Make EVDEV a driver which is acutally useful

[Oldřich Jedlička]

On Monday 30 August 2010 21:14:24 Cedric Sodhi wrote:
> If you talk about a mouse it sounds like you are referring to 3-DOF-at-most
> input devices. Please be aware that in my case I want to map, say the 5th
> axis.

It doesn't matter which axis you want to map/translate or if you talk about 
mouse or any other input device (touchpad for example). I'm talking about the 
input event for event(s) translation done by a daemon (application running in 
a background). So it might be your 5th axis or anything else translated into 
any event (keyboard for example) that the application of your interrest can 
handle.

Oldřich.

> Unless by mouse you mean motion.
> 
> On 08/30/2010 09:10 PM, Oldřich Jedlička wrote:
> > On Monday 30 August 2010 10:14:10 ManDay wrote:
> >> I'm deperately trying to solve a real world problem that is. Many
> >> applications do not have such sophisticated methods to use input devices
> >> (in my case: GIMP). If X/evdev gave me the option to arbitrarily remapw
> >> anything to anything (or just axes->buttons, for that matter) it would
> >> solve this problem for all these programs alltogether. the problem i see
> >> with evdev is simply that its not gerenic enough. i said that evdev has
> >> no "proper" support for enhanced devices because most of its options can
> >> only be used for X and Y axes and nothing beyond.
> > 
> > Can this comment be translated to a request to have a daemon translating
> > mouse events to key events? For example translation of some mouse axe
> > movement to key press/release? Or any other translation for events that
> > the application cannot handle (depends on the application)?
> > 
> > Because as I understand it the X server provides just enough information
> > for the application to handle the event. If the application cannot
> > handle it, it doesn't look like an X server problem to me...
> > 
> > I'm not an X server developper, so I actually don't know if such daemon
> > can be easilly written (capture mouse events, detect the application
> > that should receive it and send translated key events to that
> > application).
> > 
> > Maybe this is a nonsense, but those are just my 2 cents.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Oldřich.
> > 
> >> --MD
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On 08/30/2010 01:13 AM, Peter Hutterer wrote:/
> >> 
> >>> On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 02:48:22PM +0200, ManDay wrote:
> >>>> Currently the EVDEV driver for axes-input-devices has just a few
> >>>> pathetic options which are at best suitable for a mouse. But since
> >>>> there are more input devices beyond mice and 2 axes joystick X
> >>>> appears to have no proper support for them, whatsoever.
> >>> 
> >>> what's your basis for the "appears to have no proper support" argument?
> >>> evdev takes whatever the kernel provides, labels axes accordingly and
> >>> forwards events. Please provide an actual use-case of what is broken
> >>> right now, I'm quite happy to get evdev fixed for that case.
> >>> 
> >>>> Since last time I contacted the list with that issue, where I was more
> >>>> concerned about getting a generic HID driver which can handle it all
> >>>> properly, people were little eager to get into that, I think I'll try
> >>>> with something easier which even I could try myself at.
> >>>> 
> >>>> The only aim I set myself so far is supporting an arbitrary amount of
> >>>> axes in analogy to evdevs XYAxisMapping.
> >>>> 
> >>>> That means, an arbitrary axis can emulate a button (or eky, for that
> >>>> matter) of one's choice. It shouldn't be too difficult, generalizing
> >>>> what evdev does for two axes already.
> >>> 
> >>> why do you need this? mapping axes to buttons comes at a cost
> >>> (maintaining that code) and there's a high chance that this option
> >>> should rather be supported in the clients than in the driver.
> >>> 
> >>>> I hope you guys can give me tips where to start or whatever you can
> >>>> think of. Should I enhance the evdev driver to become more generic and
> >>>> support an arbitrary amount of axes or would it be better to write
> >>>> something like xmodmap which cannot only remap key but can also map
> >>>> keys/buttons to motion events?
> >>>> 
> >>>> So I get a motion even, say a 6 tuple and translate it to an
> >>>> arbitrarily reformatted motion event plus additional keystrokes.
> >>>> 
> >>>> if such a tool already exists it would be great, if not i think it
> >>>> will be extremely useful and can do almost anything you want, not to
> >>>> mention will deprecate the pathetic evdev and xmodmap.
> >>> 
> >>> again, _why_ do you want to do this? the wording chosen make it appear
> >>> like you're doing it out of academic interest, not to solve a
> >>> real-world problem. I care much more about the latter than the former.
> >>> 
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> 
> >>>    Peter
> >>> 
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> >> 
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