page.title=Detecting Common Gestures
parent.title=Using Touch Gestures
parent.link=index.html

trainingnavtop=true
next.title=Tracking Movement
next.link=movement.html

@jd:body

<div id="tb-wrapper">
<div id="tb">

<!-- table of contents -->
<h2>This lesson teaches you to</h2>
<ol>
  <li><a href="#data">Gather Data</a></li>
  <li><a href="#detect">Detect Gestures</a></li>
</ol>

<!-- other docs (NOT javadocs) -->
<h2>You should also read</h2>

<ul>
   <li><a href="http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/ui-events.html">Input Events</a> API Guide
    </li>
    <li><a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/sensors/sensors_overview.html">Sensors Overview</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/06/making-sense-of-multitouch.html">Making Sense of Multitouch</a> blog post</li>
    <li><a href="{@docRoot}training/custom-views/making-interactive.html">Making the View Interactive</a> </li>
    <li>Design Guide for <a href="{@docRoot}design/patterns/gestures.html">Gestures</a></li>
    <li>Design Guide for <a href="{@docRoot}design/style/touch-feedback.html">Touch Feedback</a></li>
</ul>


</div>
</div>

<p>A "touch gesture" occurs when a user places one or more fingers on the touch
screen, and your application interprets
that pattern of touches as a particular gesture. There are correspondingly two
phases to gesture detection:</p>

<ol>
  <li>Gathering data about touch events.</li>
  
  <li>Interpreting the data to see if it meets the criteria for any of the
gestures your app supports. </li> 

</ol>

<h4>Support Library Classes</h4>

<p>The examples in this lesson use the {@link android.support.v4.view.GestureDetectorCompat}
and {@link android.support.v4.view.MotionEventCompat} classes. These classes are in the 
<a href="{@docRoot}tools/extras/support-library.html">Support Library</a>. You should use
Support Library classes where possible to provide compatibility with devices 
running Android 1.6 and higher. Note that {@link android.support.v4.view.MotionEventCompat} is <em>not</em> a 
replacement for the {@link android.view.MotionEvent} class. Rather, it provides static utility 
methods to which you pass your {@link android.view.MotionEvent} object in order to receive 
the desired action associated with that event.</p>

<h2 id="data">Gather Data</h2>

<p>When a user places one or more fingers on the screen, this  triggers the
callback {@link android.view.View#onTouchEvent onTouchEvent()} 
on the View that received the touch events.
For each sequence of touch events (position, pressure, size, addition of another finger, etc.) 
that is ultimately identified as a gesture,
{@link android.view.View#onTouchEvent onTouchEvent()} is fired several times.</p>

<p>The gesture starts when the user first touches the screen, continues as the system tracks
the position of the user's finger(s), and ends by capturing the final event of
the user's fingers leaving the screen. Throughout this interaction, 
the {@link android.view.MotionEvent} delivered to {@link android.view.View#onTouchEvent onTouchEvent()} 
provides the details of every interaction. Your app can use the data provided by the {@link android.view.MotionEvent} 
to determine if a gesture it cares
about happened.</p>

<h3>Capturing touch events for an Activity or View</h3>

<p><p>To intercept touch events in an Activity or View, override 
the {@link android.view.View#onTouchEvent onTouchEvent()} callback.</p>

<p>The following snippet uses 
{@link android.support.v4.view.MotionEventCompat#getActionMasked getActionMasked()}
to extract the action the user performed from the {@code event} parameter. This gives you the raw 
data you need to determine if a gesture you care about occurred:</p>

<pre>
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
...
// This example shows an Activity, but you would use the same approach if
// you were subclassing a View.
&#64;Override
public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event){ 
        
    int action = MotionEventCompat.getActionMasked(event);
        
    switch(action) {
        case (MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) :
            Log.d(DEBUG_TAG,"Action was DOWN");
            return true;
        case (MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE) :
            Log.d(DEBUG_TAG,"Action was MOVE");
            return true;
        case (MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) :
            Log.d(DEBUG_TAG,"Action was UP");
            return true;
        case (MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL) :
            Log.d(DEBUG_TAG,"Action was CANCEL");
            return true;
        case (MotionEvent.ACTION_OUTSIDE) :
            Log.d(DEBUG_TAG,"Movement occurred outside bounds " +
                    "of current screen element");
            return true;      
        default : 
            return super.onTouchEvent(event);
    }      
}</pre>

