860717 - RFE Please provide a virtual mouse or a virtual finger

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Biju]

Attachment: target.png

RFE Please provide a "virtual mouse" or a "virtual finger"

I am submitting this under Android. Actually this is applicable on all platforms which have a touch interface, but not a physical mouse.

I have an android tablet, at many sites I find it very difficult to use touch interface. I feel my fingers are big for the form controls and links. When ever (or say almost all time) I try to do some action, even clicking a link, I am getting fat fingered.

So please provide a "virtual mouse" or a "virtual finger", something similar to "virtual keyboard".

Here is a my proposal, see attachment "target.png"
* If "virtual mouse" is enabled Mobile(or touch supported) 
  Firefox should popup a control similar to "target.png". 
* User will be able to move this control by dragging it 
  using the "Orange" ring. 
* When ever user hit the "Red" area treat it as click.
* Click will be exactly at the intersection of 
  vertical and horizontal cross line.

To simulate "mouse drag":-
* Usually I dont feel much trouble, but has big issues with "text selection".
* User will press at "Red" circle area and drag the control.
  This will be treated as a mouse drag.

To simulate "left mouse button":-
* see next attachment "target_2_button.png"
* we can have the middle circle (or donut shaped) with 2 colored area. 
  say one with "yellow" and other with "Red"
* treat hitting/dragging "yellow" area as right mouse button action. 
* and hitting/dragging "red" area as left mouse button action.

Comment 1

[Biju]

Attachment: target_2_button.png

Comment 2

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Thanks for the enhancement request; and time to make these mock-ups. This is definitely a problem as you describe. I believe this is request is similar if not the same as bug 663803 which describes a similar dilemma. I'm hesitant to mark this as a duplicate at the moment until a second opinion is commented.

Comment 3

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

I think this is a more general solution that would encompass bug 663803 but isn't quite a duplicate. For example, it would also solve bug 835094 and bug 758146, both of which require the ability to drag with a mouse. I really would like to see something like this implemented; I tried at one point to do it using a XUL overlay floating on top of the browser deck but ran into problems because one or more of the viewports wasn't getting scaled right and I didn't try hard enough to figure it out.

Comment 4

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

Thanks for the request. We've talked about a virtual cursor in the past and have decided against it. The benefit of making content designed for desktop usable on mobile doesn't outweigh the costs of development time in the face of the web becoming more and more touch friendly.

That said, this could make a very interesting addon.

Comment 5

[Biju]

(In reply to Brad Lassey [:blassey] from comment #4)
> The benefit of making content designed for desktop
> usable on mobile doesn't outweigh the costs of development time in the face
> of the web becoming more and more touch friendly.

:(

Even touch friendly pages, as well as Android applications like GMail App, YouTube App, Camera App  I have problem. It is only that on web page you see more example. And ideally I wish OS has this feature. 
But as my OEM is not providing any OS update, even an OS update wont help me if on some day Android add this feature.