Slaad's Programming Stuff

Do you have a zany mouse that doesn't currently work with EMouse? Do you have a zany mouse that does work with EMouse? Do you use Zeta? Do you not wear pants? If you answered yes to these questions, then EMouse needs your help. (Note: The Zeta requirement is because I only have a build of the reporting tools for Zeta)

I'm currently in the process of writing code that follows the USB Human Interface Device specification in order to get mouse itself to tell EMouse how data is presented, and what it means. This will mean that 5% more puppies will sleep soundly tonight. And you'll have a better experience with your mouse. But in order to do this, I need a few reports from users to see how exactly your mouse says it is presenting data. So... please download these new reporters and follow the instructions contained within.

Remember, if you don't do it, less puppies will sleep soundly tonight. And your mouse may not work as expected in future releases.

I've posted a new version. It should fix the settings not getting saved correctly. That's about it. And it'll work on Zeta. And only Zeta. I don't have an R5 install to make an R5 build. Sorry folks.

Grab it from: BeBits

So that clicking bug? It's caused by an assumption on my behalf that the class I use for writing settings to disk creates the file if it doesn't exist.

Well... sort of. There's some other bugs with the settings stuff as well, it seems. But I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to have a go at fixing them. I've got exams next week (Erk! That's much sooner than I predicted) and I'm kept pretty busy with my bastard love child the IM Kit. At least when I have the motivation to code

Shortly after the last release Stephan Assmus sent me a patch to disable PS/2 mouse when a compatible USB Mouse is plugged in. I've since extended this to have three (3) options;

• Disable PS/2 mice as long as EMouse is running
• Disable PS/2 mice when a compatible USB Mouse is found
• Never disable PS/2 mice

EMouse: Because you're all visual people

As to the future? Well... I'm abandoning the project. Just kidding. Someone, who's name escapes me as I'm at work being bored, finally sent me a report for an MX700 with MouseReporter. Unfortunately... it doesn't tell me jack. It seems that the MX700 reports itself as having 8 MaxBytes, but never sends that many. And I, being the genius I am, log an error message of something to the effect of "Did not recieve all 8 bytes" So when I get home from work tonight, I'll be fixing that little treat and requesting a new log. I'll also be thanking the kind person, by name, who finally sent me the report. And shaking my fist at the rest of you bums

After that? Well, in the next few releases expect to see exclusion (Perhaps I should also include explicit inclusion?) of USB devices by VendorID and DeviceID. That way EMouse should still play well with the less general drivers such as the Wacom drivers. I also want to get around to the custom byte mapping. I can't really see a point for it, but I think it'd be nice to have. And I also imagine that combined with explicit inclusion of USB Devices you'd be able to support strange new rats I've not thought of. I'd also like to be able to target a specific mouse with the preflet. But time will tell.

That's right kids, I'm not dead! I still live! So put away that disapointed face.

Need something to get over that disapointment? Well, maybe a new release of EMouse will help.

"What's new in this release?" I hear you ask? Or perhaps "I'm sick of downloading stuff, why should I bother?". Well, my trusty friend, to both of these questions I do not have an answer. "No, really?" you retort. To which I would response "Yes, really". Given enough tennis I might finally give an answer to get you off my back, something along the lines of "Improved mouse detection. Should work with any 3/1/2 mouse, regardless of Max Packets. Uses the Interval parameter properly. Different looking Preflet." To which I'd likely get a response of "Will it work with my fancy MX700 mouse that I've been bugging you to support, but never did anything to help?", I'd likely shrug. And tell you "I don't know, you didn't download MouseReporter" At this point I'd likely run off crying at this point in time....

What's taken it so long? I don't know, really. Perhaps despondency? Perhaps I've been working on the IM Kit? Or perhaps I've just been spending all my money on hookers and cheap booze? Or is that cheap hookers and booze....

I've been working on the EMouse Preflet. It's looking pretty good. It's now more user friendly, I believe, and it can also be set to show the raw USB data your mouse is getting. Eventually the individual bytes the mouse is sending will be user configurable. I doubt this'll make it into the next release. This means you can set X movement with the mouse to move the pointer in the Y direction.

In the driver side, it should now support any USB device that is Class 3, Subclass 1, Protocol 2. It also correctly reads the devices MaxPackets at a time and waits the Interval length of time between reads. If this doesn't fix the MX700 issues, then the configurable byte mapping will. I hope.

In the mean time, if any MX700 users could download MouseReporter and mail me the log file (slaad AT bong DOT com DOT au), support'll be implemented a lot quicker.

Once again the code fairy, also known as voidref, was able to help me on an issue relating to tracking. As a result EMouse now uses the standard BeOS method of movement and acceleration. You'll note a marked improvement in the smoothness of movement.

In other news someone, who's name escapes me, from America has offered to lend me a Logitech Cordless Optical mouse to test with. It'd be nice if a local source popped up (Any Aussies here?), but if they don't, I'll accept his offer and hopefully be able to fix Logitech support.

I'm at work at the moment, but over the next few days I'll clean up the code a bit and post a new release.

So... that Logitech MX700 support, eh? Well, I'm stumped as to why it's not working. And I can't imagine it magically working. If anyone out there wants it supported uber badly the best thing for you to do would be to arrange for me to get my hands on one. If you wish to do so, contact me at slaad AT bong DOT com DOT au.

I've added the ability to tweak the driver from the preferences panel (change priority and sleep time). Most people shouldn't need this. But I'd noticed that responsiveness can be a whee bit jerky at times. I'll release it when I have a reason to - MX700 support, or something.

In the mean time I'm back to working on my bastard love child - BeNetMD / libbenetmd

I decided to have a quick go at putting in Mouse Acceleration this morning. It seems to work rather well. If all goes well, I'll make a release today

Note: The type of Acceleration I've used is similiar to that of Windows. You set a "Threshold" value and if your mouse moves faster than the threshold it's speed gets doubled.

I think that needs an example. Say you've set your threshold to 40. If your mouse moves at a speed of 30 then it will move 30 "units" on screen. If you move your mouse at a speed of 45 then it will move 90 "units" on screen.

It'll also fix the hotswap-loses-buttons-assignments bug and add some mice I may have missed.

There was a small bug where by a mouse that was added after the input_server was started would not receive it's button mappings. This has been fixed. Not sure when the next release will be. If this bug affects you, contact me and I'll send you a new version.

I've also added support for BGA's Mouse - the Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer v3.0 - which has a ProductID of 0x0047.

And I've redone the manual with images and HTML. It'd double the size of the download so I won't include it. It'll be available seperately instead.