806805 - (win-touch-issues) [meta] Mouse / touch input problems on Windows devices that support touch input

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Description

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

In bug 726615 we added W3C touch input support to desktop on Windows. Unfortunately web sites and input framework authors are using touch interface detection as a way of detecting mobile devices, and they make the assumption that these devices don't support mouse input. This caused all sorts of problems when we enabled touch events on the desktop.

With the release of Windows 8, there are going to be a lot of devices out there that support touch and support mouse input. We need to work with site authors and framework authors so that they move away from the current mobile detection schemes they use.

As a temporary work around, we've disabled exposing W3C touch interfaces on devices that do not support touch input. But this is temporary since Win8 is going to change the device landscape over the next year or two.

Comment 1

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Just to make sure: To test those touch bugs with Firefox on a normal PC without touch support, I need to set dom.w3c_touch_events.enabled to 1?

Comment 2

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

Hallvord,
Is there any reasons why this bug is in tech evangelism/Mobile?

Comment 3

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

It should probably be in Tech Evangelism/Desktop if we've got that set up already :-)

Comment 4

[Simon Sarris]

Is this the reason I'm having trouble cancelling Firefox's default behavior?

I have an HTML Canvas on Windows 8.1 touch screen, and I want to prevent Firefox from scrolling the page when I one-finger swipe on the canvas, but calling e.preventDefault() on mousedown/mousemove/touchstart/touchmove is not sufficient to do this.

If this is unrelated, I'll file a bug and attach a test case.

Comment 5

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

(In reply to Simon Sarris from comment #4)
> Is this the reason I'm having trouble cancelling Firefox's default behavior?
> 
> I have an HTML Canvas on Windows 8.1 touch screen, and I want to prevent
> Firefox from scrolling the page when I one-finger swipe on the canvas, but
> calling e.preventDefault() on mousedown/mousemove/touchstart/touchmove is
> not sufficient to do this.

Are you testing with touch events enabled? Set dom.w3c_touch_events.enabled in about:config. If this is on, please report a new bug :)


> If this is unrelated, I'll file a bug and attach a test case.

Comment 6

[jerryj]

When is Mozilla going to get serious about supporting touch displays (via TouchEvent) on Windows desktop in Firefox?

Chrome has fully supported touch screens for years.  Firefox can't?

Worst of all, now touch on Windows desktop in Firefox appears completely broken since r39.

Comment 7

[Mike Taylor [:miketaylr]]

Let's go ahead and close this meta, just one open bug left.