<p>You can then do your own processing on these events to determine if a
gesture occurred. This is the kind of processing you would have to do for a
custom gesture. However, if your app uses
common gestures such as double tap, long press, fling, and so on, you can
take advantage of the {@link
android.view.GestureDetector} class. {@link
android.view.GestureDetector} makes it easy for you to detect common
gestures without processing the individual touch events yourself. This is
discussed below in <a href="#detect">Detect Gestures</a>.</p>

<h3>Capturing touch events for a single view</h3>

<p>As an alternative to {@link android.view.View#onTouchEvent onTouchEvent()},
you can attach an {@link android.view.View.OnTouchListener} object to any {@link
android.view.View} object using the {@link android.view.View#setOnTouchListener
setOnTouchListener()} method. This makes it possible to to listen for touch
events without subclassing an existing {@link android.view.View}. For
example:</p>

<pre>View myView = findViewById(R.id.my_view); 
myView.setOnTouchListener(new OnTouchListener() {
    public boolean onTouch(View v, MotionEvent event) {
        // ... Respond to touch events       
        return true;
    }
});</pre>

<p>Beware of creating a listener that returns {@code false} for the 
{@link android.view.MotionEvent#ACTION_DOWN} event. If you do this, the listener will 
not be called for the subsequent {@link android.view.MotionEvent#ACTION_MOVE} 
and {@link android.view.MotionEvent#ACTION_UP} string of events. This is because
{@link android.view.MotionEvent#ACTION_DOWN} is the starting point for all touch events.</p>

<p>If you are creating a custom View, you can override 
{@link android.view.View#onTouchEvent onTouchEvent()}, 
as described above.</p>

<h2 id="detect">Detect Gestures</h2>

<p>Android provides the {@link android.view.GestureDetector} class for detecting
common gestures. Some of the gestures it supports include {@link
android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener#onDown onDown()}, {@link
android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener#onLongPress onLongPress()},
{@link android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener#onFling onFling()}, and so
on. You can use {@link android.view.GestureDetector} in conjunction with the 
{@link android.view.View#onTouchEvent onTouchEvent()}
method described above.</p>


<h3>Detecting All Supported Gestures</h3>

<p>When you instantiate a {@link android.support.v4.view.GestureDetectorCompat} 
object, one of the parameters it takes is a class that implements the 
{@link android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener} interface.  
{@link android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener} notifies users when 
a particular touch event has occurred. To make it possible for your 
{@link android.view.GestureDetector} object to receive events, you override 
the View or Activity's {@link android.view.View#onTouchEvent onTouchEvent()} method, 
and pass along all observed events to the detector instance.</p>


<p>In the following snippet, a return value of {@code true} from the individual 
{@code on<em>&lt;TouchEvent&gt;</em>} methods indicates that you
have handled the touch event. A return value of {@code false} passes events down
through the view stack until the touch has been successfully handled.</p>

<p>Run the following snippet to get a feel for how actions are triggered when
you interact with the touch screen, and what the contents of the {@link
android.view.MotionEvent} are for each touch event. You will realize how much
data is being generated for even simple interactions.</p>

<pre>public class MainActivity extends Activity implements 
        GestureDetector.OnGestureListener,
        GestureDetector.OnDoubleTapListener{
    
    private static final String DEBUG_TAG = "Gestures";
    private GestureDetectorCompat mDetector; 

    // Called when the activity is first created. 
    &#64;Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        // Instantiate the gesture detector with the
        // application context and an implementation of
        // GestureDetector.OnGestureListener
        mDetector = new GestureDetectorCompat(this,this);
        // Set the gesture detector as the double tap
        // listener.
        mDetector.setOnDoubleTapListener(this);
    }

    &#64;Override 
    public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event){ 
        this.mDetector.onTouchEvent(event);
        // Be sure to call the superclass implementation
        return super.onTouchEvent(event);
    }

