Swipe UI

webOS has a rich repertoire of gestures. One that has now entered the mainstream is swiping left or right on a list item. In webOS, swiping either way deletes an item, by convention.

It is proposed that we refine this to distinguish between left and right swipes. Left swipes would "close" (delete, archive, dismiss) the item. Right swipes would "open" (display in full, create a bookmark, create a Task from, or otherwise "do more with") the item.

If there is more than one "close" action, swiping left would overlay the item with a set of buttons. Likewise for "open" actions and swiping right. Users should always be able to recover from a mis-entered gesture, so the set of buttons will often be useful with only one action. Actions such as "archive" that can be recovered from by some other gesture wouldn't need this confirmation button.

Enyo 2 supports separate left & right swipes natively; see http://enyojs.com/sampler/latest/lib/layout/list/samples/ListLanguagesSample.html (although that sample is confusing) Swipe-in buttons can be seen at http://searchablenotes.hominidsoftware.com/