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Comment by asnyder | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm not reading the posting right, but I really don't see a problem. Why can't the screen detect a slide over as a mouseover, but consider a tap as a click. Current trackpads already do this on laptops. I can drag my finger around to move the cursor and trigger a click by tapping on the pad.

If my laptop's trackpad can do it, I see no reason why a touchscreen can't do it.

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Because a phone has no concept of a cursor. When you lift your finger off of the phone, it is gone. Motion on a trackpad is saved by the computer as a change to the cursor position. This can be simulated by saving state in the touchDown/touchUp events, but it isn't like polling for the current mouse position.

The other thing to think about is that if you do have a mouseover event, you are likely going to try and display something (like a tooltip). On a phone, this would be covered by your finger.

I don't understand why it doesn't have a concept of a cursor? Windows Mobile phones have the concept of cursor and I can have a mouseover by holding the cursor over something whether it's with a finger or stylus, and then click by tapping either with my finger or stylus.

What's the disadvantage to having an invisible cursor so that mouseovers work? Couldn't the cursor "appear" to the system when your finger is on the screen, similar to how the cursor shows for restaurant POS terminals when your finger is on the screen and then disappears when your finger is off it. Clearly I'm missing something.

Windows Mobile Classic only, they've thankfully gotten rid of this with Windows Mobile Series 7.

A touchscreen is not a trackpad. Their interaction models are markedly different, though they might (superficially) appear similar.

What's the reason for the downvoting of this and my follow-up post? This is very disconcerting, it discourages me from participating or contributing to an active conversation. HN etiquette requires a reason for downvoting.

As a long time member this is very frustrating. I'm sure I'll get even more downvotes for pointing this out.

Exactly. When I was reading this, the first thing that came to my mind was that my MacBook has a multi-touch trackpad. Probably the solution would be to enable a mouse pointer over flash content.

But gaming is a much lesser experience with a trackpad then it is with mouse and keyboard; my Bloonz scores with and without a mouse prove it. Also, this doesn't get around the many games that require a keyboard.

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