Project 2016 for Beginners Part 5: Overview of Touch Mode Principles Video Lecture | MS Project: Become an Expert - Management

Hello again and welcome back to our course
on Project 2016.
In this section I’m going to look at using
Project 2016 using a touch screen device in
a little bit more detail.
If you don’t use a touch device and have
no desire or need to use a touch device you
can pretty much ignore this section, skip
straight on to the next one.
Now Touch Mode in Project 2016 is an interesting
thing in a way because it is supported and
you can do a lot of things using a touch device
in Project 2016.
But my feeling is that some things don’t
really lend themselves very well to the use
of touch.
But that is to some extent a personal opinion
and if you’re using a touch device with
Project 2016 you may find that you can do
pretty much everything you need to do using
touch.
Now the first thing I need to say is that
with Microsoft products and particularly Microsoft
Office related products nowadays there do
tend to be two or more versions of various
products.
And when I’m looking at the use of touch
here and in particular in relation to Project
I’m talking about touch as it’s used on
a desktop product.
And Microsoft themselves still say that their
desktop products are intended for use and
are optimized for use with mouse and keyboard.
So they’re recommended way of using Project
2016 is still mouse and keyboard.
Having said that, as I say, if you want to
use a touch device or need to use a touch
device that’s really what I’m going to
do in this section.
I’m going to give you a pretty quick overview
of the key points you need to be aware of.
Now before I demonstrate a bit of use of touch
let me refer you to a document.
Now as usual this may change between the time
that I record this and the time that you work
your way through it.
But if you go to the Office.com site there
is a particular page there that explains how
to turn Touch Mode on or off.
Now I’ve already shown you how to do that.
I’m not going to go through it again.
But towards the bottom of that page there
is a section, More Touch Tips, that gives
a link to the Office Touch Guide.
And if you go to the Office Touch Guide it
actually refers to Windows 8 here and of course
I’m running here on Windows 10.
And this Office Touch Guide really relates
to Office 2013, not 2016.
But pretty much what is here is still totally
relevant to what we’re doing in Project
2016.
So it explains tap and pinch and stretch and
slide.
Now you may be very familiar with all of these
things and you may be familiar with them in
relation to Office products.
But if you’ve got any doubts or uncertainties
I suggest you have a look through those because
it will tell you a lot about general aspects
of using touch with a Microsoft Office desktop
product.
Now there are specifics there in relation
to Excel and PowerPoint but just stop if you
like at the end of the general points, working
with shapes and objects, and I think you may
find this document a pretty useful introduction
to the use of touch that you can extend into
your use of it with Project 2016.
So let me do a little bit of work on a project
using touch.
I’ve started that project.
I’m just going to use my fingertips from
now on.
I already have the Touch/Mouse Mode button
visible on the Quick Access Toolbar.
So I’m going to tap on the dropdown and
I’m going to choose Touch Mode.
Now as you saw earlier when I go into Touch
Mode everything is spaced out more.
It certainly makes it easier to use with my
fingers.
And also as I mentioned earlier depending
on which tab on the Ribbon you’re using
you may find that you get a few less commands
shown.
And this will of course depend on the size
and resolution of your screen, etcetera.
Now when it comes to adding details of a task,
in theory all I have to do, for instance,
is to tap here in the Task Name field and
depending on how my system is setup I may
automatically get an onscreen keyboard or
I may need to invoke a keyboard myself.
Now in this case I’m going to invoke the
keyboard by tapping on the keyboard down here
on my Task Bar towards the bottom right, up
comes my keyboard.
Now I’m going to start to type.
When I’ve finished if I press the Enter
key it’ll take me down to the next task.
So far so good.
Let me put in a second task.
Now whatever point I finish using the keyboard
of course I can close it again.
Let me go back to one of those tasks, tap
it to select it.
Note how in the case of using touch the selection
marker has those two little circles on the
corners.
This enables me to extend the selection.
For instance in this case I’m going to select
the bottom right hand handle there and drag
it down so that I’ve got both of those tasks
or their task names anyway, selected.
So I’ve now extended that selection to those
two tasks.
Now let’s suppose that I want to do one
of the things that I did earlier on.
I want to make those two bold.
All I need to do is to tap on the Bold command
in the Font Group on the Task Tab on the Ribbon.
Now those names are bold.
If I want to do something a little bit more
sophisticated shall we say, what I showed
you earlier on when we were using mouse and
keyboard was how to a right click to get a
contextual menu.
Well in the case of touch that’s a case
of tap and hold.
So you tap and then when you get the rectangle
around the point where you’ve tapped you
release in order to see the contextual menu.
Now in this case you may say well what contextual
menu?
All I can see is a mini toolbar.
In fact it’s almost a maxi toolbar really.
It’s a lot bigger than the mini toolbars
that we saw before.
Now in fact it is a mini toolbar.
It’s one that’s optimized for touch.
And the contextual menu actually hangs off
the right hand end of that mini toolbar.
So if I tap on the little arrow at the right
hand end there is my contextual menu.
So there I’ve covered the basics of using
touch.
Clearly a lot of the other aspects of using
touch will come as you learn more and more
about Project 2016.
And I will point out key aspects of using
touch where they’re appropriate or significantly
different from the way that you would do things
using mouse and keyboard.
But the points that I’ve demonstrated here
already are going to be some of the key points
that you need to be aware of if you’re using
a touch device.
Let me just demonstrate one other thing.
Again as a sort of general example.
Let me just tap somewhere else to remove the
contextual menu and the mini toolbar that
we had there.
You saw a couple of sections ago how to use
these Zoom Slider.
Well if you’re using touch you can also
do things like zooming the time scale with
your fingers using pinch and stretch.
So let me do a bit of pinch and stretch on
the right there.
So I’m not using the zoom slider.
But interestingly note that as I do that with
my fingers the zoom slider moves in response
as well.
So these tools all integrate with each other.
And in many I think a good way to think of
using touch with Project 2016 is that it’s
an additional way of doing things rather than
necessarily an alternative way.
And if you’re using a touch device and you
become comfortable with it it can be quite
convenient in some situations.
On the other hand if I wanted to enter a duration
for Task 1 I have quite a bit of trouble with
my fingers actually using those tiny little
roller controls on the right there.
You may have smaller fingers than me or a
bigger screen.
With a bit of practice I can just about do
it.
But I do prefer to just click on those rollers
with the mouse.
That’s it for this section.
I’ll see you in
the next one.