Disable multi finger touch in my app

Question

My app uses one Activity to host several fragments. Each time one fragment is shown on the phone screen.The view of each fragment consists of several image icons.

Currently, user is able to press on two icons simultaneously with two fingers (with each fingure press on one icon). I want to disable this multi-touch feature on my app to allow only one icon press take effect at a time.

I tried the following ways:

Way 1: in my app theme, I added:

<item name="android:windowEnableSplitTouch">false</item>

Way 2: In Android Manifest xml, I added:

<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.touchscreen.multitouch" android:required="false" />

Way 3: in my Activity:

@Override
public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {

    if(event.getPointerCount() > 1) {
        System.out.println("Multitouch detected!");
        return true;
    }
    else
       return super.onTouchEvent(event);
    }

Unfortunately, none of my solutions work. So, How can I disable multi-touch feature in my app??

try to add `android:splitMotionEvents="false"` on your ParentView instead of on app theme. Not sure if there is any diffs, but on my apps, it works. — Aprian, Oct 08 '12 at 08:05
https://iosdev03.medium.com/disabling-multi-touch-in-cross-platform-application-xamarin-ios-xamarin-android-1254f0252141 — Waaheeda, Nov 26 '21 at 19:15

score 41 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 26 '13 at 15:52

For case: you have multiple buttons and you want make selected only one button. In parent (NOT ROOT, just parent of child) of buttons, in its xml params add

android:splitMotionEvents="false"

And that's it. Example:

<LinearLayout
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:splitMotionEvents="false" <-----------!!!
    >

    <Button
    android:id="@+id/button_main_1"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="button1" />

    <Button
    android:id="@+id/button_main_2"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="button2" />

    <Button
    android:id="@+id/button_main_3"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="button3" />
</LinearLayout>

Btw. When you have 2 linearlayout with 3 buttons per layout, you should set this splitMotionEvents in that two layouts and also in parent of that 2 linearLayouts. Otherwise you will be able click only one button per layout (sum = 2 then). I hope you get it. :)

None of the other solutions didn't work for me or was too lame.

so its better to include android:splitMotionEvents="false" in all Layouts right!! — Software Sainath, Nov 18 '13 at 09:57
I would write it better but my English is still not enough to describe this complex situation :) — deadfish, Nov 18 '13 at 11:17
I am still running with same issue..any suggestion here http://stackoverflow.com/q/29072698/2624806 — CoDe, Mar 17 '15 at 13:09

score 14 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 25 '14 at 13:00

Yes I also faced this issue once and I found solution that android:splitMotionEvents="false" this will work only to direct children of a layout.

Example:

Like if you create two layout A and B and In A you have two buttons b1,b2 In B you have two buttons b3,b4

both A and B are in Parent Layout So first you have to clear that these buttons are not direct children of Parent Layout

In Parent Layout only have two children A and B

Than if you add android:splitMotionEvents="false" to Parent Layout then multi touch will not work on Layout A and Layout B but it will work on every button b1,b2,b3,b4 because these are not direct children of Parent Layout

So , If you want that multi touch will not work on these buttons also Than you have to add android:splitMotionEvents="false" this to every layout separately

There are some cases :

1).If you only add android:splitMotionEvents="false" on Layout A than you can not touch button b1 and button b2 at same time but you can touch button b1 or b2 and button b3 or b4 at same time.

2). just opposite of case 1.

3). But if you add android:splitMotionEvents="false" on both layouts than you can not touch any two buttons on your screen at same time.

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:splitMotionEvents="false" >

<LinearLayout
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:splitMotionEvents="false" >

    <Button
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="b1" />

    <Button
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="b2" />
</LinearLayout>

<LinearLayout
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:splitMotionEvents="false" >

    <Button
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="b3" />

    <Button
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="b4" />
</LinearLayout>

I think it might helpful for you.

Emil Davtyan · Answer 3 · 2012-10-08T08:22:36.243

1

You could put user a GestureOverlayView around the whole screen and only allow the first touch event to be processed by the lower views.

You must set up an onTouchListener on this transparent view, that does something like this:

gestureOverlayView.setOnTouchListener(new View.OnTouchListnener(){
    @Override
    public boolean onTouch(View v, MotionEvent e){
       // True means the event is ignored by the overlayed views 
       return e.getPointerCount() > 1 ? true : false;
    }
}

edited Oct 08 '12 at 08:22

answered Oct 08 '12 at 08:06

Emil Davtyan

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Could you please provide some sample code of your solution? – Leem.fin Oct 08 '12 at 08:08
Thanks. but how does this gestureOverLayView linked to my fragment view then?? Where to define it? As I said I have one Activity which hosts multiple fragments. Can I define it in activity instead of in each fragment? – Leem.fin Oct 08 '12 at 08:27
@Emil, Are you sure? – Gary Chen Oct 30 '20 at 04:20

Disable multi finger touch in my app

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