Feature Statement:
I propose that raw absolute touch input be added to osu!. (In easier English: use your trackpad as a tablet!)

Disclaimer:
Before I even get into my pitch, I would like to say that I understand that this may be well outside of the realm of what the game is capable of or desired to do, but I've done (a small amount of) research and I think that the time has come where this can be something that's built into the game instead of being implemented by third parties.

Idea Origin:
A bit of a history on where I got this idea from: I used to play osu! on a laptop quite a bit, and so I'd find myself struggling to use a mouse on my lap, which didn't work very well. Feeling quite agitated by my dilemma, I whined on #osu, and I was informed about synabs.exe, a neat little program that allows Synaptics trackpads to control the mouse based on the absolute position, as opposed to relative. This was a major convenience as it allowed me to play osu! daily while I was on my hour-long commute, so I was overjoyed. To my recollection, the last version of Windows that this program worked on was Windows 7, so I was a bit upset when I took the jump to 8. No more ultra-mobile standard gameplay for me. I've since gotten an osu!tablet which is small enough that I can place it on the corner of my laptop's palm rest and still use z/x, but at this very moment, I haven't packed my tablet with me, so I'm out of luck.

How is it possible:
With the advent of Windows 8, more and more laptops are shipping with trackpads that are not only much larger than their predecessors, but also include multitouch and absolute position reporting, regardless of trackpad vendor. Not only is that becoming more common, it has become a standard for trackpads on Windows 8 to support absolute positioning and multitouch for them to even qualify for driver certification. (src: stackoverflow, verification here if you dig) Windows 10 only reinforces this concept.

How can it be done:
As far as being able to tap into this data, there is a Windows API for raw trackpad and touchscreen input since Windows 7. It might not have been much use when Windows 7 came out as device support for multitouch and absolute positioning was done mainly in proprietary drivers, but it's become a standard now. Any laptop running Windows 8 or newer, and quite possibly, some Windows 7 laptops, would benefit from this. The API documentation for it can be found here, and there are a few examples flying around on MSDN as well.

User Interface:
I may very well be overestimating the simplicity of the API, as I've also seen a few reports of it being buggy online, but if it really is as simple as I'm led to believe, this could be a simple toggle in the options menu. For the user, using their trackpad as a tablet would be as easy as enabling this option and then starting a song. I could only imagine it being useful (and more convenient than existing solutions) if it only activates during gameplay, but that's something that's up for debate. I'm really aiming for gameplay input, but it might be pretty neat to see some other touch gestures implemented as well!


As always, thank you very much for your consideration!

Dear no
I once tried it, but everytime you click something on keyboard it locks the movement
Also, this applies only to laptop users, and I don't think there are so many to develop a new play style
On the other hand, the same applies to touchscreen PC
But I'm quite sure it's nigh impossible to play maps as Airman, Big Black for insane jumps and such

Baraatje123 wrote:

I once tried it, but everytime you click something on keyboard it locks the movement

That's a "feature" of the trackpad driver and is something that can be turned off, but that would definitely get in the way of user simplicity. x_x

Baraatje123 wrote:

Also, this applies only to laptop users, and I don't think there are so many to develop a new play style
On the other hand, the same applies to touchscreen PC
But I'm quite sure it's nigh impossible to play maps as Airman, Big Black for insane jumps and such

I don't think it would be called a "new play style" as much as just an adaptation on tablet/touch input, and statistics is something that I can't argue since we don't have any concrete statistics anyway. The ability to play a specific map with any varied input method is an argument that comes up all too often and is not the focus of this, but being that there are already select individuals who are able to play higher leveled maps with a trackpad in relative mode, I could only see absolute positioning making it easier. To clarify, it would make the trackpad mimic a tablet in that if you touch a corner of the trackpad, your mouse jumps to the same corner, like putting down a tablet pen and having the cursor jump to that position.

How can that be turner off?
Then I'd like to see this
I always thought the mouse lock was intended and couldn't be changed O.o

Also, I'm not sure if it would be technically possible, but as the major flaw I found is resolved this can be quite nice

Hello!

I have to respectfully say no to this suggestion. My reasons? Well it's first of all not because it isn't possible, it's more down to how many players really are using a laptop trackpad and will give peppy enough support to implement such a feature. I suppose the majority of players already have a mouse/tablet which is sufficient enough. Time is a crucial resource in game development (I suppose) which is why some smaller/unnecessary features don't get the priority to be implemented.

That's just my opinion anyways, if you have anything else to add that might change my opinion or my way of looking at it I'd gladly see ^-^

Baraatje123 wrote:

How can that be turner off?
Then I'd like to see this
I always thought the mouse lock was intended and couldn't be changed O.o

Also, I'm not sure if it would be technically possible, but as the major flaw I found is resolved this can be quite nice

It depends on your specific trackpad, but the specific method for my Synaptics trackpad is as follows:

Nadfee wrote:

I have to respectfully say no to this suggestion. My reasons? Well it's first of all not because it isn't possible, it's more down to how many players really are using a laptop trackpad and will give peppy enough support to implement such a feature. I suppose the majority of players already have a mouse/tablet which is sufficient enough. Time is a crucial resource in game development (I suppose) which is why some smaller/unnecessary features don't get the priority to be implemented.

As much as this is a valid point, I suppose the reason of posting this here in the first place is to gauge how much interest it can pull, how many people are interested, and how many people can use it, so by my view, the lack of people who "might" use it isn't a very good reason to invalidate it as a request. If you're in favor of it then I would appreciate you voicing it, and if you are indeed correct, then I suppose it'll just drift to the back of the Feature Requests forum and never be paid any attention again.

Additionally, I have both a mouse and a tablet, but neither of the two are very portable. Being able to use your trackpad as an input device, reliably, would allow for portable gameplay, e.g. being able to play osu!standard on your lap instead of on a table. Another thought that came to mind is that an increasing number of devices also have touch screens, but to counter that, many laptops are uncomfortable to use touchscreens with, and the end user can pay anywhere up to $400 extra to have a sub-par touchscreen on a laptop. Trackpads tend to be much more responsive in this field, as well.

If absolute input/postioning on trackpad and disabling trackpad clicks was possible, I would support this with my invisible ☆.

And bought a stylus for this.
This would only be useful for player who owns a laptop with reasonably large trackpad.

It would be hard to implement and very hard to learn to play with a trackpad (small working area)
but I think this is quite interesting, there was a program to do this but all it did was map the corners of the trackpad to the corners of the screen, I support with my invisible *