devi-hid

Universal Photon input manager for keyboards and mice

Syntax:

devi-hid        [general_opts] 
                protocol* [protocol_opts]*
                filter* [filter_opts]*

Runs on:

Neutrino

Targets:

Any supported platform that has io-hid running.

Options:

General options:

-b

Prevent the use of the Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Backspace keychord to exit Photon (permitted by default).

-d device

Device (default: /dev/photon or the $PHOTON environment variable).

-g input_group

Input group (default: 1).

-l

List the internal modules. Modules are listed in the following format where class may be P (protocol) or F (filter):

module name | date last compiled | revision | class
    

-P

Disable Photon interface. The default is to start the Photon interface.

-r

Start resource manager interface (only use if not using Photon).

-v[v]...

Verbose output. More v characters cause more verbosity.

The protocol modules and their options are:

• kbd — keyboard scan codes (connected to primary keyboard)

  -k rate[,delay]

  Keyboard rate (Hz),delay (ms). If you continually depress a key, after delay milliseconds, it will input data rate times a second. The default is 150Hz after 500ms.

  -u device

  Optional, USB device number.

• mouse — common mouse protocol (no options)

The filter modules and their options are:

• keyboard — translate scan codes to UNICODE

  -k kbd_file

  The file to use to map the keyboard to support international languages or alternate layouts, such as Dvorak. The default location for these files is /usr/photon/keyboard; to create a keyboard mapping, use mkkbd.

• rel — filters and compresses relative coordinates of mouse events

  -a

  Wheel acceleration parameter (default 10); the higher this value, the faster the mouse wheel acceleration.

  -G gain

  Motion multiplier (default 1).

  -l

  Swap right and left buttons.

  -T threshold

  Speed-doubling threshold in mickeys/second. If the mouse speed exceeds this threshold, the cursor will move twice as far as it normally does per mickey. (A mickey is the smallest amount of motion the mouse can detect.) The default threshold is 100.

  -x

  Reverse X.

  -y

  Reverse Y.

Description:

This manager is a universal Photon input daemon for keyboards and mice. It is a client of io-hid, the HID server.

Usually, inputtrap starts devi-hid during the Photon startup procedure; for test and other purposes, you may also start this manager in text mode as a resource manager.

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The io-hid resource manager must be running before devi-hid can start.

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This manager doesn't need information about the physical interfaces of real devices: it relies on service from the io-hid resource manager and supplementary input modules. The devi-hid daemon takes data in the form of HID reports, transforms the data into Photon events, and then emits these events to Photon. It provides multi-language support for keyboard input.

If you specify the verbosity option, activity messages are sent to the console screen and to the system log. Data is normally sent to Photon, alternatively, in resource manager mode (-r option), data can be sent to devices (by default, /dev/devi/keyboard0 and /dev/devi/mouse0).

Examples:

Typical command line to start the keyboard and mouse manager:

devi-hid kbd mouse

Files:

devi-hid

Normally in /usr/photon/bin.

libhiddi.so

Used by devi-hid

Errors:

If an error occurs in starting devi-hid, the keyboard or mouse will not work in Photon and Photon won't be able to start. If you specify at least one v option, activity details will be reported on the console screen and will be appended to the system log; for more detail, increase the verbosity level.

See also:

inputtrap, mkkbd.