From: John Weismiller <johnweis@home.com>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 03:02:47 +0000 (   )

Re: Independent Multihead

On Fri, 21 May 1999, Marcus Sundberg wrote:

> John Weismiller wrote:
> > 
> [snip]
> 
> To run XGGI (and most other apps) on fbdev or SVGAlib targets without
> problems you need at least LibGGI 2.0beta2.1.
>
I have upgraded the bios on the video card and upgraded libggi, and copied
the 1024x768-70 (max my monitor can handle) to the top, and everything
seems to be O.K.
 
> > What I think I would like to do is create in input driver for GII, and run
> > XGGI on the second matrox with the lk401 as the keyboard.
> > 
> [snip]
> 
> No, input-file is the last thing you should use as a start for such a
> driver.
> input-mouse is what I'd use as a first place to look. Basicly you just
> have
> to replace the parsing and event construction functions.
> Also input-linux-mouse is a good place to see how to set up serial
> parameters.
>

I have started to cut & paste from the linux-mouse, linux-keyboard, etc,
files.  

My first problem that I have run into is this:  When the lk401 is in
UPDOWN mode [I believe] that it does not send key repeat messages.
Therefore, I think there I would need an alarm of some sort.  I
presume that it would not be a good idea to use an alarm, seeming as then
the application would not use it.  Is there something in libgii to call a
function after a certain delay, or some type of alarm that I could
reliably call?  Or is there another way around the key repeat? (I guess
one could just ignore it...)
 
> I'd start by only filling in the "label" and "button" field of the key 
> vents, as those two fields are always the same for any given physical
> key.
> Then when you have that working you'll need add code to correctly encode
> the "modifiers" and "sym" fields.
> 
> Also, after a quick look at the URL you provided it seems that you need
> to puy all keys in LK_UPDOWN, as that seems to be the only way to get
> info about when a key is released.

Okay, I will try to put all keys into LK_UPDOWN after receiving 0x01 xx xx
xx.

> Actually I don't think anyone has even thought about a userspace-only
> independent multihead solution. I'm currently hacking on multihead
> support
> for the fbdev target, and now I've also tested some independent
> multihead.
>

Wuhoo! I thought of something! I thought of something! I thought!  

Hmm. Wait. That can't be right. I can't think. <G>
 
> Unfortunately there seems to be more or less impossible to get
> neither of them working in a reliable way. fbcon is simply way
> to broken, and it's not even broken in a consistent way...
> I'll keep on hacking though, and at least it will be possible to
> use one fbcon visual and one SVGAlib visual, with both independent
> and normal multihead.
> 
> But for really working multihead it seems like we'll have to wait
> for KGI 0.9.
>

Question: How long will that be?  What is the current status of KGI?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Weismiller, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
email: johnweis@home.com, ICQ 12833806.
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