Developing for Windows Multi touch - ala the Dell Studio One 19

Question

I came across the Dell Studio One 19 on the web the other day, and wondered what the Dev environment for the Multi-Touch was?

Anyone out there developing for this, or know what the environment is?

I know that to develop for the HP TouchSmart you need HP's own SDK....and it doesn't sound too good to me (check out this .NET Rocks episode on it)

I was hoping the new Dell is just using Windows 7 native touch support....

Ideally I'd like to see a subset of the Microsoft Surface SDK brought to touch-enabled screens running Win 7....

anyone got insight into whats happening with Multi-Touch on Win 7 from a development perspective?

Answer 1

Funny you should ask this I am just starting with this stuff this week.

I have the Dell XT2 with Windows 7 64bit (runs like a dream).

What you need to have...

The Windows 7 RC SDK
and you also must have the
NTrig device drivers

What's nice to have is the NTrig SDK

There have been some changes between the Windows 7 Beta and the RC, and the samples haven't been updated yet, but its reasonably simple to work out. Have fun, I am.

Answer 2

While this may not apply to the Dell Studio One 19 to answer your question at the end, "anyone got insight into whats happening with Multi-Touch on Win 7 from a development perspective?"

I can say that it seems that out of the box there will be a multi-touch API, which is what you should find available in the Win 7 RC SDK linked in Tim J's answer. In addition WPF 4.0 will include multi-touch APIs and controls which it would seem that the Surface SDK 2.0 will extend/build upon.

If you go to slide 7 of the following presentation you'll see how thing stack together.

Answer 3

The Dell Studio One actually uses touch technology by NextWindow. They now have native Windows 7 drivers for the touch screen.

This is the same touch sensor that the HP TouchSmart desktops use (the laptops use the NTrig dual mode touch sensor).

Answer 4

The easiest option is to develop for Multi-Touch is with Silverlight on Win7. I have a small application developed in Silverlight on an HP TouchSmart with Win7 on it. http://jobijoy.blogspot.com/2009/08/silverlight-3-multi-touch-with-windows.html When the application runs you can make the Browser in Kiosk mode(Full Screen) But if you are looking for very advanced features outside Silverlight, then go ahead with Win7 SDK.