Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Multi-touch modeling with Whole Language Workbench on a Wacom Cintiq 24HD Touch

Last saturday I had the opportunity to try a Wacom Cintiq 24HD Touch attached to a Mac Mini and I discovered that it is much more powerful than is advertised.
The multi-touch functionality makes it possible to interact with the operating system and all of the installed applications by using (at least) the same standard gestures supported by the Apple Magic Trackpad.

So, after the installation of the last publicly released version, I played with the Whole Platform for at least two hours using only multi-touch gestures and a wireless keyboard (no trackpad).

As you can easily guess, the Whole Platform is somewhat "touch ready" thanks to its extensive use of graphical notations, drag and drop, and context menus.
By using a 24" display many constructs are already large enough to be selected by a tap or targeted by a drop. Otherwise you have to pinch to zoom the area before performing the desired action.

It was a very amazing experience even for me to discover that modeling the structure, behavior and tooling of a language is already more pleasant and more effective on a tablet-like configuration!