Abstract: The invention is directed to a method of operating an electronic device having a touchscreen. The device and touchscreen are configured to sense one or more physical gestures made by a user impacting the touchscreen. The gestures are sensed without regard to the location of the gesture input or orientation of the touchscreen. A signal converter converts the impacting physical gesture or combination of gestures into an input signal. If the device recognizes the input signal, the device initiates a function or executes and operation. The user may define a particular gesture combination as well as link gesture combinations with specific functions or operations to execute when the gesture combination is recognized by the device.