Re: evdev types

[Brad H. <bh...@bi...>]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2002 22:14, Vojtech Pavlik wrote:
<snip>
> God bless you for that. It is really needed. And I never can get me to
> write docs. :(
We each do what we are good at. You just keep coding...

> > I am doing hiddev and evdev in detail, since I think these are basically
> > undocumented. I've just done a couple of ioctl examples for each so far.
> > I am doing joystick by direct reference to the kernel docs - I may copy
> > the kernel files into the documentation (and docbook them) at a later
> > stage and add some examples, but the initial work work will be on evdev
> > and hiddev, and there is plenty there.
>
> That's exactly what's needed - actually joydev (and its api) is
> obsoleted by evdev.
I actually wrote the joystick bit first. I put the whole joystick section on 
the end of this email. It is more markup than content :)

> > What is missing is keyboard and mouse. I'd be willing to leave out
> > keyboard (because the stdin/scanf/getc semantic is probably enough.
>
> There isn't any keyboard API other than evdev and the console.
I was thinking about how to get the different modes (scancodes, keycodes, etc) 
for those apps that care about such stuff.

> > What I don't have
> > is mouse coverage. Does anyone have a good pointer to programming with
> > the PS2 variations? I was thinking about just pointing to libgpm, but
> > that doesn't really explain what comes out of /dev/input/mouse[0..30]
> > when you read.
>
>  /dev/input/mouse[0..30] simulates (quite exactly, both directions) the
> protocol of Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer. But no new applications
> should use it, evdev is more powerful and easier to write for.
>
> I hope both mousedev and joydev will not be needed by 2.6 (2.8) or so.
Until it is removed, we need to document it :/
I'd like to have about the same amount of detail for mouse and keyboard 
programming as the following joystick section. And in the same way - which 
modules matter, what the device nodes do (for mouse/mice), and a pointer to 
some more data.

I certainly don't want to maintain documentation on weird, legacy interfaces 
:)

Brad


- - Joystick section follows.
<Sect1><title>The joystick interface</title>

<para>
The joystick interface is provided by the
<filename>joydev.o</filename> module, and the outputs appear on the
<filename>/dev/input/js0</filename>,
<filename>/dev/input/js1</filename> (and so on) device nodes.
</para>

<para>
More information on programming with the joystick interface is
provided in the kernel distribution (see the file
<filename>Documentation/input/joystick-api.txt</filename> in a current
kernel).
</para>

<Sect2><title>Force Feedback</title>
<para>
Information on programming force feedback effects for joysticks is
provided in the kernel distribution (see the file
<filename>Documentation/input/ff.txt</filename> in a current
kernel).
</para>
</Sect2>

</Sect1>