My Question: How do I detect when a user moves their finger up/down vs left/right (and how do I know which direction of those groups their finger moved)?
My Situation: I want to change the brightness of my app when they move their finger up and down (up = brighter, down = darker), and I want to switch between activities and/or views based on their left/right swipe.
I wrote a simple class for this: it's well documented so I wont explain it here
public class OnSwipeListener extends GestureDetector.SimpleOnGestureListener {
@Override
public boolean onFling(MotionEvent e1, MotionEvent e2, float velocityX, float velocityY) {
// Grab two events located on the plane at e1=(x1, y1) and e2=(x2, y2)
// Let e1 be the initial event
// e2 can be located at 4 different positions, consider the following diagram
// (Assume that lines are separated by 90 degrees.)
//
//
// \ A /
// \ /
// D e1 B
// / \
// / C \
//
// So if (x2,y2) falls in region:
// A => it's an UP swipe
// B => it's a RIGHT swipe
// C => it's a DOWN swipe
// D => it's a LEFT swipe
//
float x1 = e1.getX();
float y1 = e1.getY();
float x2 = e2.getX();
float y2 = e2.getY();
Direction direction = getDirection(x1,y1,x2,y2);
return onSwipe(direction);
}
/** Override this method. The Direction enum will tell you how the user swiped. */
public boolean onSwipe(Direction direction){
return false;
}
/**
* Given two points in the plane p1=(x1, x2) and p2=(y1, y1), this method
* returns the direction that an arrow pointing from p1 to p2 would have.
* @param x1 the x position of the first point
* @param y1 the y position of the first point
* @param x2 the x position of the second point
* @param y2 the y position of the second point
* @return the direction
*/
public Direction getDirection(float x1, float y1, float x2, float y2){
double angle = getAngle(x1, y1, x2, y2);
return Direction.fromAngle(angle);
}
/**
*
* Finds the angle between two points in the plane (x1,y1) and (x2, y2)
* The angle is measured with 0/360 being the X-axis to the right, angles
* increase counter clockwise.
*
* @param x1 the x position of the first point
* @param y1 the y position of the first point
* @param x2 the x position of the second point
* @param y2 the y position of the second point
* @return the angle between two points
*/
public double getAngle(float x1, float y1, float x2, float y2) {
double rad = Math.atan2(y1-y2,x2-x1) + Math.PI;
return (rad*180/Math.PI + 180)%360;
}
public enum Direction{
up,
down,
left,
right;
/**
* Returns a direction given an angle.
* Directions are defined as follows:
*
* Up: [45, 135]
* Right: [0,45] and [315, 360]
* Down: [225, 315]
* Left: [135, 225]
*
* @param angle an angle from 0 to 360 - e
* @return the direction of an angle
*/
public static Direction fromAngle(double angle){
if(inRange(angle, 45, 135)){
return Direction.up;
}
else if(inRange(angle, 0,45) || inRange(angle, 315, 360)){
return Direction.right;
}
else if(inRange(angle, 225, 315)){
return Direction.down;
}
else{
return Direction.left;
}
}
/**
* @param angle an angle
* @param init the initial bound
* @param end the final bound
* @return returns true if the given angle is in the interval [init, end).
*/
private static boolean inRange(double angle, float init, float end){
return (angle >= init) && (angle < end);
}
}
}
To use simply extend the OnSwipeListener and override the onSwipe method