Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/4] V3 - Implementation of IR support using the
 input subsystem
From: Jarod Wilson <jarod@wilsonet.com>
To: Jon Smirl <jonsmirl@gmail.com>
Cc: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>, lirc-list@lists.sourceforge.net,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
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	 <9e4733910810092204wbe6dd7dgde9c7ee50f698309@mail.gmail.com>
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Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:42:39 -0400
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On Fri, 2008-10-10 at 01:04 -0400, Jon Smirl wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 12:11 AM, Jarod Wilson <jarod@wilsonet.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, 2008-10-09 at 14:03 +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
[...]
> >> > How should multiple remotes be handled? Split them out into
> >> > individual input devices, or group them onto a single IR device? I
> >> > can implement either.
> >>
> >> Individual input devices, I'd say... so that app can only listen for
> >> 'its' remote.
> >
> > I don't quite get it. How can we tell there are multiple remotes to set
> > up multiple input devices when the system comes up? All we can know
> > about at driver init time is the receiver(s), no? Or would this be keyed
> > off a config file? Or ______ ?
> 
> 
> We could create a sysfs attribut named ir_config. For each config file
> you copy to it it creates a new input device. The config files have
> lists of map this protocol, device, command tuple to this key. When a
> remote button is pressed the raw codes are fed to the in-kernel
> protocol engine. That engine turns the raw codes into tuples. Tuples
> are matched against the configs that have been loaded until a hit is
> found. If no hit they get sent out the catch-all device.

Okay. I presume the catch-all device would simply note that it saw
something, and not actually take any action beyond that.

Also, a minor clarification: If its config file based, then its not so
much one input device per remote, its one input device per config file,
so one could set up two separate config files that are actually commands
from the same remote, but have them listened to by different apps, or
one could group together commands from multiple remotes in a single
config so that multiple remotes would all control the same thing. Sounds
good to me, provides for a reasonable amount of flexibility.

Of course, this suggests a receiver wouldn't be able to do anything
until the user provided a key mapping table of some sort. Would it make
sense to provide a default IR-to-key mapping for each receiver type? A
bit difficult to provide a sane default for something like a home-brew
serial IR receiver, but you could certainly provide sane defaults for
things like mceusb and imon (i.e., mappings for the remotes typically
bundled with those receivers).

> Most remotes send out unique codes, they have to or they would turn on
> unintended devices.

Yep, that's actually where the root of my concern was. I have at least a
half dozen different remote-controlled devices in my AV cabinet near my
myth box, and I obviously don't want anything but the codes I've set up
for my myth box acted upon on the myth box. :)


-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod@wilsonet.com

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