mastodon
Make it easier to swipe away opened media
Currently, swiping away an opened picture or video requires either a quick fling or a large swipe.
To me it leads to multiple failed close attempts as my flings aren't energetic or wide enough.
Other apps, e.g. Google Photos & Sync for Lemmy interpret very small vertical drags as closing actions.
I think it's fair to say Google Photos sets the de-facto standard for media navigation on Android.
Or to put it another way, is there any reason to make it more difficult to close fullscreen media?
Background: I created a photo app and we observed that Android users expect to be able to dismiss media with very short swipes.
We ended up copying GP's behaviour and stopped seeing unwanted interactions. There were also no instances of accidental closes.
You are the first person to say that it is "difficult". I don't remember seeing any other complaints about this gesture.
is there any reason to make it more difficult to close fullscreen media?
There is a reason why "interpret very small vertical drags as closing actions" is a bad idea. Touchscreens are imprecise. You may want to tap (e.g. as part of double-tap to zoom) but it registers as a swipe and the viewer closes.
Our evaluation of GP's behaviour is that it needs a "vertical drag" gesture. That should be enough to distinguish it from a tap.
In our implementation I believe we added a minimum drag distance of 10px (IIRC) to further disambiguate, which I feel was a good tradeoff.
which I feel was a good tradeoff.
And I feel that the current implementation in the Mastodon app is good. As I said, it's subjective and there were no complaints so far.
As far as using Google Photos as an example of a good UX, for me it's anything but. It discredited itself for me long ago by doing this:
You won't find me defending Google Photos too much in here :-) But if there is one thing Google does a ton of, it's usability testing - and this is the type of issue most users don't complain directly about, it has to be directly observed.
Other apps with the same dismiss behaviour: Sync for Lemmy, LinkedIn, Apple Photos (iOS)
In the end it's not a big deal but I keep bumping against this and thought I'd raise the issue.