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I think after the 10 or more patches to the Wintab dll that I submitted last month, I should say something about it's status... And of course thank Alexandre for applying those patches.
P.S. I won't be available from the 15th for about a week or so. So, if you have any questions, I'm afraid you might have to be patient.
Hope this is of interest to someone -Rob.
******Applications: Current status***********
***In Painter 5 *Cursor pressure works. (Therefore is usable by most) *Cursor orientation is a little odd: The orientation maths needs to be re-done. *No eraser. Haven't yet cracked what enables the eraser. *Doesn't work in desktop mode: Need to map to desktop coordinates. *Repeats windows bugs where cursor looses pressure/orientation info almost bug for bug (Is this a feature? ;-) *Cannot detect pressure/orientation int the "Brush Tracking" window: The tablet context is attached to the main window, so no events get to the popup, even if they overlap. This is not how windows wintab functions.
***In Photoshop 6. *Can only get tablet data in desktop mode: This is because the tablet context is attached to the desktop. Which generates/receives no wine events outside desktop mode. * Eraser and pen pressure working. *But* to get them working, you must have 3 XInput devices listed in your XF86Config file, They need to be the last entries in the "ServerLayout" section and the following order: eraser, tablet mouse. This is a far from ideal way of specifying the devices Wintab should use :-/ I'll document this if someone can point me to a good place to put the docs.
*******To Do*************
1. Look at X11 errors. There appear to be some errors that deny some users the ability to access Wintab enabled apps. (I think I know how to fix this) 2. Improve orientation data. Orientation comes in as X-Y coords (Implicit Z), and has to leave as spherical coords. This calculation needs to be re-done. 3. When tablet context is on top, let it read XInput events from all the app's top-level windows. (This simulates the fact that the context is usually designed to cover the whole screen) 4. When tablet context is attached to desktop, read XInput events from all the app's top-level windows. 5. Tests ~ --My current philosophy on tests is... ~ Use Photoshop & Painter, any formal tests ~ can be written if anyone else gets involved in patching Wintab, to avoid regressions, and conflict.
**********Long term to do (Anyone interested?):********* There's a lot of work that could be done here, but what gets done and who does it probably depends upon whether anyone finds an app that needs these features. I'd love to implement these, but realistically, I don't foresee doing this unless someone hires me to do so ;)
1. Improve configuration of wintab. Wintab could probably do with some information entered into the config file, to avoid the user having to hack their Xfree86cfg file. 2. Handle Z-Order of context properly. This entails *sharing Z-Order between apps. *Working out exactly what role windows have in determining tablet context z-orders. *Allow tablet contexts that don't cover the whole screen/tablet. *Handle inter-application clipping of tablet contexts *Allow all application's windows to receive tablet events when tablet context is on top
3. Implement non-system tablet contexts (Where system cursor not moved by pen or mouse) 4. Unicodify 5. Implement various wintab extensions. 6. Implement wintab manager functions. 7. Tests.
*********Unknowns*********
1. How are wintab contexts are raised lowered? Contexts have their own z-order independent of windows, and their own viewport concept, based upon the tablet's coordinate system, not that of the OS. It appears that entering, or clicking on the window the tablet context is attached to will raise/lower the context. But I haven't done much testing on this. In particular, what happens if more than one app request their tablet context is attached to the desktop?
2. How Painter detects the eraser. Have 3 possibilities i. Windows can detect an eraser, and sends specific messages. (I'm sure I've seen this, but can't work out where!) ii. Only works if tablet and cursors are named correctly. (Probably linked to wacom tablets only). iii. I've missed something
3. Requirements of other applications
Hi Folks,
Okay, I've now spent some time putting some love into wintab.dll, and I've now gotten to the point where Photoshop 7 works properly, no matter what order your X devices are in.
I've also improved behavior of a number of other test programs I worked with as I struggled with Photoshop.
But now I'm done, because Photoshop tilt + pressure work again. (Yay!)
I thought I'd reprise my current understanding for future posterity.
First, there are 2 immediate changes that are clearly appropriate to make:
1. We should strip out devices like mice and such.
Otherwise, anyone with more than 1 mouse is going to appear to have a tablet with 1 cursor. A simple exclusion of devices without 'Wacom' or stylus/cursor/eraser in either their name or type should suffice.
2. The following commit, I believe, is wrong:
commit ee2db299deb19c76a5ff9a5338b3640b490494e4 Author: Mikolaj Zalewski mikolajz@google.com Date: Thu Aug 30 12:41:37 2007 -0700
winex11.drv: wintab: Copy also the button #0 state.
