Source Code Interaction on Touchscreens

Felix Raab
2016
Direct interaction with touchscreens has become a primary way of using a device. This work seeks to devise interaction methods for editing textual source code on touch-enabled devices. With the advent of the "Post-PC Era", touch-centric interaction has received considerable attention in both research and development. However, various limitations have impeded widespread adoption of programming environments on modern platforms. Previous attempts have mainly been successful by simplifying or
more » ... aining conventional programming but have only insufficiently supported source code written in mainstream programming languages. This work includes the design, development, and evaluation of techniques for editing, selecting, and creating source code on touchscreens. The results contribute to text editing and entry methods by taking the syntax and structure of programming languages into account while exploiting the advantages of gesture-driven control. Furthermore, this work presents the design and software architecture of a mobile development environment incorporating touch-enabled modules for typical software development tasks. vii for your comments and support with publications. Third, I would like to thank Dr. Markus Heckner for having enabled me to conduct research in his Android programming courses. Thanks to Markus Fuchs for his help in carrying out these studies and for various discussions during the many long train journeys to Regensburg. Also, thanks to all former University colleagues for having contributed to a pleasant work environment. Finally, I would like to thank all participants that took part in my user studies. Your feedback has been valuable, and the results generated by you interacting with my prototypes are a central part of this work. xi
doi:10.5283/epub.33107 fatcat:tprap6jx7fcp7mila2wilf6a7a