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DarkRoom/docs/gestures.md
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dtourolleandClaude Opus 5 b120ce48ec Float the selection bar over the grid instead of above it
Selecting the first photograph inserted a 40px row into the view's
vertical flow, so every cell in the grid moved down by it. The act of
selecting shifted the thing being selected out from under the finger —
and a second tap aimed at the neighbour landed on the row below it,
which is the worst possible response to a gesture whose whole job is to
say "this one".

The bar is a floating one now, at the foot of the view. Nothing above it
is re-laid out, so selecting changes what is drawn and never where.

The grid's viewport grows by the same 40px while the bar is there rather
than the Flickable shrinking, which is what keeps that change invisible
too: every cell stays exactly where it was and there is simply further to
scroll, so the last row can be brought clear of the bar instead of being
trapped under it.

It also swallows presses that land on it. A bar floating over the grid is
a bar a thumb can reach for and miss into.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-30 09:47:20 +02:00

6.1 KiB

How the application is driven

Every entry here is extracted from the comment beside the code that implements it, so this file cannot describe a gesture the application does not have. Add one by writing a GESTURE: block next to the implementation; there is nowhere else to write it.

15 gestures, in 2 places.

People

Pull a face out of the wrong person

  • Touch — Tap the faces that do not belong, then "Split off"
  • Pointer — Click the faces that do not belong, then "Split off"

Grouping over-merges on siblings, on parents and children, and on the same person a decade apart, so splitting is as prominent as merging. A tool that can only merge makes its own errors permanent.

ui/dr-ui/ui/identity.slint:130

Rule on a suggested face

  • Touch — Tick to confirm it, cross to reject it
  • Pointer — Tick to confirm it, cross to reject it

A face is either the system's guess or the user's judgement, and the two are never conflated. A rejection is remembered, so the face is not suggested for that person again.

ui/dr-ui/ui/identity.slint:150

See a person's photographs

  • Touch — Choose them in the rail, then "Show photos"
  • Pointer — Choose them in the rail, then "Show photos"

This is the point of having identified anybody. Without it the screen is a filing cabinet with no drawer handles.

ui/dr-ui/ui/identity.slint:545

Change how faces are grouped

  • Touch — "Grouping…", move the dials, then Regroup
  • Pointer — "Grouping…", move the dials, then Regroup

The right match confidence is a property of your library, not of the model. "What would this do?" answers for this library without writing anything; names, confirmations and the groups you have set aside are kept whatever the dials say.

ui/dr-ui/ui/identity.slint:582

Library grid

Start selecting several photographs

  • Touch — Press and hold a photograph, or press Select in the header
  • Pointer — Ctrl-click, or press Select in the header

Touch has no ctrl, so without a mode there is no way to select a second photograph — the first tap would open it. The hold is the fast way in and the button is the one that can be found.

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:1274

Add or remove one photograph

  • Touch — While selecting, tap it
  • Pointer — Ctrl-click it

While selecting, a tap never opens. That is the whole point of the mode: one meaning per gesture at a time. Press Done to get tap-to-open back.

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:1283

Leave selecting

  • Touch — Press Done in the header
  • Pointer — Press Done in the header
  • Keyboard — Escape

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:1291

Select a range

  • Touch — While selecting, press "Select to…", then tap the last photograph of the run
  • Pointer — Shift-click the last photograph of the run

This replaced a double tap, which had no visible state and could take forty photographs by accident. The run is resolved by the catalog rather than by what is on screen, so the grid can scroll between the two taps — the ranges that hurt on a tablet are longer than a screenful, which is exactly where a finger sweep runs out.

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:1352

Find photographs with two people in them

  • Touch — Open the People chip on the filter bar, tap each name, then switch the chip beside them to "all of them"
  • Pointer — Open the People chip on the filter bar, click each name, then switch the chip beside them to "all of them"

"Any of them" is a union and "all of them" is an intersection. The tray is where both terms and the choice between them live, because a filter belongs on the filter bar.

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:2093

Resize the thumbnails

  • Touch — Pinch the grid with two fingers
  • Pointer — Ctrl and the scroll wheel

There is no wheel on a tablet, so without the pinch the cell size could only be changed by a control a finger cannot reach.

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:2719

File photographs in a collection

  • Touch — Drag a photograph — or a whole selection — onto a collection in the sidebar. Starting a drag stops the press becoming a hold, so it cannot leave you in selection mode.
  • Pointer — Drag a photograph — or a whole selection — onto a collection in the sidebar

The selection is what the drag carries, which is why selecting several is worth the mode: forty photographs file in one gesture.

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:2878

Open a photograph

  • Touch — Tap it — a single tap, any length
  • Pointer — Click it

A tap opens; a tap that moved does not. Travel is what separates a deliberate tap from a hand brushing past, and it is the only thing that does: the two are the same length. An earlier version required the finger to dwell 120 ms instead, and that rejected ordinary taps — a real tap is often quicker than a brush.

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:3133

Rate a photograph without opening it

  • Touch — Tap a star on the cell
  • Pointer — Hover the cell, then click a star
  • Keyboard — 0 to 5 on the selection

A star has to take the press without it also reaching the cell, or every rating throws the user into develop.

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:3245

Drop the selection but keep selecting

  • Touch — Press Clear in the selection strip
  • Pointer — Press Clear in the selection strip

Distinct from Done, which leaves the mode entirely. Clearing keeps it, so the next selection can start straight away.

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:3808

Select everything the grid is showing

  • Touch — While selecting, press "Select all"
  • Pointer — While selecting, press "Select all"

A scoped grid of two hundred frames is two hundred taps otherwise, and "all of them, except those three" is a far more common shape than the taps it took to say it.

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:3825