Re: [PATCH v11 1/4] HID: wacom_sys: Add support for flipping the data values

[Alistair Francis]

On Wed, Oct 20, 2021 at 10:04 PM Benjamin Tissoires
<benjamin.tissoires@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Oct 20, 2021 at 1:34 PM Alistair Francis <alistair23@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 20, 2021 at 5:40 PM Benjamin Tissoires
> > <benjamin.tissoires@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Wed, Oct 20, 2021 at 4:14 AM Dmitry Torokhov
> > > <dmitry.torokhov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, Oct 20, 2021 at 11:44:50AM +1000, Alistair Francis wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Oct 20, 2021 at 11:05 AM Dmitry Torokhov
> > > > > <dmitry.torokhov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Wed, Oct 20, 2021 at 09:33:13AM +1000, Alistair Francis wrote:
> > > > > > > On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 11:51 AM Dmitry Torokhov
> > > > > > > <dmitry.torokhov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > We already have touchscreen-inverted-x/y defined in
> > > > > > > > Documentation/devicetree/bindings/input/touchscreen/touchscreen.yaml,
> > > > > > > > why are they not sufficient?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > The touchscreen-* properties aren't applied to HID devices though, at
> > > > > > > least not that I can tell.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > No, they are not currently, but that does not mean we need to establish
> > > > > > a new set of properties (property names) for HID case.
> > > > >
> > > > > I can update the names to use the existing touchscreen ones.
> > > > >
> > > > > Do you have a hint of where this should be implemented though?
> > > > >
> > > > > Right now (without "HID: wacom: Add support for the AG14 Wacom
> > > > > device") the wacom touchscreen is just registered as a generic HID
> > > > > device. I don't see any good place in hid-core, hid-input or
> > > > > hid-generic to invert the input values for this.
> > > >
> > > > I think the transformation should happen in
> > > > hid-multitouch.c::mt_process_slot() using helpers from
> > > > include/linux/input/touchscreen.h
> > > >
> > > > I think the more challenging question is to how pass/attach struct
> > > > touchscreen_properties * to the hid device (i expect the properties will
> > > > be attached to i2c-hid device, but maybe we could create a sub-node of
> > > > it and attach properties there.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Sorry but I don't like that very much. This would mean that we have an
> > > out of band information that needs to be carried over to
> > > HID-generic/multitouch and having tests for it is going to be harder.
> > > I would rather have userspace deal with the rotation if we do not have
> > > the information from the device itself.
> >
> > My 2c below
> >
> > >
> > > Foreword: I have been given a hammer, so I see nails everywhere.
> > >
> > > The past 3 weeks I have been working on implementing some eBPF hooks
> > > in the HID subsystem. This would IMO be the best solution here: a udev
> > > hwdb rule sees that there is the not-wacom PID/VID (and maybe the
> > > platform or parses the OF properties if they are available in the
> >
> > I'm not sure we have a specific VID/PID to work with here. The VID is
> > generic AFAIK, not sure about the PID though. Maybe someone from Wacom
> > could confirm either way.
>
> It actually doesn't really matter. What matters is that there is a way
> to know that this device needs to be rotated, being through DT
> properties that would be exported through sysfs, or a hwdb entry that
> matches on the product, the platform or something else.
>
> >
> > > sysfs) and adds a couple of functions in the HID stack to rotate the
> > > screen. The advantage is that we do not need to add a new kernel API
> >
> > I would say that touchscreen-inverted-x/y isn't a new API, it's
> > commonly used. To me it makes sense that it's supported for all
> > touchscreens.
>
> Well, it's new in the HID world, and this is opening the pandora box:
> the patch adds only the equivalent of touchscreen-inverted-x/y, but
> not touchscreen-swapped-x-y. So you can not actually rotate a screen
> by 90 degrees.
>
> Inverting a value on an axis is easy. Swapping 2 axes is way harder in
> the HID world, because you have to interpret the report descriptor
> differently.
>
> Also, the patch adds 3 new properties: flip-tilt-x/y and flip-distance.

This patch does yes, but I'm happy to just drop this to the invert
touchscreen properties.

> The tilt and distance would be easy, but suddenly we need to also add
> pressure, and all of the other HID definitions. This is going to be
> endless. It took me a while to understand Rob's point regarding
> generic properties, but we are exactly entering this territory: this
> is an endless chase and will never end.
>
> I would much rather have a device specific quirk that would be
> triggered by the DT than adding generic properties like that.

That works for me!

A HID_QUIRK_XY_INVERT would work for me and seems useful for others in
the future as well.

I managed to figure out how to do this, I'll send a patch soon.

>
> Also, hid-multitouch is the most tested driver through the hid-tools
> test suite: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libevdev/hid-tools
> I am not sure how I can add tests for those properties in a generic
> way (the creation of the "virtual DT" is going to be problematic).
>
> On the contrary, a device specific quirk can easily be tested without
> having to mess too much with the hid subsystem.

Great!

Alistair

>
> >
> > > anymore, the disadvantage is that we need userspace to "fix" the
> > > kernel behaviour (so at boot, this might be an issue).
> >
> > That's a pain for me. I'm still stuck with the vendors userspace as I
> > need their propiritory eInk driver code. It also seems like a hassle
> > for different distros to handle this (compared to just in the DT).
>
> I understand the pain. But I am not talking about a 1 kernel cycle
> release timeframe. More like 6-12 months to bring in all the pieces
> together. Distributions have no issues with udev most of the time
> (even those that stuck to the old pre-systemd fork), and it would not
> be different than having a udev intrinsic that tags the pen with
> ID_INPUT_TABLET so libinput and others can deal with it.
>
> Cheers,
> Benjamin
>
> >
> > Alistair
> >
> > >
> > > I am not at the point where I can share the code as there is a lot of
> > > rewriting and my last attempt is resulting in a page fault, but I'd be
> > > happy to share it more once that hiccup is solved.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Benjamin
> > >
> >
>