How can I make a Button more responsive?

Question

I have noticed that some Buttons don\'t seem as responsive as they could be. This applies equally to my app and to most other apps I\'ve tried.

When I press a Button

Answer 1

I have dug into the Android source code to see what was going on.

It turns out that the android.view.View class (from which Button derives) enters a "PREPRESSED" state before going into the PRESSED state:

android.view.View:

1529    /**
1530      * Indicates a prepressed state;
1531      * the short time between ACTION_DOWN and recognizing
1532      * a 'real' press. Prepressed is used to recognize quick taps
1533      * even when they are shorter than ViewConfiguration.getTapTimeout().
1534      * 
1535      * @hide
1536      */
1537     private static final int PREPRESSED             = 0x02000000;

android.view.ViewConfiguration.getTapTimeout() is 115 ms on my Nexus One, which is a lot longer than my estimation.

android.view.ViewConfiguration:

67     /**
68      * Defines the duration in milliseconds we will wait to see if a touch event 
69      * is a tap or a scroll. If the user does not move within this interval, it is
70      * considered to be a tap. 
71      */
72     private static final int TAP_TIMEOUT = 115;

Anyway, from examining View.onTouchEvent is doesn't look like there's a way to avoid this PREPRESSED state by any standard option. Which is a real shame.

The good news is that I have now verified that the way to avoid this lag is to subclass and override onTouchEvent.

Thanks for the discussion and answers.