Chapter 2 : Basics 19
Basic gestures
Ta p: Tap with the tip of the finger—not the fingernail. Tap fast and firmly,
and then immediately lift your fingertip off the screen. Don’t bear down on
what you’re tapping. Don’t wait for a response; the response comes after
you lift your finger. Don’t linger on the gesture; a tap takes a split second
to do.
Tap the center of the gesture area to do the following:
• When you’re working in an application, tap the lighted bar in the center of
the gesture area to see Card view. Card view shows you all the
applications that are currently open, displayed as a series of cards (small
active windows).
• When you’re in Card view, tap the center of the gesture area to maximize
the app in the center of the view.
Swipe: A swipe is most often a horizontal gesture, from right to left or left to
right. Do it fast, do it lightly. In a swipe, your fingertip just skims the surface
of the touchscreen or gesture area.
One kind of swipe you’ll use a lot: Back. Make the back gesture from right to
left anywhere in the gesture area. Back takes you up one level from a
detailed view to a more general view of the application you’re working in.
For example, when you finish reading an email message, make the back
gesture to close the message and return to your list of messages. Or when
you finish writing a memo, make the back gesture to close and save the
memo and return to the display of all your memos. When you make the
back gesture in an application and that’s the only screen of that app that’s
open, you minimize the app and go back to Card view.
In Web, the back gesture performs the same function as the back button on
the browser, allowing you to move back through previously viewed pages.