shithub: touchuichal

--- a/touchuichal.txt

+++ b/touchuichal.txt

@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@

 This trend comes with a cost:

 Most operating systems were—and often still are—designed for a computer system with dedicated screen, keyboard and mouse.

 Plan 9 is not different, although it allows for various combinations of hardware due to its strong networked nature.

-Due to the increasing amount of touch devices—especially on the mobile market— and increasing hardware support¹ of Plan 9 it's important that we think about touch user interfaces.

+Because of the increasing amount of touch devices—especially on the mobile market— and increasing hardware support¹ of Plan 9 it's important that we think about touch user interfaces.

 [[[ms

.FS

 ¹ Ports of the Plan 9 distribution ``9front'' to mobile devices like the PinePhone are being worked on.

@@ -47,6 +47,8 @@

 ``Let's just use what we have and put it on a touch device''.

 While this is the most obvious thought, it's also a naïve thought.

 Even big and expensive operating systems like Microsoft Windows tried that, and failed.

+Plan 9 can be installed on older handheld devices like the bitsy.

+However, judging from the source available, its UI uses mostly the same programs as the standard Plan 9 system.

 A much more important point is that the best touch user interfaces are designed for touch from the ground up, most notably Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

 Both systems are widespread and their handling of touch interfaces is often seen as the ‥de facto‥ standard.

@@ -101,7 +103,7 @@

 Speaking of buttons, this reminds us of the next common challenge: The button size.

 With a standard mouse and keyboard computer setup we can often live with very small buttons for interaction.

 Most common touch screens have no mouse for interaction, but the hand of the user.

-Therefore we must consider the size of their fingers, since that's what they use to interact, so we basically have two options:

+Therefore we must consider the size of their fingers, since that's what they use to interact, so we have two options:

 (1) We provide a stylus for smaller buttons.

 This method is well established, but often has other implications.

@@ -114,6 +116,10 @@

 Due to familiarity, most tablet devices also come with bigger buttons (for example, compare the iPhone with the iPad).

 Even some laptops have some kind of touch screen mode with bigger buttons, like Windows 8.

+While most standard computer systems use sRGB monitors with high refresh rates, we can't say that about ‥all‥ mobile touch devices.

+Some devices can only display a limited amount of colors, others use technologies that can't display colors and only have limited refresh rates, potentially with ghosting artifacts.

+When designing user interfaces for ‥all‥ mobile touch devices it might be worth considering limitations like these.

 In addition to those challenges we also get more options when thinking about touch screen devices.

 Most notably, capacitive touch screens often allow multiple fingers to be used for interactions at the same time.

 This multitouch feature gives us many new possibilities to overcome some of the mentioned challenges, and others, but also presents a challenge in itself:

@@ -137,7 +143,7 @@

 The text interface in this context means any type of text-based, shell-like user interaction.

 In this regards, Plan 9 is very much like UNIX:

-It provides a text-based shell interpreter and lots of interaction with the system is supposed to be done using this shell.

+It provides a text-based shell interpreter and many interactions with the system are supposed to be done using this shell.

 However, Plan 9 not only provides the shell itself, but also another graphical shell called ``rio''.

 This ``rectangle multiplexor'' gives the user the option to open multiple shells inside windows, which provides some type of multi tasking for the user.

@@ -146,7 +152,7 @@

 For example, the user is able to interact with the text inside the shell windows.

 Changing the output or previous commands is possible, as well as sending it to the prompt for execution.

-Furthermore, it is possible to access the text inside rio shell windows.

+Furthermore, it is possible to access the text inside rio shell windows using the filesystem.

 This way, applications can extend the functionality of text shells even further, for example by providing access to the history of recent commands.

 [[[ms

@@ -204,7 +210,7 @@

 It is possible to do various things using the plumber, all configurable using a simple configuration file.

 The general functionality of the plumber can also be found in other operating systems, including mobile systems.

-Android, for example, has the concept of ``intents'', which is very similar in a few aspects [AndroidIntents].

+Android, for example, has the concept of ``intents'', which is very similar in a few aspects [Intents].

 However, the biggest difference is that the plumber can be configured in much more detail by the user.

 The plumber is also meant to be used within applications that don't know what can actually be plumbed.

@@ -267,13 +273,13 @@

 This is also an invitation to developers to provide interfaces to their software using filesystems.

 On Plan 9, this is done with many applications and system components.

-From low-level system features and drivers (e. g. /dev) to high-level components (e. g. webfs) and applications (e. g. acme), the general feature allows for much flexibility and simple access to how the software works.

+From low-level system features and drivers (e. g. /dev) to high-level components (e. g. webfs) and applications (e. g. acme): the general feature allows for much flexibility and simple access to how the software works.

 Everything else about this feature is already discussed in the section about namespaces.

 ### Factotum

-While most filesystems are used by other applications, there's one big exception.

+While most filesystems are used by other applications and fall into the category of the previous section, there's one big exception.

 Factotum is the authentication manager of Plan 9.

 Most modern operating systems have password managers, Plan 9's factotum goes beyond that by providing way more security features than just a plain password store.

@@ -303,12 +309,12 @@

 # References

 [[[ms

-.LP

-[Meyer] J. Meyer, ``Survey: Plan 9 and Touch User Interfaces'', 2023.

-.br

-[AndroidIntents] Android Developers, ``Intents and intent filters'', https://developer.android.com/guide/components/intent-filters, 2024.

-.br

-[Security] R. Cox, E. Grosse, R. Pike, D. Presotto, S. Quinlan, ``Security in Plan 9'', 2002.

-.br

+.nr PS -1

+.nr VS -2

+.IP "[Meyer]" 10

+J. Meyer, ``Survey: Plan 9 and Touch User Interfaces'', 2023.

+.IP "[Intents]" 10

+Android Developers, ``Intents and intent filters'', https://developer.android.com/guide/components/intent-filters, 2024.

+.IP "[Security]" 10

+R. Cox, E. Grosse, R. Pike, D. Presotto, S. Quinlan, ``Security in Plan 9'', 2002.

]]]