That is, in X, our devices come out as 1 based (not 0 based), and on Windows, they report as 0 based. iow, with this patch, pkButtons is always 2; on Windows, it's always 1.
But no app I've seen so far really cares, and I don't feel that I know enough to really assert what the 'right' implementation is.
The truth is, the whole logic around pkButtons and BUTTONMAP and so on is clearly not fully implemented; we don't do the weird magical thing with relative positioning reports, for example.
Finally, from a 'big picture' perspective, wintab.dll could really use some serious love. Further, it's a fairly straight forward process. This would make a really good beginner project. You just need a tablet, mostly.
I think the appropriate next step is for someone to write a comprehensive tablet test utility, to run both on Windows and to compare under Wine.
That's the next step imho.
I'm going into Robert's status to note what I think has changed.
***In Painter 5 *Cursor pressure works. (Therefore is usable by most) *Cursor orientation is a little odd: The orientation maths needs to be re-done.
Unchanged.
*No eraser. Haven't yet cracked what enables the eraser.
Should be fixed.
*Doesn't work in desktop mode: Need to map to desktop coordinates. *Repeats windows bugs where cursor looses pressure/orientation info almost bug for bug (Is this a feature? ;-) *Cannot detect pressure/orientation int the "Brush Tracking" window: The tablet context is attached to the main window, so no events get to the popup, even if they overlap. This is not how windows wintab functions.
***In Photoshop 6. *Can only get tablet data in desktop mode: This is because the tablet context is attached to the desktop. Which generates/receives no wine events outside desktop mode.
- Eraser and pen pressure working. *But* to get them working, you must
have 3 XInput devices listed in your XF86Config file, They need to be the last entries in the "ServerLayout" section and the following order: eraser, tablet mouse. This is a far from ideal way of specifying the devices Wintab should use :-/ I'll document this if someone can point me to a good place to put the docs.
This should be fixed.
*******To Do*************
- Look at X11 errors. There appear to be some errors that deny some
users the ability to access Wintab enabled apps. (I think I know how to fix this) 2. Improve orientation data. Orientation comes in as X-Y coords (Implicit Z), and has to leave as spherical coords. This calculation needs to be re-done. 3. When tablet context is on top, let it read XInput events from all the app's top-level windows. (This simulates the fact that the context is usually designed to cover the whole screen) 4. When tablet context is attached to desktop, read XInput events from all the app's top-level windows. 5. Tests ~ --My current philosophy on tests is... ~ Use Photoshop & Painter, any formal tests ~ can be written if anyone else gets involved in patching Wintab, to avoid regressions, and conflict.
I disagree; I think a test application is the clear next step. Too much is done by trial + error, and some rigor is the next step imho.
**********Long term to do (Anyone interested?):********* There's a lot of work that could be done here, but what gets done and who does it probably depends upon whether anyone finds an app that needs these features. I'd love to implement these, but realistically, I don't foresee doing this unless someone hires me to do so ;)
- Improve configuration of wintab. Wintab could probably do with some information entered into the config file, to avoid the user having to hack their Xfree86cfg file.
- Handle Z-Order of context properly. This entails *sharing Z-Order between apps. *Working out exactly what role windows have in determining tablet context z-orders. *Allow tablet contexts that don't cover the whole screen/tablet. *Handle inter-application clipping of tablet contexts *Allow all application's windows to receive tablet events when
tablet context is on top
- Implement non-system tablet contexts (Where system cursor not moved
by pen or mouse) 4. Unicodify
Done, I think.
- Implement various wintab extensions.
- Implement wintab manager functions.
- Tests.
*********Unknowns*********
- How are wintab contexts are raised lowered?
Contexts have their own z-order independent of windows, and their own viewport concept, based upon the tablet's coordinate system, not that of the OS. It appears that entering, or clicking on the window the tablet context is attached to will raise/lower the context. But I haven't done much testing on this. In particular, what happens if more than one app request their tablet context is attached to the desktop?
- How Painter detects the eraser.
Have 3 possibilities i. Windows can detect an eraser, and sends specific messages. (I'm sure I've seen this, but can't work out where!) ii. Only works if tablet and cursors are named correctly. (Probably linked to wacom tablets only). iii. I've missed something
It's all the cursor number; 0 is 'puck', 1 is 'stylus', and 2 is 'eraser'.
- Requirements of other applications
Cheers,
Jeremy
-
Jeremy White -
Robert North