gms@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com. (George Sachs) (06/21/91)
/ hpcvlx.cv.hp.com:comp.windows.x / jharring@kato.prime.com (Joe Harrington) / 3:21 pm Jun 19, 1991 / > I need to interface an alternate (and possibly additional) > pointing device (a tablet) to an X server. For Sunview-knowledgeable > readers, I'm looking for the analogous mechanism to the VUID > interface. For those who aren't familiar with this, it is > a fairly simple mechanism that allows you to tell the Sunview > kernel to use another device driver, properly designed to report > locator and button data in the VUID format, as the mouse device. > Sunview events are then dispatched by the Notifier. > > I need a pointer to info regarding the following questions: > 1) Is there something analogous the VUID interface in X servers? > 2) Is that mechanism standard for all X servers from all vendors? It sounds like you're asking both about using a graphics tablet as the X pointer device instead of a mouse, and about using a graphics tablet as an extra input device in addition to a mouse. The answer to the first question is vendor-dependent. I can't speak for other vendors, but Hewlett-Packard does support the use of HP graphics tablets as the X pointer device instead of a mouse. The "mechanism" is that you plug the tablet in instead of a mouse and it works. There are probably other vendors who support the use of graphics tablets as the X pointer as well. For the second case (using a graphics tablet as an extra input device in addition to a mouse), the X input extension provides a vendor-independent standard mechanism. Whether or not a particular vendor chooses to support it in their server is up to them. The input extension allows clients to select and receive input from additional input devices and distinguish it from input generated by the core devices. It provides extended protocol requests and events for receiving input from those devices. The R5 X distribution contains documentation for the input extension in the doc/extensions/xinput subdirectory.