Wayland Relative Pointer API Progress

[x414e54]

On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:45 AM, Michal Suchanek <hramrach at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 18 April 2015 at 16:58, x414e54 <x414e54 at linux.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> then actually mice are absolute not relative. They have two axis that
>>> measure absolute ball rotation speed in two directions just like
>>> joystick has two axis that measure absolute stick excentricity.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Michal
>>
>> This is not really constructive to the api but:
>>
>> Mice are not absolute because they are just measuring movement of a
>> surface relative to itself, when you are not moving the mouse there is
>> no axis value.
>
> There is: the value is 0. Which is the same as with properly
> calibrated joystick - when you release it it returns to the position
> where reading of both axis is 0.
>
> And that is the interface expected when using a grabbed mouse with
> hidden cursor most of the time.
>
> There is even parallel for removing springs from a joystick in the
> mouse world - there were Russian trackballs with really big metal ball
> which would keep spinning due to its momentum until stopped.
>
> You could take the ball out and turn it over and put it
>> back in the absolute position of the ball has changed but the mouse
>> axis has not. For some ball mice the rollers measure the movement of a
>
> That's because it measures speed of the ball not its position. When
> you roll the ball outside of the mouse it cannot measure it.
>
>> wheel with small holes inside it, when it moves it breaks the
>> connection the chip registers this and uses it to calculate the delta
>> for that axis. Optical mice are just taking small images of the
>> surface and using that information to calculate a distance moved,
>> again relative motion.
>
> However, the reported value is absolute speed of the mouse as measured
> against the surface. There is no more relativity than with measurement
> of excentricity of a stick relative to a central position.
>
>>
>> A joystick does not necessarily have 2 axis and in most cases yes they
>> are reporting an absolute position of the axis in the driver but it
>> does not necessarily mean that the the hardware is absolute. For
>> example if a joystick is using the same slotted optical system as the
>> ball mice then this would be measuring relative motion and using it to
>> calculate the absolute axis value, under some circumstances the
>> position could become out of sync until re-calibrated by moving to the
>> joystick to the maximum and minimum values for all axes or having it
>> automatically re-center.
>>
>>
>> USB HID specifications define a pointer and a mouse as two completely
>> different inputs. A mouse can be a used as a pointer because it is
>> pushing the cursor around but the pointer points at a specific
>> location.
>
> And there is no practical way to point with a mouse to a specific
> location. Nor is there for most joysticks because they are not precise
> enough but you technically could map the stick excentricity to screen
> coordinates. Similarly a small touchpad has no practical mapping of
> touch coordinates to screen coordinates but for a big graphics tablet
> or touchscreen surface this can be done.
>
> The device is never relative, only interpretation of the obtained data is.
>
> Thanks
>
> Michal

Rather than waste time on this I will just direct you over the the
universal teacher Google.

"relative device" is probably the best search term.