OT: Touchscreen technology

[cteno4]

Sannyasin,

you're right, Metacard/rev is a great solution for kiosks, I've done 
quite a few of them in the last decade. the main touch screen 
manufacturers are elographics and microtouch (think they are still 
around, maybe merged with 3M?). they buy monitors and slap the touch 
screen membrane on the screen. there are two kinds of technology, one is 
a membrane that is placed over the screen and the other just uses sound 
waves that travel over the surface of the monitor (or a piece of glass 
mounted in front of it) to determine the touch point. there are a few 
other touchscreen manufactures out there also, most more specialized to 
atms and such. flat screens now mean you dont have the huge clunky 
monitor in your kiosk!

elographics sells a number of different kinds of monitors with touch 
screens installed or you can buy the touch screen and slap it on your own 
monitor. this takes a lot of fiddling and is not recommended unless you 
like to get good with your dremel tool!

another company ive used is trolltouch also very good at integrating 
touch screens onto all sorts of monitors and computers, especially imacs 
and emacs. the emacs make a great standalone solution in environments 
where you dont have a viscous public. another company who makes a great 
stand for emacs and other kiosk solutions is pearlson.

http://www.trolltouch.com/
http://www.pearlson.com/
http://www.ezscreen.com/

some things to think about on the kiosk interfaces:
€ you will need larger type since folks will be standing farther away
€ look at the ADA guidelines so that it has handicap access (mainly wheel 
chair with height and tilt)
€ make sure all buttons are at least 3/4" square or larger for those fat 
fingers to hit
€ dont have users try to do pulldown menus.
€ if you need typing input then just make a keyboard on the screen for 
input via the touchscreen, dont use a keyboard.

yell if you have any questions, ive been around this tree many times.

cheers,

jeff

use-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com wrote on 3/9/04 7:52 PM

>I guess it's obvious that a long running Revolution process/interface, 
>should make an ideal backend for a touchscreen-kiosk application.
>
>If any of you have experience with , or are into touch screen 
>technology and are willing to share the "twenty dos and don'ts" and 
>"best of show touch screen  monitors" with us, we would really 
>appreciate it. Of course I can surf the net and google for this but, 
>nothing like experience.  email me off list. katir at hindu.org
>
>Thanks!



Jeffrey H. Reynolds
6620 Michaels Dr.
Bethesda, MD  20817

301.469.8562

email: cteno4 at earthlink.net
       cteno4 at aol.com