[RFC] libinput configuration interface

[Alexander E. Patrakov]

20.02.2014 12:21, I wrote:
> 20.02.2014 11:14, Peter Hutterer wrote:
>> On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 11:55:28AM +0600, Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:
>>>  From my experience with the Sony touchpad (Vaio Z23A4R laptop), I'd
>>> say that it doesn't solve the whole problem. Here is what goes wrong
>>> with the old synaptics driver by default and can be worked around
>>> with AreaBottomEdge.
>>>
>>>          Option "SoftButtonAreas" "4360 0 4000 0 2880 4359 3500 0"
>>>          Option "AreaBottomEdge" "3500"
>>>
>>> 1. I move the right-hand index finger on the touchpad, thus moving
>>> the pointer to the place where I want to click.
>>>
>>> 2. I place the left-hand index finger into the virtual-button area,
>>> while still keeping the right finger on the touchpad. I cannot
>>> remove the right-hand finger: if I do that, while the contact area
>>> shrinks, its center also moves, and the driver picks that up.
>>>
>>> 3. As I increase the pressure on the left-hand finger until the
>>> touchpad clicks, the contact area increases. Unfortunately, its
>>> center moves, too, and this can accumulate to ~2-3 pixels until it
>>> clicks.
>>>
>>> The important point is that the bad thing happens before the
>>> hardware button click, so the quoted solution totally misses the
>>> point.
>>>
>>> So we need something, either a sledgehammer solution in the form of
>>> ignoring all motion in the virtual button area (but that would break
>>> Sony Vaio Duo 13 because the only usable height of the virtual
>>> button area is 100% there), or some very good filter that pays

>> couple of comments here:
>> 2 is a synaptics bug that should really be fixed, the driver shouldn't be
>> that sensible - in fact there's probably something that can be done about
>> making the driver more sensible while the finger is moving and less
>> sensible
>> while the finger is still (just an idea, may not work for small
>> movements). there is also the option of using pressure to counteract
>> movements, i.e. a pressure change will increase the hysteresis to avoid
>> erroneous movements. If you have that many issues with the Sony, I really
>> recommend looking at the evdev-mt-touchpad patches I sent to this list,
>> it'll allow for things like that relatively simple.
>
> OK, I will build this on my laptop from git later today.

Just did this, but have not looked at the code yet. Tested with 
xf86-input-libinput, thus had no chance to configure anything specific 
to libinput. If this has any chance of yielding different results, I 
will retest with Weston on Saturday.

Software versions:

  * mtdev 1.1.4 (Gentoo)
  * xorg-server 1.15.0 (Gentoo)
  * libevdev from git, cf70d0
  * libinput from git, 128f98 + your 19 patches
  * xf86-input-libinput from git, 761603

Hardware: Sony VAIO Z23A4R, the touchpad identifies itself as follows:

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0007 Version=01b1
N: Name="SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input4
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse0 event3
B: PROP=5
B: EV=b
B: KEY=e520 10000 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=660800011000003

Pointer movement works, but it is too slow by default on this laptop. 
That is, a VERY quick swipe (not expected during normal work and even 
during games) from left to right is just enough to move the pointer 
across the entire screen (1920x1080). Setting constant deceleration to 
0.3 or 0.4 makes it more usable in terms of speed, but this might be my 
personal preference, and I am not sure if the constant deceleration is 
the correct knob here.

With the default constant deceleration (1.0), pointer movement is very 
precise. It follows the finger equally well in all parts of the touchpad 
and in all directions, as expected. I get no misplaced clicks.

With constant deceleration 0.3, this is not true. It works better in the 
central part of the touchpad, but, when crossing the physical border 
between the area for pointer movement (which is rough) and the area for 
virtual buttons (which is smooth), it starts to behave like a dirty 
mechanical mouse. Here is what I mean by that: hard to move the cursor 
diagonally (i.e. there is a strong preference towards horizontal or 
vertical movements), and the motion is uneven if I move the finger 
slowly. The same applies to the top part of the touchpad, although there 
is no sharp line where this appears.

In both cases, there is no spurious pointer movement when putting the 
finger on the touchpad or removing it. I.e., points 2 and 3 are somehow 
already dealt with.

Vertical two-finger scrolling works, but is way too sensitive both with 
constant deceleration 1.0 and with 0.3.

Clicking works. If there are two fingers on the touchpad at the time of 
clicking, it registers a right-click. As the touchpad cannot track more 
than two touches, three-finger gestures don't work. OTOH, I have read 
Documentation/input/multi-touch-protocol.txt: "Some devices identify 
and/or track more contacts than they can report to the driver." I have 
not yet tested whether this applies to my touchpad, and whether it uses 
BTN_TOOL_TRIPLETAP.

Tapping and tap-and-drag are not usable. They require not tapping, but 
knocking with force. So this points to the driver being "miscalibrated" 
on the pressure axis. Can this also be the reason of the low x/y 
sensitivity and "dirty mouse" feeling?

Can I provide any objective data that would allow better sensitivity 
calibration by default on this device?

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov