[ANNOUNCE] xf86-input-evdev 2.2.99.1

[Peter Hutterer]

Removing xorg-announce from CC, if you want to follow this thread but you're
not subscribed to xorg@, here's the original message:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2009-August/046885.html

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 06:09:56AM +0300, Maxim Levitsky wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-08-14 at 12:20 +1000, Peter Hutterer wrote:
> > This is a snapshot of the current evdev development tree.
> > 
> > The driver is stable for everyday use but will see further changes before
> > settling down into 2.3. This snapshot intends to encourage wider testing.
> > 
> > Most notable changes to the current stable evdev 2.2:
> > - The driver now honours EV_SYN. This avoids button events to be sent before
> >   the associated motion events.
> > - Slightly improved tablet support. Wacom and waltop tablets now post all
> >   axes. Needs more work though.
> > - More verbose log output for easier bug triaging.
> > - Support for button and/or scroll-wheel-only input devices (e.g. Griffin
> >   Powermate). Note that the server does not yet support them as
> >   well.
> > 
> > Supports X Servers 1.5, 1.6 and git.
> > 
> > Bugs can be reported at https://bugs.freedesktop.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=xorg
> > Component Input/evdev.
> 
> Folks, I have two outstanding questions about this driver.
> 
> First, I have seen that XI2 input is landed in master (and I enjoy two
> mouses now :-)
> 
> But, there were rumors that this will enable support for 32 bit
> keycodes, and it will be transparent, providing an updated Xlib is
> installed. 
> How far we are from that?

I doubt this will happen. Xlib itself is tightly paired with the core X
protocol which has 8 bit keycodes. Making this transparent looks simple
(Xlib itself uses ints) but would require numerous hooks within the library
to call out into new requests where possible.  The devil's in the detail
here.

> And what about joysticks, how they be handled in future, you plan?
> Currently evdev just grabs them, and uses them as a mouse, and this
> isn't funny, as this causes a sudden mouse movements due to noise from
> the joystick (and crashes...)

if it's a crash, please file a bug so it can be fixed. I don't have any
joystick devices.

if you want devices to not be handled by evdev, you need to exclude them
explicitly. See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Input_device_configuration
we also have the xf86-input-joystick driver which is actively maintained and
should be used for joystick devices.

> Do you have plans to port SDL to use joysticks via X, or the current
> status quo of /dev/js[0-9] will continue? In this case how about
> ignoring them in evdev, without all kind of hal hacks.

You may want to raise this question on the SDL list.
 
> Spleaking of hal, it is going to be depricated, so is Xorg ported to
> libguedev?

Not anytime soon. I looked at udev support and while my initial questions
were answered by the guys on devkit-devel, I do not yet have any code to
show. As so often, it comes down to a lack of time.

Any help here is appreciated.

Cheers,
  Peter