The Touch function relates to the processing of the touch events (tap, press, gestures) performed on the touch device. A common list of touch events and system actions are predefined and can be configured as suits.

The Touch function specifies a list of applications and the action to be performed when a touch event/gesture is detected within the application.

Application list	Touch events and related actions

At the highest level is the application wide 'Default Gestures' and actions.

This is the default list of gestures and actions that will be performed unless they are overridden by a set of actions associated with a custom application or application group.

For each application or application group defined, there are three sets of gestures and actions specified; those that apply to the application's Menu items, those that are appropriate for an application's scroll area and those that apply to all other areas of the application's user interface.

A default set of applications groups will be set at initial installation. It is possible that some of these may be hidden or locked depending on the default Commander configuration / settings defined within the software installer. The application list can always be reset back to the default list using the Reset File Menu option.

Custom application and application groups

In cases where the default set of gestures and actions specified under 'Default Gestures' are not fully appropriate for a given application, you can add an application or application group and configure the gestures and actions appropriate to the application, such as the actions defined for the Notification application as seen below.

In the 'Default Gesture' list, a Two Finger Swipe Left From Screen Edge is defined to invoke the Notification Centre. Once the Notification Centre is invoked the same touch event is set dormant (No action), a single finger can be used Click and Drag (doing so within the NC scrolls through the NC entries), a Two Finger Vertical Swipe will likewise scroll the entries and a Two Finger Swipe Right will close the Notification Centre.

Scroll / menu elements

Most applications will have an associated user interface dialog associated with the application. An application dialog consists of various UI (user interface) elements and some of these elements will perform specific functions, such as menu items (with submenus) and potential scrollable areas and therefore by default an application defined within the application list will inherit these two attributes allowing for a specific set of actions to be defined that relate to the UI element function, as per this example for the Browser application group where one finger drag is set to scroll the content display area to emulate iOS browser functionality. Other UI elements can be added as required.

In the above example, four 'One finger' touch types have been changed to perform different actions in the 'Scroll area' in popular MacOS browsers as listed in the Browsers group to offer iOS type usage.

From within the main Touch Function dialog you can configure applications / groups and their gesture sets as required.

Important usage consideration

UPDD Commander is unique in that it can distinguish the application in which a touch event is occurring and even if it is occurring in a specific area within the application, specifically menus with sub menus and scroll areas.

Armed with this information, UC will interrogate the Application List and determine the best match for the given touch event and the action to be performed.

The All Application entry defines the highest level default gestures and actions that is used if no other application match as made.

If an application needs to be added such that alternative actions can be defined for a given touch event/gesture, it is sometimes confusing to set up the required actions only to find that when performing the touch event the newly defined actions seem to be ignored and the old actions are still be invoked.

If this occurs, or for any other reason you'd like to see the logic being applied when selecting a gesture and action to be performed, you can use the 'Select next performed gesture' option at the base of the settings dialog. With this enabled, when you perform the next touch/gesture on the touch screen, the selected touch event and action will be highlighted in the settings dialog.

In this example, a single finger drag has been performed within the Chrome browser display (scroll) area. Commander has highlighted the gesture entry and associated action that is being performed (injected into the system):

Settings

All touch function settings (preferences) are stored in location ~/Library/Preferences/com.touch-base.upddcommander.plist

To backup the setting you can take a copy of this file or to clear the settings you can run the command:

defaults remove com.touch-base.upddcommander