[Soc-2010-dev] status report (fancy input devices)

[Mike Erwin]

last week --

With all the midterm excitement, I neglected to write a full report. Here's
the most important thing:

Hi-fi mouse and pen input now works on Windows! To review, it already works
on the Mac. I was told on IRC that Mr. Bishop had already implemented the
Linux solution a year ago, so this enhancement is now available to everyone.
If you want jagged lines, you'll now have to draw them yourself.

this week --

Rewrote and re-purposed the NDOF manager. Before, it handled plugin startup
and shutdown, and set up shared data between itself and the plugin. Now that
plugins are kaput, it keeps the raw axis data to itself until asked for a
Motion event. This is now the central "expert" for NDOF data and devices. It
constructs all Motion and Button events from raw device data.

SpaceNav input captured on Mac OS, without a plugin.

SpaceNav input captured on Windows, with no need for a plugin or even a
driver.

For each of the above, "captured" does not mean "looks cool on screen".
Events come in, they're converted, logged (so we know it's working), and
dispatched to the window manager. No operators are registered for NDOF
events yet.

Hammered out revised data types and formats for NDOF Motion and Button
events, as well as data from the tablet pen.

Ordered a much nicer tablet. Thanks for the payment, Google!

next week --

Climb out of GHOST for a while and teach a user-level operator how to use
incoming SpaceNav events. This will also teach *me* how to hook higher-level
code into the mess I've created below. Look through the existing (but
disabled) 3D view navigation code for hints. Once over this hurdle, I'll be
able to write a "how to" for others to use SpaceNavigator for their own
tools.

Mentor Ebb was not keen on a separate event type for Pen input, so I'll
focus instead on making sure Cursor events (from pen or mouse) get pressure
and such attached and delivered properly.

Begin poking around with the Intuos4's controls and LED screens, now that
I'll have my hands on one.

Bang around on the Linux code. I haven't done a test build in a while, and
it needs some attention regarding SpaceNav.

Mike Erwin
musician, naturalist, pixel pusher, hacker extraordinaire
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