HAL FDI matched Buttons

[Matthias Grimm]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 17:40:28 +0000
Richard Hughes <hughsient at gmail.com> wrote:

 
> * Perhaps use a uinput kernel side input device for maximum
>   compatibility.

This one is the best. All you need is to assign a keycode to not
supported keys. Desktop applications would do the rest.

Actually I wanted to tell you now that there are a lot of applications
already out there to do this, but to my surprise, they aren't. I looked
for a program that is able to start arbitrary programs on key trigger,
but I found only a single project. I thought that
desktop-preferences/keyboard-hotkeys (or similar, I use a german
desktop) would do the job, but it only allows to change the default key
mapping of certain desktop events. I haven't checked KDE for their
capabilities here. My investigation wasn't very deep so I may have
overlooked something. If not tis would be the idea for a new project,
maybe :-)

> For instance, one fdi file could map the alt-f4 key to the scancode for
> HELP, so that the image on the button matches the action. This would
> only be done for the system.vendor = VENDOR.

But by no means I would enforce the burden of key mapping on HAL. This
will conflict with too many other mechanisms like X11, kernel key
mapping, and whatelse more and would only be another never ending
construction site.

You already did a step in the right direction as you started to
implement a virtual keyboard device for HAL with uinput. Why don't go
this way further? This would also match my visions of future power
management (see also http://pbbuttons.berlios.de/wiki/index.php).

 Best Regards
   Matthias