835375 - [Camera] Tap on any part of the screen should focus this part of the picture

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 966830

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::Camera, defect)

Comment 1

[Rafael Rebolleda]

Or is there any other way to get the camera to focus in any particular part of the scene?

David, you've been working on a number of updates to the camera. Can you provide some more info?

Comment 2

[David Flanagan [:djf]]

This is not a v1 feature.  It should be easy enough to implement in some future version of Gaia, when Gaia is running on hardware that supports it.  I suspect that our low-end devices (unagi, etc.) do not support it, however.

I'm cc'ing Dale because he owns the Camera app and Mike because he handles the camera hardware.

Comment 3

[Mike Habicher [:mikeh] (high bugzilla latency)]

The CameraControl API already supports this; I'm not sure if the Unagi hardware does, though.  Easy enough to check--just check the Capabilities.maxFocusAreas[1] for a non-zero value.  Once that's done, set the desired focus area(s) by setting CameraControl.focusAreas[2].

1. http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/camera/nsIDOMCameraManager.idl#83
2. http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/camera/nsIDOMCameraManager.idl#326

Comment 4

[Rafael Rebolleda]

If it's technically possible, I think this would be a great improvement in UX.

Comment 5

[Dale Harvey (:daleharvey)]

The problem is the current UI implementation doesnt afford for this, as tapping on the preview screen is how we show the recently taken photos

Comment 6

[Aras Balali Moghaddam]

Excuse me for jumping in this thread, but I think focus is an extemly important feature and this would be a very big improvement to usability of the camera. I have a suggestion:

- by default focus on the center
- if user touch and hold on any part of the screen focus on that part, and when user lifts their finger take a picture
- show a clear visual feedback (and possibly play a short confirmation sound) when focus has been obtained
- if focus can not be obtained (for example image too dark or subject too close to camera) then show clear visual feedback to indicate failur (and again I possibly play a short suitable sound)

Using that method, quick tap can still be used to toggle thumbnails of recently taken pictures. By being able to touch the screen to take a picture, we can avoid the fat finger problem.

Comment 7

[Ben Tian (inactive)]

(In reply to arasbm from comment #6)
> - by default focus on the center
> - if user touch and hold on any part of the screen focus on that part, and
> when user lifts their finger take a picture
> - show a clear visual feedback (and possibly play a short confirmation
> sound) when focus has been obtained
> - if focus can not be obtained (for example image too dark or subject too
> close to camera) then show clear visual feedback to indicate failur (and
> again I possibly play a short suitable sound)

I think there's a problem here that user cannot see the focused area because his finger is on top of it. If camera focuses on wrong nearby area due to fat finger, user cannot confirm nor re-focus to correct the area as the picture is immediately taken when user lifts his finger. I suggest to remove the picture-taking behavior when user lifts his finger.

Also the touch-and-hold on preview is used for focus and exposure lock on other platforms. If we want to implement focus and exposure lock in the future, we need to consider another gesture for it.

Comment 8

[Ben Tian (inactive)]

(In reply to Dale Harvey (:daleharvey) from comment #5)
> The problem is the current UI implementation doesnt afford for this, as
> tapping on the preview screen is how we show the recently taken photos

How about double-tap to show filmstrip and single-tap to focus?

Comment 9

[Aras Balali Moghaddam]

Double tap does not work very well for mobile devices, and as you it is not used very much for mobile (for good usability reasons). 

It would be great if we could find an alternative way to show/hide the film strip. It is not very suitable in my opinion to show the film strip when user taps on the preview. I think the main goal users have in mind when they open the camera is to take a picture. We should support that goal with common and intuitive forms of interaction. Once we done with that, we should support additional features. The camera does not absolutely need the film strip, but it needs to have proper focus to be functional.

Comment 10

[Ben Tian (inactive)]

> It would be great if we could find an alternative way to show/hide the film
> strip. It is not very suitable in my opinion to show the film strip when
> user taps on the preview. I think the main goal users have in mind when they
> open the camera is to take a picture. We should support that goal with
> common and intuitive forms of interaction. Once we done with that, we should
> support additional features. The camera does not absolutely need the film
> strip, but it needs to have proper focus to be functional.

Swipe down/up from the edge is also an option. Maybe we need some UX advice.

cyee, we want to add touch focus into camera app and use alternative way to show/hide filmstrip. Is touch focus in your next version UX design? If not, do you have any suggestion for alternative way to show/hide filmstrip?

Comment 11

[Casey Yee]

Touch to focus would certainly be a nice addition to the UX.  I'll make sure that this suggestion is tracked for future camera features.

Comment 12

[Diego Marcos [:dmarcos]]

Touch to focus is a feature being implemented as part of bug 966830