Helios: filtering repeated clicks from terrible touch screen

I am using a bad/cheap touch screen (Asus VT168H) and it seems to generate more than one click event when I click somewhere. So in the default configuration, when I click an MFD button, it frequently gets triggered twice, turning whatever it is on and then immediately back off.

Have you solved similar problems? Buying a better screen is obviously one solution that I would consider "smart assery," so that isn't a suggestion I am interested in.

Here are some things I know I could do:

1) configure / change Helios to suppress repeated clicks (like a configurable amount of ms that clicks have to be separated by, like in an accessibility driver)

- is there already such a thing?

2) write a device driver to act as a filter driver on the touch screen's driver stack to suppress repeated clicks

- is there already such a thing?

- this would allow people to use crappier input devices, not just with Helios

3) configure my profile differently

- I haven't investigated in detail, but maybe it only creates a single button release event, so maybe I could react to that instead? I am putting this here to fish in case there is a known work around for this situation

Thanks for your help, hive mind.

PS: Regarding option 1), if it isn't already there, I would contribute some code to Helios to make this possible.

The default Win10 setting for touch screens sends a double click for the touch. This is not something related to your screen or to Helios. Just go in the Win10 settings and disable the double click. I am not in front of my DCS computer right now so I can't remember the path to get there, but I had the exact same problem when I installed Helios 1.4 on a new computer.

I already have it set to send double clicks only if you double tap. See image below.

I will look some more if there is another setting somewhere.

Ok, on second look, that seems like fixed configuration. So I cannot find the setting that you describe that maps single taps to double clicks. If you do find it again, please let me know?

Update: I added some debug code to Helios and confirmed that when I press on my touch screen, it delivers the OnTouchDown event FOLLOWED by a spurious OnMouseDown event. Both of those fire the MouseDown (which becomes 'pushed' event I guess.)

Does this ring a bell for any Helios devs?

Three mouse clicks:

OnMouseDown 25,17
OnMouseUp 25,17
OnMouseDown 21,19
OnMouseUp 21,19
OnMouseDown 19,25
OnMouseUp 19,25

Several touches, with various click speeds:

OnTouchDown 14,14
OnTouchUp 17,13

OnTouchDown 15,11
OnMouseDown 15,11 (seems like this is holding mouse down until two taps later, some accessibility thing?)
OnTouchUp 22,15   (maybe I slid here?)

OnTouchDown 18,8
OnTouchUp 18,8

OnTouchDown 28,16
OnTouchUp 30,13
OnMouseUp 30,-57 (finally released mouse) 

OnTouchDown 22,20
OnTouchUp 23,21

OnTouchDown 18,11
OnMouseDown 18,11
OnTouchUp 18,11
OnMouseUp 18,11 (this is a pretty normal tap)

OnTouchDown 17,11
OnMouseDown 17,11
OnTouchUp 17,11
OnMouseUp 17,11 (another normal one)

PS: This also means I can trivially filter this in the Helios code, but of course it would be nicer not to have to run my own fork of Helios :)

PPS: I put some code into my local Helios to suppress Mouse Down and Mouse Up if there was a Touch Down event on the same control in the last 200ms and that makes the problem go away. So either this screen is just making extra events or something in Windows is trying to be clever and convert a touch with a tiny amount of sideways movement into a gesture to do a mouse drag. Most likely that is what is happening.

update since people are still finding this thread:

For most people's setups, this problem goes away when you disable the "press and hold to right click" option.

For the rest of us, my workaround is a feature in Helios since https://github.com/BlueFinBima/Helios/releases/tag/1.4.2019.0611

Any other suggestions as Im having the same problem?....I have used the stock AV8b profile from Blufin, disabled press and hold for right click in windows and set touchscreen to suppress 2nd trigger in helios options... but still get up to 4 of the same character on the UFC when I press a button there. Is there something else I could be doing to get the UFC to function correctly

Any other suggestions as Im having the same problem?....I have used the stock AV8b profile from Blufin, disabled press and hold for right click in windows and set touchscreen to suppress 2nd trigger in helios options... but still get up to 4 of the same character on the UFC when I press a button there. Is there something else I could be doing to get the UFC to function correctly

this issue is being worked on the discord

Bonjour, j'ai le même problème, avez vous finaliser la solution sur Helios? Les lignes de code sont bonnes ? Ou les implanter? Dans quel fichiers?

[google translate]

Le problème était que le profil avait été réinitialisé avec une ancienne version d'Helios qui dupliquait toutes les "bindings" sur "Reset Monitors". Tout recommencer avec une nouvelle copie du profil publié dans une copie actuelle d'Helios a résolu le problème.

Ceci est la conversation Discord où je l'ai résolue:

-------------------------------

The issue was that the profile had been reset with an old version of Helios that duplicated all the bindings on "Reset Monitors". Starting over with a fresh copy of the released profile in a current copy of Helios resolved the problem.

This is the Discord conversation where I resolved it:

Dangerman04/29/2020
It also occurs with mouse clicks so probably isn’t a touchscreen issue. Thanks for looking.
ammo04/29/2020
@Dangerman like I said its super obviously screwed.  The bindings for the UFC buttons are in there 3 to 4 times.   (I did not check if the rest of the profile is like that too, since reading the raw XML isn't super efficient.)
So when you press a button it is doing as instructed and firing it 4 times.
I have never seen this before so I want to compare to the file you started with, that's why I asked.   It would be a interesting bug if this happened without repeatedly copying and pasting the controls.
I will check the original file and get back to you.
and yes you confused me with  the V4 thing :slight_smile:   I was wondering where Blue released a version 4 and I didn't see it :slight_smile:
ammo04/29/2020
Ok the V3 original is ok.   Just so I get something out of this also, please tell me the exact version of Helios that you used to reset yours?
@Dangerman
Dangerman04/29/2020
@ammo ... 1.4.2020.0315 for helios profile editor.  I dont know what im doing with these profiles so I haven't conciously adjusted anything or cut and paste any of the dials or buttons anywhere..... just loaded, reset monitors and used.
ammo04/29/2020
ok I will have to repro this then when I have some time.  These bindings should be automatic bindings that don't get saved at all, but apparently they are?   This comment put here in case @BlueFinBima reads this and wants to fix it themselves
and just FYI you are correct the UFC doesn't require a viewport because it is drawn by Helios.  Other profiles have to use viewports for devices we don't have in Helios or that they can't use for compatibility reasons.
Dangerman04/29/2020
:thumbsup:
Dangerman04/29/2020
@ammo ..so after your discoveries you have listd above I reloaded a freshly downloaded v3 and all works well.  No idea why this has happened but im gratefu for your help as it pointed me in the right direction for a fix
ammo04/29/2020
only explanation i have is if  you previously did the reset with an earlier version of helios when we had bugs in reset monitors.   then if you reset it twice and ended up with 4 copies of the bindings.  that’s why i asked which version of helios was used to reset it rather than what you are running now @Dangerman