Wizard interface: Summon the Apps you need.

[Elliz]

Is there any app/anyone thinking of making one that would make me a app-summoning wizard? Something among this lines would be nice:

Press the screen for a certain amount of time, and it will open a “frame”, for example a circle with runes, a scroll, or other limited space inside which you can draw a symbol. Or say "Summon" or something to the same effect. To each App, you associate a symbol. For example, @ to the Internet, an envelope for email, pentagram to options, etc. You draw it on the touchscreen, inside the frame (for example, making a pentagram inside the circle, and it opens the app you asked for.

I know I could probably use voice recognition for half of it, and that there is google gesture search, which and there is a thing called "google gesture search", which works only on the search history.

But they are not wizardy enough xD would it be possible to do something like that, even if it is not completely

[Ravens_cry]

Hmm, tricky, since every app would either need to supply a rune OR the system would need to procedurally generate a rune based on some data the app description already provides. THEN you need a way for the users to know that rune. It's cute gimmick, but it sounds as useful as my idea for an operating system where folders acted like procedurally generated and modifiable Myst-esque islands linked by linking books.

[Whoracle]

To each App, you associate a symbol.

You could just let the user draw the symbols for each app s/he wants beforehand and be done with it. Not that tricky if done that way.

Questions:
- What OS?
- What device? (Screen size is kinda important)

[Xuc Xac]

Many custom Android ROMs have "gesture anywhere" that will let you set up a variety of actions (launching particular apps, or toggling systems like wifi/3G/sound/etc) with gestures. You'll have to draw all your runes yourself, but that's probably better than having to memorize a list that someone else made.

[endoperez]

Gesture recognition is a bit tricky, but other than that it's perfectly doable. There's at least one gesture recognition app that worked, but it seems to have disappeared from the Google Play store, and it didn't have wizardry visuals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF3jzlzl7ew
This seems to have disappeared from the store, there's an app with the same name but that's different I think. Hmm. Or maybe the app just wasn't made available on Finland? Google Play will never ever agree to show you apps that you can't buy in the country it thinks you're currently in, which makes it pretty hard to research the competition.

It'd need a way to start it up quickly - holding down on an empty space in the middle of the phone screen can't be done, but it seems like holding down on the home button and swiping up (the way Google Now is launched), or holding home button down for a while, would be feasible ways to launch the "summoning frame". Or an app icon or a Widget, obviously.

I just checked, and it seems it's not possible to create a huge Widget with gesture recognition, Widgets don't get that sort of gesture recognition.


The apps and gestures would be defined by the user, there'd be a set of pre-set gestures of "magical" symbols too. Unicursal symbols (symbols that can be drawn with one continuous line) would be cool. However, it'd be better to allow for other types of symbols as well. Most of these are not unicursal.

Betrayal at Krondor:
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv288/BAKLP/krondor_006-3.png

http://www.puzzles.com/puzzlesineducation/handsonpuzzles/UnicursalMarathon/UnicursalMarathonT.gif


For monetization, only a limited amount of apps could be remembered in the free version, and getting the paid app would remove any limitations on how many launchable the app can recognize. I'm thinking of the user getting 4 free symbols in the main app, 1 extra for using the app once per day for a week, 1 for watching a video ad or checking an ad-link or something like that. Perhaps the free version would also only have a limited library of custom symbols. Again, few free ones, and few extra ones unlocked by using the app or checking out a sponsored video or ad.

The free version couldn't have pop-ups because it'd break both the functionality and the fantasy of casting a spell. What do you think would be a reasonable cost for the full version? 0.99 local currency?