Background of Touch4 Software

This page discusses the general principles behind Touch4 Software, where it started and the journey we’ve taken to get here. Obviously we can’t give too much away (trade secrets!) but the software speaks for itself so we’ll keep it simple.

History of Touch4 Software

The idea goes back to 2001 when some of the earliest URLs were set aside for our touch screen projects. At that time we were part of the founders' original company JPi (www.jpi.co.uk) and worked within that framework for a few years building up the ideas.

We’d been creating touch screen software since 2001, our first one was a 20 store, 50 screen content delivery system from back office to multiple screen shop. We learned a lot from these applications and bit by bit the best methodology, not just for the framework but also for the consumer i.e. how were they going to use it, where would they read, how to hold their attention, what navigation would they use, what was the general attention span and so on.

Why We Created Touch4 Software

So, Touch4 – the software - was built because we were frustrated at having to use and rewrite similar routines time and again and thought it would be easier to build it into a generic format and put our content inside. Unlike many developers where one makes something and then thinks ‘what a cracking idea, let’s make a product out of that’ from a product they create for a customer – we put the money behind it and started from scratch.

Decisions Decisions

The first question was about the engine we’d use – should it be VB, should it be .Net, perhaps Java and so on. We decided in the end to use as near Pure C as we could - the basic idea was to keep away from the Windows registry to make it easy to install and replace. Also when making processor calls to perform tasks then to either perform these within our own engine or go directly into the core of Windows, basically defend ourselves against dependencies. We believe we achieved this as much as anyone can when building a system that sits on Windows - today that gives the software the control over the content that’s required to make it robust and the least invasive to Windows as a whole.

We laid down the plans in 2003 for the consolidated version of our product ideas, started coding in 2004 and 2 years later Version 1 was born.

We built the design of the administration interface to be open and friendly i.e. non threatening to lay computer users (it’s not a typical Windows menu based look/feel) and we made it as intuitive as we could for the first version as we felt we needed to get the product out into the market place as we’d been holding onto it for too long – as all software developers tend to do! Later versions will inherit wizard interfaces.

Simple Concepts

So, the principle of the basic software is very simple – you drive your content from one place to as many kiosks / screens as you wish, Touch4 becomes the vehicle or the framework but we have made it do a little more than we first started out as it now also drives content of its own from the Admin software – see features.