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

[Bert Freudenberg]

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!

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 -