How to restrict the widget to only process events from a specific hardware input device?

[MatthewLai]

I'm new to Qt so pardon me for asking dumb questions here. I have an embedded application here with two physical dials (the usb-powered PowerMate knobs) and in the GUI there are two corresponding dial widgets. The user interface usecase is such that the events (dial rotate clockwise/counter-clockwise, dial pressed/released) generated by physical dial 1 should be processed by dial widget1 only, and the events generated by physical dial 2 should be processed by dial widget 2 only. Is there a way to support this input-source-specific event processing in Qt?

[SGaist]

Hi and welcome to devnet,

How are these devices handled by your system ?
Are they input like keyboard and mouse ? Do they provide SDKs to talk with them ?

What OS are you on ?
What version of Qt are you using ?

[MatthewLai]

How are these devices handled by your system ?

I'm "thinking" of using device plug-in as described in this article: https://doc.qt.io/archives/qtextended4.4/tut-deviceexample.html

Are they input like keyboard and mouse ? Do they provide SDKs to talk with them ?

The powermate knob behaves like a mouse. When I plug it in the Linux kernel module "powermate" is loaded and I could see it in /dev/input/event5. Doing the "cat /dev/input/event5 | hexdump" and I can see the event data (timestamp, type, code, value).

What OS are you on ?
Ubuntu 16.04 VM for the cross compiling Qt
Wandboard for running the embedded application

What version of Qt are you using ?
Qt5.8

[SGaist]

Ok, does your system already reacts to these devices ?

[MatthewLai]

No. I have yet to implement the plug-in yet. And I could not see in the plug-in examples how to implement the "handle-this-event-if-it-is-from-that-physical-input-device" feature?

My system (the Wandboard) does react to the powermate knob i.e. I connect the knob to the wandboard through the usb, and verify the /dev/input/event5 appears, and when I rotate the physical knob or press/release it I could see the event data with "cat /dev/input/event5 | hexdump".

[SGaist]

Qt 5 uses a different architecture that Qt 4.

But I think you might have misunderstood my question. Are these device already handled by your desktop environment ? e.g. like a mouse.

[MatthewLai]

If by "handled" you mean the corresponding Linux kernel module automatically loaded when I connect the powermate knob to the Wandboard then yes, the device is "handled" that way.

However if by "handled" you mean I can move the "cursor" around on the desktop then no, it is not "handled" by the desktop environment.

[SGaist]

Good, then I'd recommend taking a look at this article about a custom QPlatformInputContext and this excellent KDAB post about the same subject.

[MatthewLai]

Thanks for the articles!

Just a quick follow up question: suppose I re-phrase my original question to a more generic context like "I have 2 mice in my system, and I have widgets in my Qt such that half of the widgets should handle mouse 1 events while the other half of the widgets should handle mouse 2 events." Is there a quick way to support this usecase?

[SGaist]

Two mice would not be the same situation you have with PowerMate knobs so you should rather open a new thread.

However, I don't know whether Qt receives enough information from the system to allow distinction about which cursor triggered the event.