Re: Re: Move softcursor out of fbdev to fbcon

On 7/27/05, Antonino A. Daplas [off-list ref] wrote:

Jon Smirl wrote:

quoted

On 7/27/05, Antonino A. Daplas [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

The changelog says it all. This is a modification of Jon's patch, but
I have moved softcursor.c to the console directory.  Also I removed
the "select FB_SOFTCURSOR" from video/Kconfig and made the compilation
of softcursor unconditional, if framebuffer console is enabled.

I don't think the fb_cursor hook is usable by other programs, so we
should just restrict this hook for fbcon use only.  For userspace cursor
support, we need a new one.  But instead of one function, I believe
it's better to provide several.  Ie, something like below:

fbcursor_show()
fbcursor_move()
fbcursor_loadimage()
fbcursor_loadpalette()
fbcursor_start()
fbcursor_stop()

What does start/stop do?

Wrong choice of words, this is just an example.  But start() should tell
the driver that the cursor is going to be used, and perhaps do some locking (so
another app does not try to grab the device).  It can also return the
capabilities of the cursor: maximum dimensions, color depth of image,
caps such as alpha, transparency, etc.  stop() will release the cursor.

In the sysfs model I'd do something like this. Most attributes are read/write.
cursor_visible -- 0/1 hide/show
cursor_location -- x,y
cursor_image -- image bitmap
cursor_palette -- pallete data
cursor_capabilities -- read only

An owner could have a lot of problems, what if the owning apps dies?
There is no open file handle in the sysfs model. I would just assume
that ownership is handled in the upper layers.

Sysfs is still an experiment to see if it really can handle everything
the IOCTLs do.

-- 
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com


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