How does a gamepad differ from say a keyboard? What is the purpose of the actor?
I just figured I'd ask these basic questions to help clarify some of the details that might otherwise be missing. I'm guessing that dealing with analog joysticks wouldn't be event based, but would be more of a poll, but button presses would be more event based. Some gamepads have vibration feedback, and I'm guessing new ones probably have accelerometers and such. What kinds of sensors and what types of frequencies are we looking at here? Dave Hylands ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Kyle Machulis" <kmachu...@mozilla.com> > To: dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org > Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 3:03:05 PM > Subject: The future of HAL vs DOM for device APIs? > I'm working on Gamepad OOP (bug 852944). We want to have an > actor-per-device-per-process model for IPC. Right now, Gamepad's platform > specifics live in HAL, as it's just using the observer broadcast model. > Moving to the new actor model, it doesn't feel like gamepad will really fit > in HAL anymore, since adding things to PHal usually assumes observers for > device -> content information broadcasts and synchronous calls for content > -> device queries. > My first guess at implementing this would be to move gamepad's platform > specifics over to DOM, and implement this all under the dom/gamepad > directory, similar to how we've done other more complicated device webapi > projects (like bluetooth). It feels like HAL assumes a broadcast model > specifically for sensors, switches, etc, while more complex things get moved > into DOM. > I talked to dhylands (the HAL module owner) about this, and he directed me to > a thread started by cjones a few years ago, which has even more ideas in it: > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mozilla.dev.platform/rfc$3A$20hal/mozilla.dev.platform/g72lXZpFLrg/k3bry9mgC1wJ > So, does it make sense to keep HAL how it is right now, and have more > complicated APIs live in DOM? Or should we look at extending HAL to handle > things like actor creation/management for devices (if that's even possible)? > I do admit that some of the confusion comes from the name of HAL, since > "hardware" encompasses a lot more now than it did when the HAL layer > started. > _______________________________________________ > dev-platform mailing list > dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
