MPX merge coming up

[Peter Hutterer]

On Fri, May 09, 2008 at 09:46:53AM +0100, Colin Guthrie wrote:
> Your above comment immediately makes me think of laptops with 
> mouse+trackpad. These would presumably count as multiple input devices, 

they do count as multiple input devices. except that we differ between
physical input devices (mouse + trackpad) and virtual input devices. The
latter are cursors and keyboard foci but NOT physical devices.

you attach physical devices to virtual devices as you want. 
see http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/mpx/?q=node/106

> so I wonder how the behaviour is selected. Do you have to explicitly 
> configure them as independent pointers or can you configure them (as 
> happens now) to control a single pointer. What is the default? 

the default is to have one cursor, one keyboard focus. all devices feed into
these two, just like the current server does. 
unless you create a second cursor+focus. but even then you also have to
specify that you want e.g. the trackpad to be attached to the second cursor.

> I'd suggest the default should be the status quo (e.g. you have one pointer
> unless you specifically ask for more) so as not to confuse a lot of 
> laptop users out there.

as I said, you must not notice a difference if you're running mpx (unless you 
explicitly create a second cursor + focus). that's one of the main goals and
if something breaks in a standard setup, this is considered a bug.

Cheers,
  Peter