HAL FDI matched Buttons

[Stefan Seyfried]

Matthias Grimm wrote:
> 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.

Well, there are also such things as ACPI hotkeys and the really nasty
stuff like Toshiba and the SonyPI interfaces.
Timo's iald already handles those, maybe he can comment on the
feasibility of hooking iald up as a HAL addon.

> 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

fvwm2 (the one and only all time favorite :-) has of course a keygrabber
built-in.
bbkeys for "normal" keys that have a scancode assigned,
khotkeys for KDE,
iald / initial combo for everything else.

I _think_ i have seen some "unknown hotkey pressed, would you like to
configure an action for it"-popup once i looked at Gnome some time ago,
so i think there is something in there also.

> 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 :-)

well, i would think it is not very urgent to re-invent _this_ wheel :-)

>> 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.

Well, some sort of "hardware vendor drops a .fdi-file somewhere and
magically all its models will have the correct keymap assigned
automagically" mechanism would definitely be useful. Lots of machines
still generate "unknow scancode foobar" for the extra keys unless
configured correctly. Those are easily configured, but if we can
automate it, why not. Also, maybe we could even map them to the
_correct_ keycodes, i have some machines / keyboards that all generate
the same scancodes, but for different keys. If we provide a mechanism
for vendors to provide a "driver" easily, they might actually do it.

Best regards,

   Stefan
-- 
"You sure you software suspend guys haven't been hanging out with the
 IDE maintainers?"                                     -- Rob Landley