SimController - Touch and gesture not working

Question

I'm running the "demo_mobile" Starling 1.2 sample in the trial version of flash CS6 on Windows 7.
When I crtl-enter to run it in the IDE, or go via Debug > Debug Movie > in Air Debug Launcher, I see the SimController appear.
I navigate to the Touch and gesture panel and tick the box to activate the semi-transparent touch layer over my running swf.
I see the little 'glow' icon to show where my touch should occur, but my clicks/touches are never registered.
I've tried this with Air 3.2, Air3.4, Air 3.4.0.2540 and Air 3.5.0.690 with the same negative results.
Am I missing something simple here?
cheers,
Alex

Answer 1

Are you saying you desire TouchEvent to work on desktop or you simply tried it as a desktop app to see if it would work?
TouchEvent works for me perfectly fine in both AIR for Mobile and AIR for Desktop. Here's simple sample code for a AS for Mobile project:
Main.as:
package
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.events.Event;
    import flash.geom.Rectangle;
    import starling.core.Starling;
    [SWF(frameRate=60,width=768,height=1024)]
    public class Main extends Sprite
        private var _starling:Starling;
        public function Main()
            addEventListener(Event.ACTIVATE, _onActivate);
            Starling.multitouchEnabled = true;
        protected function _onActivate(event:Event):void
            removeEventListener(Event.ACTIVATE, _onActivate);
            // start starling, iPad portrait
            _starling = new Starling(TouchDemo, this.stage, new Rectangle(0,0,768,1024));
            _starling.start();
TouchDemo.as:
package
    import starling.display.Quad;
    import starling.display.Sprite;
    import starling.events.Event;
    import starling.events.Touch;
    import starling.events.TouchEvent;
    import starling.events.TouchPhase;
    public class TouchDemo extends Sprite
        private var _q:Quad;
        public function TouchDemo()
            super();
            addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, _onAdded);
        private function _onAdded(e:Event):void
            removeEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, _onAdded);
            // make a quad
            _q = new Quad(150,50,0xFF0000);
            addChild(_q);
            // listen for touch
            _q.addEventListener(TouchEvent.TOUCH, _onTouch);
        private function _onTouch(e:TouchEvent):void
            // get all touches
            const touches:Vector.<Touch> = e.getTouches(_q);
            // phase ending (finger release)?
            for each (var touch:Touch in touches)
                if (touch.phase == TouchPhase.ENDED)
                    trace("Touch ended on quad!");
Obviously your XML needs renderMode set to "direct". That's just testing on an iPad resolution in portrait (for no specific reason).
I converted that to an Actionscript Project (AIR desktop) and the only thing I changed in Main.as was waiting for Event.ENTER_FRAME instead of Event.ACTIVATE. Both trace "Touch has ended on quad!" as soon as I let my mouse up. This is tested in the AIR for iOS and AIR for Desktop simulator.
There's no problem with TouchEvent working. You'll have to dig deeper in your controls code and see if any event propagation is being stopped. There's really no othe reason you wouldn't receive a TouchEvent if you registered it on your object properly.