Swipes are a typical feature in Android applications. Users can swipe down to open the apps list, swipe up to return to the home screen, swipe left and right to access a quick menu and swipe up or down to show or hide the app tray. In addition, swipes are also used to navigate through a file list. Users can swipe to move from one file to another or they can use an arrow to switch between files. Although swipe gestures are essential to Android, they are still possible to implement in non-Android-based applications. It's important to note that custom swipe actions will have less stability than those that come with Android.
While Android does not provide a widget for swiping, developers can still create additional widgets that can be used to give users easy access to their preferred swipe gestures. For example, the AutoComplete Widget (which is included with the Google Keyboard app) can be customized to handle a list of items or words. Simply tap on the widget, and a list of popular swipe gestures can be displayed. Other widgets such as the Task Switcher Widget allow users to switch between different task lists. This widget has the same swipe features as the list widget, but it provides shortcuts to similar tasks. Lastly, there is the Media Widget, which allows users to switch from album to album or even flip through the various media items in the system. Again, Android can't provide such a widget, but applications can still provide them if they want to.
Both swipe gestures and freeform swipes should be implemented in any Android application. The main difference between the two is that with a gesture, the user can change the order of certain tasks while in freeform swipes, the user can do anything. However, users can still customize their own gestures to incorporate a preferred order. Customization is highly recommended because gestures can be easily changed to perform a specific action.