    &#64;Override
    public boolean onDown(MotionEvent event) { 
        Log.d(DEBUG_TAG,"onDown: " + event.toString()); 
        return true;
    }

    &#64;Override
    public boolean onFling(MotionEvent event1, MotionEvent event2, 
            float velocityX, float velocityY) {
        Log.d(DEBUG_TAG, "onFling: " + event1.toString()+event2.toString());
        return true;
    }

    &#64;Override
    public void onLongPress(MotionEvent event) {
        Log.d(DEBUG_TAG, "onLongPress: " + event.toString()); 
    }

    &#64;Override
    public boolean onScroll(MotionEvent e1, MotionEvent e2, float distanceX,
            float distanceY) {
        Log.d(DEBUG_TAG, "onScroll: " + e1.toString()+e2.toString());
        return true;
    }

    &#64;Override
    public void onShowPress(MotionEvent event) {
        Log.d(DEBUG_TAG, "onShowPress: " + event.toString());
    }

    &#64;Override
    public boolean onSingleTapUp(MotionEvent event) {
        Log.d(DEBUG_TAG, "onSingleTapUp: " + event.toString());
        return true;
    }

    &#64;Override
    public boolean onDoubleTap(MotionEvent event) {
        Log.d(DEBUG_TAG, "onDoubleTap: " + event.toString());
        return true;
    }

    &#64;Override
    public boolean onDoubleTapEvent(MotionEvent event) {
        Log.d(DEBUG_TAG, "onDoubleTapEvent: " + event.toString());
        return true;
    }

    &#64;Override
    public boolean onSingleTapConfirmed(MotionEvent event) {
        Log.d(DEBUG_TAG, "onSingleTapConfirmed: " + event.toString());
        return true;
    }
}</pre>

<h3>Detecting a Subset of Supported Gestures</h3>

<p>If you only want to process a few gestures, you can extend {@link
android.view.GestureDetector.SimpleOnGestureListener} instead of implementing
the {@link android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener} interface. </p>
<p>
{@link
android.view.GestureDetector.SimpleOnGestureListener} provides an implementation
for all of the {@code on<em>&lt;TouchEvent&gt;</em>} methods by returning {@code false}
for all of them. Thus you can override only the methods you care about.
For
example, the snippet below creates a class that extends {@link
android.view.GestureDetector.SimpleOnGestureListener} and overrides {@link
android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener#onFling onFling()} and {@link
android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener#onDown onDown()}.</p>

<p>Whether or not you use {@link android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener}, 
it's best practice to implement an 
{@link android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener#onDown onDown()} 
method that returns {@code true}. This is because all gestures begin with an 
{@link android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener#onDown onDown()} message. If you return 
{@code false} from {@link android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener#onDown onDown()}, 
as {@link android.view.GestureDetector.SimpleOnGestureListener} does by default, 
the system assumes that you want to ignore the rest of the gesture, and the other methods of 
{@link android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener} never get called. 
This has the potential to cause unexpected problems in your app. 
The only time you should return {@code false} from 
{@link android.view.GestureDetector.OnGestureListener#onDown onDown()} 
is if you truly want to ignore an entire gesture. </p>

<pre>public class MainActivity extends Activity { 
    
    private GestureDetectorCompat mDetector; 

    &#64;Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        mDetector = new GestureDetectorCompat(this, new MyGestureListener());
    }

    &#64;Override 
    public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event){ 
        this.mDetector.onTouchEvent(event);
        return super.onTouchEvent(event);
    }
    
    class MyGestureListener extends GestureDetector.SimpleOnGestureListener {
        private static final String DEBUG_TAG = "Gestures"; 
        
        &#64;Override
        public boolean onDown(MotionEvent event) { 
            Log.d(DEBUG_TAG,"onDown: " + event.toString()); 
            return true;
        }

        &#64;Override
        public boolean onFling(MotionEvent event1, MotionEvent event2, 
                float velocityX, float velocityY) {
            Log.d(DEBUG_TAG, "onFling: " + event1.toString()+event2.toString());
            return true;
        }
    }
}
</pre>