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From: rthomson@mesa.dsd.es.com (Rich Thomson)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Using tablets in X (Was: Re: Moving pointer in software ?)
Message-ID: <1991Mar24.220027.13991@dsd.es.com>
Date: 24 Mar 91 22:00:27 GMT
References: <9103131557.AA10051@devnull.Eng.Sun.COM> <1165@dandelion.CI.COM> <1991Mar18.170530.13580@dsd.es.com> <1276@attc.UUCP> <1167@dandelion.CI.COM>
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Reply-To: rthomson@dsd.es.com (Rich Thomson)
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[I massaged your message to sanely fit into 80-character lines -- let me
guess, you read news with xrn?  What a losing program...]

In article <1167@dandelion.CI.COM>
	dale@dandelion.ci.com (Dale Gallaher) writes:
>   Since both of these aproaches involve specialized servers they are
>   not really helpful for us.  [...]

>   The reason I brought this up with moving the pointer was I thought
>   maybe it could be done by just listening to the tablet and warping
>   the pointer to follow.

Well, unless your tablet produces the same serial byte stream as your
mouse you're going to require a server with support compiled in for
the byte stream of the tablet.  If your tablet and your mouse are
byte-stream compatible, then just swap the plugs ;-}.

Short of that, there's no way you're going to get tablet support
without modifying the application.  (Your application could always
monitor the tablet I/O port and interpret the data stream).
Alternatively, you could develop a listener program that sat in the
background and monitored the tablet I/O stream.  This program could
then synthesize mouse events that are equivalent to the tablet motion.
This approach might let you get by without modifying your server or
your application, but it is not the most integrated of approaches.

Computer Science: whatever works

						    -- Rich
-- 
  ``Read my MIPS -- no new VAXes!!'' -- George Bush after sniffing freon
	    Disclaimer: I speak for myself, except as noted.
UUCP: ...!uunet!dsd.es.com!rthomson		Rich Thomson
ARPA: rthomson@dsd.es.com			PEXt Programmer