides sensitive pulse effect in editors with touch down and
release.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Text edit</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides pulse effect when painting the text. Effect is provided
with every character while painting the text.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Blank edit</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides pulse effect when painting blank character. By default,
it is none.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Line edit</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides pulse effect when painting a line.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Empty line</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides pulse effect when painting an empty line. By default,
it is none.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Check box</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides pulse effect when marking/unmarking a check box.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Multi-touch recognition</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides double pulse (sensitive + sensitive) effect when multi-touch
is recognized (generally, when second finger is touched down).</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Smooth pinch</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides smooth continuous feedback while moving fingers in multi-touch
pinch situation.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><b>Smooth rotate</b></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides smooth continuous feedback  while moving fingers in
multi-touch rotate situation.</p></entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table></p>
<section id="GUID-B9A35CA3-B830-4D97-9B0A-E22DC4A3CDA1"><title>Characteristics
of haptics related  APIs</title><p>You can use the following APIs to create
haptic effects:</p><ul>
<li><p><xref href="GUID-8661A7E0-F19A-41F8-9062-FBFAE70CF658.dita">Tactile Feedback
Client API</xref></p><ul>
<li><p>It is available from S60 5th Edition onwards</p></li>
<li><p>It can be used on all S60 5th Edition or later mobile devices. However,
the feedback is played only on touch enabled layouts.</p></li>
<li><p>It provides simple functions for triggering various predefined tactile
feedback (vibration or audio) effects.</p></li>
<li><p>It enables a consistent user experience in all applications of the
mobile device (an application gives a logical feedback type as an input and
the actual physical effect depends on the mobile device configuration and
end user settings).</p></li>
<li><p>When the area feedback is used, latency is low for the feedback triggering
(a tactile feedback can already be triggered at the window server level prior
to the corresponding pointer event being delivered to the visible application).</p></li>
<li><p>Direct feedback can be easily integrated into <codeph>CCoeControl::HandlePointerEventL()</codeph> . </p></li>
<li><p>An application can select the logical tactile feedback from certain
types. The produced effect may be different on various mobile devices.</p></li>
</ul></li>
<li><p><xref href="jar:GUID-558A5A9B-811E-4A87-B3DD-AE734C9AA966.jar!/public_specs/GuidesA/Haptics_API_Specification/Haptics_API_Specification.html" format="application/java-archive">Haptics
API</xref></p><ul>
<li><p>It is available from S60 5.2 Edition onwards.</p></li>
<li><p>It can be used in touch and hybrid mobile devices.</p></li>
<li><p>It provides an interface for accessing Haptics player that can control
different actuator types.</p></li>
<li><p>It enables producing of complex vibrator effects, such as an explosion
or machine gun effect in a game, bass boost for a music player, advanced ringing
tone vibration, and so on.</p></li>
<li><p>It enables simultaneous playing of different kinds of basis effects
and modifying them when played. </p></li>
<li><p>It allows for designing complex effects (using a separate PC application)
that can be loaded on Haptics player for playing.</p></li>
<li><p>It may require a special license key  for third-party applications
(to be set at runtime) to enable the Haptics player functionality.</p></li>
</ul></li>
<li><p><xref href="GUID-D53A00E4-CF37-5F11-8D15-C5ECCCE64597.dita">Vibra API</xref></p><ul>
<li><p>It available from S60 3.0 onwards</p></li>
<li><p>It can be used for running device vibrator with given intensity for
a given period of time</p></li>
<li><p>It can be used by a privileged client application to play pulse effects,
which have a very short duration (as the ones used for tactile feedback)</p></li>
</ul></li>
</ul></section>
<section id="GUID-428F693C-1CA8-4588-9A7D-C4265D2AED91"><title>When to use
Tactile Feedback Client API, Haptics API, and Vibra API</title><p>You must
use<ul>
<li><p>Tactile Feedback Client API for providing tactile feedback in custom
controls (grids, lists, and so on) which will comply with the style of Core
UI components to ensure a uniform user experience among applications</p></li>
<li><p>Haptics API on touch and hybrid mobile devices for producing complex
vibration feedback which cannot be achieved with Tactile Framework (games,
simulations, demos, and so on.)</p></li>
<li><p>Vibra API for producing haptic effects such as ringing tone vibration
in those mobile devices where Haptics API is not available or functional</p></li>
</ul></p></section>
<section id="GUID-8334E102-8F04-4726-9CD2-1D8004A417E1"><title>Using
tactile feedback in C++ applications</title><p>The API to use for tactile
feedback is the <xref href="GUID-8661A7E0-F19A-41F8-9062-FBFAE70CF658.dita">Tactile
feedback client API</xref>.</p><p>The Symbian platform includes a tactile
feedback interface to add, modify and remove feedback areas in the registry.
