Recording

A recording component in Sketch’s glass demos made me want to explore a complete interaction. A button grows into a glass panel with a waveform, filename, and elapsed time, following the finger through the recording flow.

Folding the panel pauses a take; moving back toward the gesture’s origin resumes the same recording. In review, downward motion saves, while an upward or rightward flick discards. Short drags return to rest.

The initial AAC recording path did not support the paused-preview behavior I wanted. Later iterations use linear PCM in CAF files, keeping a paused recording readable while preserving resume. Audio setup and finalization run on a serial background queue so they do not block dragging.

Directional color cues preview save or discard. Release velocity affects momentum and rotation. I refined Save so the pill grows into the recordings list, rather than adding a separate confirmation screen.

The native prototype records actual microphone audio to local files. Backgrounding or an interruption stops capture, and it does not restart automatically. I would test whether people distinguish pause, save, and discard, and can recover from a mistaken gesture.