Disable or prevent multitouch in Activity

Question

I have several Views on an Activity which a user wants to touch quickly in succession and I capture these touches using a TouchListener and handling MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN. However, if the user is using two hands, it's very likely that the next View will be 'Touch'ed before the user pulls the previous finger up. In this scenario, a MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE is fired for the first view rather than the desired MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN for the second view.

Is there any way to work around or prevent this behavior? I've tried dispatching a new event with MotionEvent.ACTION_UP and also removing the event listener but neither seem to work.

score 88 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 26 '14 at 18:15

88

The easiest way I found to force single touch across an entire app is to set it using a theme:

<style name="MyTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
    <item name="android:windowEnableSplitTouch">false</item>
    <item name="android:splitMotionEvents">false</item>
</style>

Manifest:

  <application
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/MyTheme" >

answered Mar 26 '14 at 18:15

Jeremie D

4,145
1
35
41

Just for information, "android:splitMotionEvents" requires API level 11 and above – gjman2 Sep 26 '15 at 04:37
5

Working for me in Android 5.0.1. – Shubham A. Mar 01 '16 at 09:27
2

Works fine even on Android 8. – Pointer Null Dec 10 '18 at 14:43

score 29 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 27 '15 at 10:33

29

if someone still searching for best solution, put in the xml the following code :

android:splitMotionEvents = false

answered Oct 27 '15 at 10:33

Oren Zakay

519
8
17

2

It should be put inside a layout. – Vic Aug 26 '18 at 08:13
Yes it works! Insert it in the layout where u need disable the multitouch. – Boris Karloff Dec 02 '18 at 15:43
use it in the parent layout and it will get the job done – Harvinder Singh Sep 18 '19 at 18:26
use this in a layout which have clickable items, don't place it in top most layout/root view. – Daniyal Javaid Feb 22 '21 at 08:37

Pijetren · Answer 3 · 2012-09-06T10:38:49.883

7

I did it like this :

@Override
public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub

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

I think you can override onTouchEvent for any view.

edited Sep 06 '12 at 10:38

answered Sep 06 '12 at 10:37

Pijetren

159
1
9

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

3

The best way to work around this scenario is to use a ViewGroup and implement the onInterceptTouchEvent method to manually route the touch events as you see fit.

This was originally answered here: Android multitouch! hack anyone?

Code implementing this solution (found in the comments section of the answer to the above question) is found here: http://pastebin.com/hiE1aTCw

edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

Community

1
1

answered Jan 04 '12 at 15:56

cachance7

903
1
10
23

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 27 '17 at 16:35

2

Override dispatchTouchEvent and intercept all touches there, for all multi touches the pointercount is more than one.

 if(ev.getPointerCount() > 1)
  {
     Log.d("Multitouch detected!");
     ev.setAction(MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL);
  }

This cancels the touches and clears the pressed state of the buttons without taking any further action.

answered Feb 27 '17 at 16:35

Chetna Priyadarshini

207
1
11

First time it work, second time when I make multitouch then I make one touch it's not detected. – Mimouni Dec 29 '20 at 17:21

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 20 '11 at 07:02

I have solved this using a custom method - which I did not want to do If anyone finds a better way I'd like to hear about it Thanks:

public static void setViewGroupEnebled(ViewGroup view, boolean enabled)
{
    int childern = view.getChildCount();

    for (int i = 0; i< childern ; i++)
    {
        View child = view.getChildAt(i);
        if (child instanceof ViewGroup)
        {
            setViewGroupEnebled((ViewGroup) child,enabled);
        }
        child.setEnabled(enabled);
    }
    view.setEnabled(enabled);
}

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 28 '20 at 15:44

For me it worked like this. I just put this line in all active styles in my app

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

my style for example

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
      <item name="android:splitMotionEvents">false</item>
</style>

<style name="AppTheme.NoActionBar">
    <item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
    <item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
      <item name="android:splitMotionEvents">false</item>
</style>

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 29 '15 at 09:42

int currentapiVersion = android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT;

            if (currentapiVersion >= android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB) {

                horizentalLinearGridItem.setMotionEventSplittingEnabled(false);

            }

Here horizentalLinearGridItem is parentLayout view where we insert child views. In my code its LinearLayout. In this LinearLayout I added child views. But when I clicked two child views simultaneously, both were getting the events. To block that I used the above code.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 27 '16 at 04:03

I got it to work for me by just adding some code in OnTouchEvent method,

boolean action_down_required = false;

@Override
public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {

    int action = event.getAction();

    if(event.getPointerCount() > 1){
        action_down_required = true;
        return true;
    }

    if(action_down_required){
        action = MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN;
    }

    switch (action) {
        case MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN:

            // your code goes here...

            action_down_required = false;
            break;

        // Other events...

Disable or prevent multitouch in Activity

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