Windows 8 tip: Using Multitouch without a touch enabled monitor

With all due respect...the last thing I want to control anything with, is a touch screen.

1) No sensativity
2) Even if you dont have fat fingers, it feels like it when trying to manipulate anything, via touch screen.  (I have 2 "smart phones")
3) Odd working angles (shoulder problems??)
4) Dorito fingers...

I realize it's cutting edge, and probably great Cakewalk is investing in the technology.  But as far as I'm concerned, I only want to touch my screen when I am wiping the dust off...not Pizza finger grease.

What's the name of iPad app? Thank you.

 That is some really cool info Noel.

 Everybody is different in their studio working techniques it seems.  I can see a definite advantage to using touch screen if I can incorporate it into my working situation in a way that is truly beneficial

 Here are a few FWIW thoughts concerning Sonar X2a,windows 8 and a touch screen. I'm sure you have already given this a lot of thought but maybe another perspective will help.

 I am both a keys player and a guitar player. I had a desk custom built several years ago that positions my midi keyboard right in front of me. I have a keyboard/mouse setup mounted to the desk directly in front of the midi keyboard on a made for that purpose rig. My two screens sit directly in front of me l about 6" up behind the keyboard.Touching them at that angle is counter productive.

 Since making music mostly always involves looking down at the keys....looking down at the keyboard....looking down at the guitar,so from that perspective some kind of a device that is mounted to one side of the computer keyboard would make a really nice touch surface. Mounting something to a stand would be even better because  it could be shifted around but won't fall off the desk if bumped accidentally.

 For me an android pad probably would not give me the full advantage of the experience. It might work in a pinch but not in a day to day situation. Just too small to show all of the tracks.

 I'm thinking something that is a minimum of 19" to 24", talks to X2, and is mounted ergonomically low and close to my normal working position. I could use my other two monitors to show various processes and load the  mixer view on the third large touch monitor to make quick changes to the mix as necessary.

 If I didn't like my midi keyboard position so much I would  consider mounting  a large touch screen monitor into my custom mixing desk so that I could simply have it directly in front of me . As it is now, a movable stand or arm would be second choice.

 Here is the dreamer in me  talking now...... I am away from my studio with my touch laptop working on a mix . When I get home to my studio I simply clip the laptop into the movable arm and it automatically connects with my larger PC and all of its systems. X2  in my studio PC detects the Sonar in the laptop and uses all of the settings and files I was working on as a reference point with the added benefit of the horsepower and memory in the studio PC.The lappy is a touch screen PC on the go and part of the larger system in the studio. Can it be done?

 I could always copy the Sonar file from the touch laptop to the larger PC ,however needing to make a copy and file transfer each time could become too much to do on a daily basis if a person goes back and forth a lot. I could use only the peripherals from my larger setup but I would be using much less memory and cpu power that might not be up to the task of my project.

Unbelievable! Thank you Noel. Just installed it Outstanding! 

And the ones you list support Android tablets right?

I looked in Google Play and there is an idisplay app. It says it supports windows 8 but  user comment says it is not working correct yet in windows 8. I may give ut a try as it only needs network connection not internet access.

I was mistaken - apparently they do now support Win8 via IOS. Peter confirmed that the Win8 support does work via an IPad here.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=2747456 

Yeah its not ideal though you can choose to run at the tablet's lower resolution.
You can also switch to a different monitor from splashtop. You probably wouldn't want to exclusively work from the tablet. Just use it as a secondary pointing device for scrolling and zooming...

Noel: Where do you set the resolution? 

To set the resolution - Launch splashtop and where you see the connection to the computer, click on the pen and paper icon to the right. That allows you to select between the tablet resolution or the target computer resolution.

I don't have any experience with XDisplay since its not available for Android yet. I would expect it to perform equivalently though. 

I see your point about controlling a high res device from something as small as a tablet. I run dual monitors at 1680x1050 here and I spent a couple of hours using Win8 via splashtop last night and I almost forgot that I was using an Android tablet. The screen gets scaled down on my tablet which does only 1280x752, but for general browsing and other stuff it was fairly usable. In Metro mode Win8 lets you pinch zoom for most apps so you can generally get around the small font size.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk
]

I don't have any experience with XDisplay since its not available for Android yet. I would expect it to perform equivalently though. 

I see your point about controlling a high res device from something as small as a tablet. I run dual monitors at 1680x1050 here and I spent a couple of hours using Win8 via splashtop last night and I almost forgot that I was using an Android tablet. The screen gets scaled down on my tablet which does only 1280x752, but for general browsing and other stuff it was fairly usable. In Metro mode Win8 lets you pinch zoom for most apps so you can generally get around the small font size.

for VNC I usually use Remoter VNC. It lets me rc the complete desktop which is minimum 7160x1200 as a huge scrollable and zoomable pane on the iPads 2048x1536 screen, instead of each single monitor switchable only on the mobile device, like with splashtop or teamviewer. I tried splashtop and its really fast, but doesn't integrate well with my multiscreen setup.


I tried Xdisplay: it is based on splashtop v1 and isn't as fast as splashtop v2 and doesn't support the retina screen. Currently unusable on iPad. Bummer.


Lets hope for xdisplay2

Can I just check - is it splashtop 2 that now works with windows 8 touch, or the more expensive win8 metro testbed?

Cheers
James