Re: [PATCH 1/2] HID: multitouch: report MT_TOOL_PALM for non-confident touches
From: Benjamin Tissoires <hidden>
Date: 2018-06-04 22:04:03
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On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 11:19 PM, Dmitry Torokhov [off-list ref] wrote:
On Mon, Jun 04, 2018 at 10:42:31PM +0200, Benjamin Tissoires wrote:quoted
On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 7:33 PM, Dmitry Torokhov [off-list ref] wrote:quoted
On Mon, Jun 04, 2018 at 03:18:12PM +0200, Benjamin Tissoires wrote:quoted
On Fri, Jun 1, 2018 at 8:43 PM, Dmitry Torokhov [off-list ref] wrote:quoted
On Fri, Jun 01, 2018 at 04:16:09PM +0200, Benjamin Tissoires wrote:quoted
On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 2:44 AM, Dmitry Torokhov [off-list ref] wrote:quoted
According to Microsoft specification [1] for Precision Touchpads (and Touchscreens) the devices use "confidence" reports to signal accidental touches, or contacts that are "too large to be a finger". Instead of simply marking contact inactive in this case (which causes issues if contact was originally proper and we lost confidence in it later, as this results in accidental clicks, drags, etc), let's report such contacts as MT_TOOL_PALM and let userspace decide what to do. Additionally, let's report contact size for such touches as maximum allowed for major/minor, which should help userspace that is not yet aware of MT_TOOL_PALM to still perform palm rejection. An additional complication, is that some firmwares do not report non-confident touches as active. To cope with this we delay release of such contact (i.e. if contact was active we first report it as still active MT+TOOL_PALM and then synthesize the release event in a separate frame).I am not sure I agree with this part. The spec says that "Once a device has determined that a contact is unintentional, it should clear the confidence bit for that contact report and all subsequent reports." So in theory the spec says that if a touch has been detected as a palm, the flow of events should not stop (tested on the PTP of the Dell XPS 9360). However, I interpret a firmware that send (confidence 1, tip switch 1) and then (confidence 0, tip switch 0) a simple release, and the confidence bit should not be relayed.This unfortunately leads to false clicks: you start with finger, so confidence is 1, then you transition the same touch to palm (use your thumb and "roll" your hand until heel of it comes into contact with the screen). The firmware reports "no-confidence" and "release" in the same report and userspace seeing release does not pay attention to confidence (i.e. it does exactly "simple release" logic) and this results in UI interpreting this as a click. With splitting no-confidence (MT_TOOL_PALM) and release event into separate frames we help userspace to recognize that the contact should be discarded.After further thoughts, I would consider this to be a firmware bug, and not how the firmware is supposed to be reporting palm. For the precision touchpads, the spec says that the device "should clear the confidence bit for that contact report and all subsequent reports.". And it is how the Dell device I have here reports palms. The firmware is not supposed to cut the event stream. There is a test for that: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/hardware/hck/dn456905%28v%3dvs.85%29 which tells me that I am right here for PTP. The touchscreen spec is blurrier however.OK, that is great to know.quoted
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Do you have any precise example of reports where you need that feature?It was observed on Pixelbooks which use Wacom digitizers IIRC.Pixelbooks + Wacom means that it was likely a touchscreen. I am right guessing the device did not went through Microsoft certification process?That would be correct ;) At least the firmware that is shipping with Pixlebooks hasn't, I do now if anyone else sourced these Wacom parts for their MSWin devices.quoted
I am in favor of splitting the patch in 2. One for the generic processing of confidence bit, and one for this spurious release. For the spurious release, I'm more in favor of explicitly quirking the devices in need of such quirk.Hmm, I am not sure about having specific quirk. It will be hard for users to accurately diagnose the issue if firmware is broken in this way so we could add a new quirk for a new device.One thing we can do is keep the quirked mechanism as default in hid-multitouch, but remove it in hid-core. If people need the quirk, they can just use hid-multitouch instead (talking about the long run here).Hmm, I am confused. My patch did not touch hid-core or hid-input, only hid-multitouch... So we are already doing what you are proposing?..
It's the long run solution. I am trying in my last series to streamline hid-multitouch so I can merge it in hid-core. I am planning on having a few revision with hid-multitouch as an external module, and then switch the win 8 (touchscreens and PTPs) devices to use a generic processing in hid-input.c. So that's why I'd rather keep the quirked devices separately and iron out the generic ones. It's easier to override hid-multiouch for users than it is to override hid.ko.
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However, I really believe this might only be required for a handful of devices, and probably only touchscreens. So I would be tempted to not make it default and see how many bug reports we have.Up to you but it is hard to detect for users. If just sometimes there are stray clicks...
Users might not directly target the bugs toward me, but will likely complain to Peter first :) We can also add some automatic sanity check in libinput to relay the information that there is a FW/kernel bug for such devices. Cheers, Benjamin
Thanks. -- Dmitry