There is also an option to trigger direct feedback and bypass the registry.
 <parmname>MTouchFeedback::Instance()</parmname> is used for acquiring a pointer
to a touch feedback instance. When touch feedback is activated, the mobile
device users get a slight vibration when the control with the feedback interface
is touched. </p><note><p>Tactile feedback can be set and disabled in a client
application or a mobile device in some scenarios, for example, during phone
calls.</p></note><p>Client applications cannot determine the actual physical
feedback that is generated. It depends on device configuration and current
settings. In current devices, the user changeable settings include vibration
and audio feedback intensity level.</p><p>In your application, you can use
the following feedback types, defined in <codeph>TTouchLogicalFeedback</codeph>:</p><table id="GUID-6FF24F72-C352-4027-AA5D-2D34EBFA00F4">
<tgroup cols="2"><colspec colname="col1"/><colspec colname="col2"/>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><p><codeph>ETouchFeedbackNone</codeph></p></entry>
<entry><p>It is used for disabling feedback in some areas of the application
window while using the area registry.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><codeph>ETouchFeedbackBasic</codeph></p></entry>
<entry><p>It is used as a default feedback for stylus touch down events. For
example, when the mobile device user taps a button or tab.</p></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><p><codeph>ETouchFeedbackSensitive</codeph></p></entry>
<entry><p>It provides sensitive feedback in situations when:<ul>
<li><p>the triggering action is not very important (for example, change of
focus in a list)</p></li>
<li><p>there can be a large number of feedback instances within a short time
(for example, text selection which gives feedback on every new selected character).</p></li>
</ul> It is also used for scrolling and dragging.</p></entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table><p>To use vibration or audio feedback in your application:</p><ol>
<li id="GUID-791E80D6-6935-4202-81E0-BA7392A9E1B3"><p>Include <codeph>touchfeedback.lib</codeph> in
your <codeph>.mmp</codeph> file.</p></li>
<li id="GUID-A185188F-F37B-440B-8213-214D77CF3B8B"><p>Include <parmname>touchfeedback.h</parmname>.</p></li>
<li id="GUID-6455F4C1-AEA6-4C30-8E9B-DF9950558E17"><itemgroup><p>To enable
tactile feedback for your application, add the following code.</p><codeblock xml:space="preserve">MTouchFeedback* feedback = MTouchFeedback::Instance();
feedback-&gt;SetFeedbackEnabledForThisApp(ETrue); // enabling feedback is optional  </codeblock><p>Do
not delete the pointer in the controller destructor.</p></itemgroup></li>
<li id="GUID-FC1B810B-99F4-44E5-82DC-46686D6D4198"><itemgroup><p>To use tactile
feedback when a mobile device user points at a control, add the following
code.</p><codeblock xml:space="preserve">void CMyContainerControl::HandlePointerEventL(const TPointerEvent&amp; aPointerEvent)
    {
    // Feedback is always played at pointer down event
    if(aPointerEvent.iType == TPointerEvent::EButton1Down)
        {
        MTouchFeedback* feedback = MTouchFeedback::Instance();  
        if (feedback) 
             { 
             feedback-&gt;InstantFeedback(ETouchFeedbackBasic);  
             }  
        }
   
    // Your other pointer event handling code here
</codeblock></itemgroup></li>
<li id="GUID-A26D8717-1839-4132-98C4-5C09086BB361"><itemgroup><p>To enable
automatic feedback triggering in a specific area of a UI component, add</p><codeblock xml:space="preserve">feedback-&gt;SetFeedbackArea( this, 
                           1, // area Id
                           TRect( 0,0,20,20 ), 
                           ETouchFeedbackBasic, 
                           ETouchEventStylusDown );
</codeblock></itemgroup></li>
</ol><note><p>To use tactile feedback in an application, additional platform
security capabilities are not required.</p></note></section>
</conbody></concept>