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SubjectRe: RFC: A generic pointer protocol

Keith Rohrer wrote:
>
> Alexandre Maret wrote:
> >
> > The config :
> > name,min value,max value
> >
> > {
> > {"x",0,6000},
> > {"y",0,4000},
> > {"pressure",0,15}
> > }
> >
> > When the application (which has to be enhanced a bit) start
> > up, it just look if there is a "pressure" field in the config.
> > If yes, then the *application* will know that the 3rd field is
> > the pressure field, and the the value can be between 0 and 15.

> The application needs to know which parts of the controller map to which
> field anyway, right? So the protocol should define a standard for what
> goes where; certain physical inputs may be represented in multiple
> fields. Presumably for device-independence at the application level,
> all ranged inputs would be scaled to the same thing.
>
> So, for example, if all the inputs were 32-bit unsigned integers (big,
> but not too nasty for alphas), you'd have button-down be -1 (i.e.
> 0xffffffff) and button-up be 0. Then apps checking for clicks could
> just test for zero, while things which wanted pressure/velocity could
> test the actual value.

okay for the 32-bit everywhere... but we still need to know the
actual range used by the device. 0 is no pressure, 15 is 100% pressure.
The application need to know the range, unless the driver returns
something like 0x0fffffff for 50% pressure.

But I think that we must *NOT* standardize which axis goes where,
because it would limit us to what is standardized. If you says
X is field 1, Y is 2, Z is 3, pressure is 4... what will you do
when there will be a 4th axis, like rotation ? You just can't
forecast all the needed axis. Don't you agree ?

> You know, this is all starting to sound like a cross between a mouse
> protocol and MIDI...

I don't know MIDI... but you make me think about something
somewhat fun... test the power of unix (and the sound of
linux) : cat /vmlinuz > /dev/midi ...

each kernel is a piece of art ;-)

alex

--
\\-----------------------------------------------------------\\
// Alexandre Maret -- Linux : The choice of a GNU generation //
\\ amaret@infomaniak.ch -- http://www.infomaniak.ch/~amaret \\
//-----------------------------------------------------------//

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