[Sugar-devel] testers wanted: grab keys, and touchpad rotation

[Bert Freudenberg]

On 04.03.2009, at 23:24, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

>
> On 04.03.2009, at 22:25, Paul Fox wrote:
>
>> last week i announced a daemon that would activate the grab keys
>> on the XO keyboard.
>>
>> a day or two later there was a thread about how it would be nice
>> if the action of the touchpad rotated with the screen (in much the
>> same way that the dpad keys do).
>>
>> since my daemon was already looking at every input event, it seemed
>> a natural place to implement the rotation feature.
>>
>> and after doing that, the name seemed like it should change.
>>
>> so, announcing "olpc-kbdshim".
>>
>> source:
>>   http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=users/pgf/olpc-kbdshim
>>
>> rpm:
>>   http://dev.laptop.org/~pgf/rpms/olpc-kbdshim-1-1.i386.rpm
>>
>> after installing the rpm you need to fully reboot your laptop to
>> get the plumbing set up properly.
>>
>> the rpm includes a new command "olpc-rotate" which takes care of
>> all the mechanics of screen and touchpad rotation.  since sugar
>> (currently) handles this key binding, the rpm postinstall script
>> patches /usr/share/sugar/shell/view/keyhandler.py so that it
>> invokes os.system("olpc-rotate") _instead_ of its current builtin
>> behavior.  separating it out like this makes olpc-kbdshim and
>> olpc-rotate more useful for non-sugar UIs.  i wrote the sugar
>> patch so that it won't break if you uninstall the olpc-kbdshim
>> rpm -- sugar will take over the rotate function again.  also,
>> though i haven't tried it on today's brand-new sugar 0.84 (good
>> work everyone!), a look at the current keyhandler.py says the patch
>> should still apply correctly.
>>
>> the topic of ebook-mode touchpad usage came up the other day too.
>> while i didn't create any visible UI support for it, the daemon
>> will put the touchpad in and out of ebook-mode (which means,
>> reflecting it on both x and y axes) using "olpc-rotate -e/-n"
>>
>> please let me know what you think...
>>
>> paul
>>
>> p.s.  btw, the daemon isn't really very olpc-specific.  i've been
>> running it on my thinkpad all week.  it turns out the blue Fn
>> key in the corner can be used as a modifier, so that plus my
>> trackstick gives 2D scrolling -- it came in very handy for looking
>> at the bootchart images this morning.
>
>
>
> Just tried it on my XO at build 800 - works like a charm, both the
> scrolling and rotation. Yay!

Correction: this one still runs 767. I got my machines mixed up.

> The only nit I have to pick is the inverted direction of scrolling.
> With both a scroll-wheel and my MacBook's "two-finger" scroll, moving
> down does scroll down. I understand about the grab metaphor implied by
> the key caps, but since we're not actually grabbing but scrolling,
> IMHO it should scroll the other way.

- Bert -