How Can I Adjust Android SeekBar Sensitivity

Question

I attempted to use a SeekBar for the first time, and I was disappointed with the results. I have an app that needs to use a slider to cover 80 spots. I want the user to be able to move in .5 increments (i.e. 10.5, 11.0). My max range is 40, which is why I doubled it to 80 to account for the decimals.

Everything worked, but when I put it on my Droid, the performance was terrible in my opinion. When trying to stop on 21.5, the slider usually stopped at 22.0 or 22.5, and I had to take extra time to try and inch it over. Other times I would try to select the slider and it was unresponsive. I'm not as concerned about the unresponsiveness, but I can not put the SeekBar in my app if it requires the user to have exact precision to hit a certain spot.

Is there anything that I can do to adjust the SeekBar so that it is easy to hit the number you are trying to land on without difficulty? I'm not sure if the problem is occurring because my SeekBar contains a large amount of possible values, and with screen size limited this forces the numbers to be smashed closer together? Or if this is just the way it behaves in general.

If there isn't a good way to adjust the sensitivity, is there a good alternative that I can use that provides similar functionality?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if the problem is occurring because my SeekBar contains a large amount of possible values, and with screen size limited this forces the numbers to be smashed closer together?

Pretty much this. One thing you could do is add a small plus and minus button beside the seekbar, which increment and decrement the value by 0.5. This way you could still use the seekbar for general cases, and refine your selection with the buttons if needed. Maybe not the most elegant solution, but it would certainly work.