Specifications

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Authoring System
An authoring system is a program that
the application developer can use to create a
touch application without writing
programming code. Authoring systems
either include direct support for the touch
system, or run under a graphical user
interface (GUI), which provides support for
the touch system. Hypercard
TM
for the
Macintosh and Asymetrix Toolbook
TM
for
the IBM PC
TM
are examples of such
authoring systems.
Mouse Emulator
Drivers are available from touch
vendors that make the touch system appear
to be a mouse to the application code. The
driver emulates the standard Microsoft
®
Mouse driver protocol. With the touch
system connected and the mouse emulator
loaded, applications that use a mouse may be
used with touch instead. Little or no
modification of the application is required.
If the application uses targets that are of
sufficient size to be used with a mouse, but
are too small to be used with touch, the
application would have to be modified to
enlarge the targets for touch use.
Graphical User Interfaces
GUIs such as Apple Macintosh
TM
or
Microsoft Windows
TM
are operating systems
that use icons, pull-down menus, windows,
etc., instead of keyboard-entered commands.
GUIs typically support installable pointing
device drivers. The touch vendor supplies
the pointing device driver, which generates
the pointing device event messages that are
sent to the application. Applications are
written to use these standard pointing device
event messages, and are therefore
independent of any particular pointing
device, such as a mouse, touch system,
graphics tablet, or other pointing devices.