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Date:      Wed, 16 Apr 1997 15:07:20 +1000
From:      David Dawes <dawes@rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au>
To:        "Louis A. Mamakos" <louie@TransSys.COM>
Cc:        Kazutaka YOKOTA <yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp>, freebsd-current@freefall.freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: moused enhancement (was: Re: make world)
Message-ID:  <19970416150720.17257@rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au>
In-Reply-To: <199704100333.XAA21958@whizzo.transsys.com>; from Louis A. Mamakos on Wed, Apr 09, 1997 at 11:33:57PM -0400
References:  <Pine.OSF.3.95q.970407165836.15555A-100000@protocol.eng.umd.edu> <19970409032758.35315@usn.blaze.net.au> <199704091659.MAA19396@whizzo.transsys.com> <199704100236.LAA07337@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp> <199704100333.XAA21958@whizzo.transsys.com>

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On Wed, Apr 09, 1997 at 11:33:57PM -0400, Louis A. Mamakos wrote:
>
>> I looked at your patch (PR bin/3028) and understand that it adds ALPS
>> GlidePoint support. XFree86 also has GlidePoint support (since
>> 3.1.2F?).  As far as I can understand, your support code and XFree86's
>> are not functionally equivalent.
>
>Yes, this seems to be the case.  I had already made similar changes to
>this in the X server and moused seems to be the better approach - it
>didn't require that I have to figure out how to build X.  
>
>> Yours is for GlidePoint on the PS/2 mouse port and XFree86's code is
>> for GlidePoint attached to a serial port. Your code makes `moused'
>> pretend the left mouse button is pressed when the user `taps'
>> GlidePoint's surface, whereas XFree86 regards the `tap' action as the
>> fourth button press.
>
>I was hopeful when I heard about the glidepoint support in XFree86,
>but frankly, having the tap gesture appear as a fourth mouse button
>didn't solve a problem - it simply created another one.  Frankly,
>X already has way too many degrees of freedom and configurability as
>a substitute for user interface design, and this was another chrome
>plated knob.  

XFree86 isn't wedded to the idea of having the tap gesture work in this
way -- that's just how it was done by the person who contributed the
code to us.  I'm not familiar with the glidepoint devices.  What is
the 'tap' usually used for (say, on an OS like Win95)?  It would be
good if we can be consistent in the way we deal with this (at least
for the default behaviour), and we'd be happy to change the way XFree86
treats it (probably providing an XF86Config option to enable the old
behaviour).

We (XFree86) recently received some code to deal with a Microsoft
Intellimouse.  I haven't seen one of these, but it apparently has a
wheel as well as buttons.  In the code we received, wheel movements in
on direction are mapped to button 4 and movements in the other direction
are mapped to button 5 (the submitter apparently uses an emacs config
which maps these buttons so that moving the wheel can be using for things
like scrolling).  Does anyone have any suggestions on how we should deal
with a device like this?

David



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