How do I implement multitouch on iOS

Question

I'd like to implement multitouch, and I was hoping to get some sanity checks from the brilliant folks here. :)

From what I can tell, my strategy to detect and track multitouch is going to be to use the touchesBegan _Moved and _Ended methods and use the allTouches method of the event parameter to get visibility on all relevant touches at any particular time.

I was thinking I'd essentially use the previousLocationInView as a way of linking touches that come in with my new events with the currently active touches, i.e. if there is a touchBegan for one that is at x,y = 10,14, then I can use the previous location of a touch in the next message to know which one this new touch is tied to as a way of keeping track of one finger's continuous motion etc. Does this make sense? If it does make sense, is there a better way to do it? I cannot hold onto UITouch or UIEvent pointers as a way of identifying touches with previous touches, so I cannot go that route. All I can think to do is tie them together via their previouslocationInView value (and to know which are 'new' touches).

Answer 1

You might want to take a look at gesture recognizers. From Apple's docs,

You could implement the touch-event handling code to recognize and handle these gestures, but that code would be complex, possibly buggy, and take some time to write. Alternatively, you could simplify the interpretation and handling of common gestures by using one of the gesture recognizer classes introduced in iOS 3.2. To use a gesture recognizer, you instantiate it, attach it to the view receiving touches, configure it, and assign it an action selector and a target object. When the gesture recognizer recognizes its gesture, it sends an action message to the target, allowing the target to respond to the gesture.

See the article on Gesture Recognizers and specifically the section titled "Creating Custom Gesture Recognizers." You will need an Apple Developer Center account to access this.