Windows 8 Getting Started Guide: Touch Gesture Reference Guide

Microsoft recently released the Touch Gesture Reference Guide in App Store for everyone to make an official demonstration. We got more and more comprehensive information of Windows 8 after it has been released for two months. The Touch Gesture Reference Guide is not only a getting started guide for beginners to operate, but also used as an application specifications of Windows 8.

Below are some detailed information and diagrams of touch gestures on Windows 8:

Windows_8_2_Finger_Multi_Touch_Gestures

There are eight common touch gestures available in Windows 8, including Press and hold to learn, Tap for primary action, Slide to pan, Swipe down from the top edge to select, Pinch and stretch to zoom, Turn to rotate, Swipe from the bottom for app commands, and Swipe from the right edge for system commands. These eight touch gestures are not much differences with iOS and Android, so we should be able to soon get used to. Some complex gestures are generally mixed up with basic gestures, so it is easy for us to operate those complex ones when recalling these simple actions. Tough the official demo shows it very easy to use, we still fail to operate when playing action games. We, beginners, not gamers, must exercise N times to achieve the perfect use. Terribly.

Press and hold to learn to detailed information or open a menu with more options.

Tap for primary action. You can launch an app, open folder and open a link just with a tap. This action is equivalent to the mouse left-click.

Slide to drag through pages and lists.

Swipe down from the top edge to select: Vertical sliding page when browsing the web or reading documents.

Pinch or stretch to zoom a picture, web page or document. Mouse users can perform the same action by holding the Ctrl key and then moving the mouse wheel.

Rotate two or more fingers to turn an object by 90 degrees. You can use this gesture to turn of the whole screen by 90 degrees.

Swipe from the bottom or top edge of the screen to view app commands, which only belongs to Windows 8, different from Android’s top edge.

Swipe from the right edge of the screen:

①     Swipe from the right edge of screen to open the charms with system commands

②     Swipe from the left edge of screen to switch the current running application

③     Slide from the top to the bottom to shut the current running application

④     Slide from the top to the left or right edge to place the current application to the side of the screen (Above is Windows8’s unique operation)



Notice: This article focuses on the common touch gestures with some details, difference with Microsoft official descriptions.