[RFC] libinputmapper: Input device configuration for graphic-servers

[Rick Yorgason]

On 2013-05-20 23:56, Peter Hutterer wrote:
> what I am wondering is whether that difference matters to the outside
> observer (i.e. the compositor). a gamepad and a joystick are both gaming
> devices and with the exception of the odd need to control the pointer it
> doesn't matter much which type they are.
>
> as for a game that would access the device - does it matter if the device is
> labelled gamepad or joystick? if it's a gaming device you have to look at
> the pysical properties anyway and decide which you use in what matter.

That would seem to unnecessarily complicate things. Let's say you want 
to do something simple, like display a list of the devices plugged into 
the computer, with a graphic showing the device type.

If you don't have separate gamepad and joystick types, you would need to 
use some heuristic to decide whether to show the gamepad or joystick 
graphic. Really, the device driver should be able to tell us what kind 
of device it considers itself.

Granted, we can't do that right now, because the kernel doesn't expose 
device types, which is something that should probably be resolved 
regardless of what happens with libinputmapper.

In the meantime, we can put the heuristic in libinputmapper, and if the 
kernel ever grows the ability to expose device types, we can remove the 
heuristic all together (or maybe demote it to a backup strategy).

-Rick-