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DarkRoom/docs/gestures.md
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dtourolleandClaude Opus 5 677146883f Decide what the header gives up when it cannot hold everything
Three faults, all invisible in the source and all found by looking at
the window.

`alignment: start` on the selection bar. Slint only hands space to
`horizontal-stretch` children under the default `stretch` alignment;
under `start` every child takes its preferred width and the stretch is
ignored without complaint. That was harmless while the bar held four
controls. Now that it holds every selection verb it is the difference
between a count that gives way and a row that can only scroll, so the
alignment goes and the stretch does its job.

The title collapsed to "…". An eliding Text has a minimum of nothing,
so once the buttons had taken their own minimums the title was the
cheapest thing in the row to give away — the window stopped saying
which library was open while the byte counts beside it stayed. It gets
a 90px floor.

And the status line does not get one. After the sidebar takes its 232,
a 1100pt window leaves this header about 868, and the buttons want
most of that before a character is drawn — so something must degrade,
and the order is the whole question. A floor here bought a readable
status by pushing Settings off the right edge, reachable only by
knowing to flick-scroll, which is precisely the fault the row's own
Flickable comment warns about. A control you cannot see is worse than
a sentence you cannot finish. The status line is also the most
redundant thing in the header — the sidebar states the library's count
and the filter chips state it again — so it is what gives, and it
grows back the moment there is room.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-30 14:05:24 +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:1182

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:1191

Leave selecting

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

ui/dr-ui/ui/library.slint:1199

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:1260

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:1928

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:2554

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:2717

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:2972

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:3084

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:3747

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:3764