[Wayland-bugs] [Bug 104087] SMART Board Pen not supported

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=104087

Benjamin Tissoires <benjamin.tissoires at gmail.com> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
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             Status|NEEDINFO                    |NEW

--- Comment #18 from Benjamin Tissoires <benjamin.tissoires at gmail.com> ---
Apologies for the delay. I didn't realize you expected me to shoot first.

So after a little bit of analysis and some google findings (Thomas, some will
be obvious to you, but we need it documented in the bug report):
- the device is a 'whiteboard'[1] as in it's a multitouch screen where you have
also physical markers (red/black) that are detected by the system (I don't
think the markers are actually leaving a trail, it's the system that needs to
draw the lines).
- on Windows, there is a need for installing a tool to handle this (never a
good sign for Linux)
- the HID recordings show several things:
  * first, there is a multi-pen collection (not used according to the logs). It
is as if the whiteboard could be switch into multitouch mode for pen (with only
one report to forward all the pens) -> this is not handled by Linux for now,
and this is the `Pen` node you see
  * then there is a classic multitouch collection for fingers (the second node,
without any suffix)
  * then we have 4 individual Pen collections (named UNKNOWN because contrary
to the others, there is no physical description attached to them, even though
the application is 'Pen')
  * 2 collections are hidden because they are not populated: 
    . one regarding the 'Armature' bit which seems to be a placeholder for some
custom protocol (there is no mechanical arm on the beast, isn't there?)
    . one mouse emulation which is ignored as expected, given the multitouch
collection works.
- given that the 2 markers (logical Pens) do not have hovering, there is no
InRange HID bit exported, and so BTN_TOOL_PEN is never exported.
- the HID collections for the Pen export Inverted. It seems the pens have an
eraser function, so I think if you use the eraser side, this bit will be set
correctly
- the HID collections for the Pen export BarrelSwitch. I don't think your pens
have a fancy button on it, so I do not know why they say it supports an extra
button
- the product page of the 7000[2] version says it supports 4 pens, so I guess
both devices must share the same firmware.

So, this all comes down to the fact that it's the first device we see that
doesn't support hovering for a tablet-like tool.
We might be able to fix this in hid-core, but I am afraid this will create a
bunch of conditionals, especially given this particular device doesn't export
correctly the physical bit of the Pens collections.

A solution would be to have a separate driver to handle it in a local
environment, but given there is the multitouch collection in the middle, we
can't extract it from hid-multitouch for now.

Depending of the urgency of the issue (talking about a few months from now), we
can properly fix this in the kernel. I think you have a working solution (stick
to X with wacom or evdev for the pens). If the issue needs to be fixed on
Wayland soon, we should probably handle this in Wayland (there is no hovering,
so a button touch means in range).

One last thought. Peter, is it possible in wayland to use 2 pens at the same
time (I would say libinput/compositor should be fine, apps will not)? Because
with the current Xorg workaround, I am pretty sure Thomas will be able to use
only one pen at a time.


[1]
https://downloads.smarttech.com/media/sitecore/en/pdf/products/ifp/smart_6000_series_with_iq_appliance.pdf
[2]
https://downloads.smarttech.com/media/sitecore/en/pdf/products/ifp/ed-ifp7000-factsheet-en.pdf

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