Mouse support for just the wheel and left button.

Mouse support for just the wheel and left button.

[John Murphy]

Hello and thanks for Grub. I use it daily.

I've seen questions regarding mouse support, but the answers imply that an
on-screen pointer is requested. I would find it very useful to be able to
use the mouse scroll wheel (which is just two switch clicks if I understand
correctly) to move up and down between entries, and one click on the left
mouse button to emulate pressing Enter.

All that would seem necessary is for wheel up-button to do up arrow, wheel
down-button - down arrow and left-button - Enter.

I have my own reasons for wanting the feature, but, while searching for
information, I saw that some users are finding their USB keyboard isn't
supported and they may have found simple mouse button and wheel support
useful.

It could also help those who usually use on-screen keyboards like the
quite excellent OnBoard.

-- 
I've joined the list, so no need to CC, thanks.

Re: Mouse support for just the wheel and left button.

[Andrei Borzenkov]

17.12.2015 05:52, John Murphy пишет:
> Hello and thanks for Grub. I use it daily.
> 

You need to boot so often? :)

> I've seen questions regarding mouse support, but the answers imply that an
> on-screen pointer is requested. I would find it very useful to be able to
> use the mouse scroll wheel (which is just two switch clicks if I understand
> correctly) to move up and down between entries, and one click on the left
> mouse button to emulate pressing Enter.
> 
> All that would seem necessary is for wheel up-button to do up arrow, wheel
> down-button - down arrow and left-button - Enter.
> 

GRUB mostly relies on firmware support. At least for EFI there is no
notion of "wheel", only mouse move events. I do not know if mouse can be
accessed via BIOS at all.

For tablet type devices using volume up/down and tap may work for menu
selection, assuming that modern devices are EFI based.

> I have my own reasons for wanting the feature, but, while searching for
> information, I saw that some users are finding their USB keyboard isn't
> supported and they may have found simple mouse button and wheel support
> useful.
> 
> It could also help those who usually use on-screen keyboards like the
> quite excellent OnBoard.
> 

Someone who has hardware and can actually test it needs to send patches.

Re: Mouse support for just the wheel and left button.

[John Murphy]

On Thu, 17 Dec 2015 08:52:05 +0300, Andrei Borzenkov wrote:

> 17.12.2015 05:52, John Murphy пишет:
> > Hello and thanks for Grub. I use it daily.
> > 
> 
> You need to boot so often? :)

Twice today already! :)

> 
> > I've seen questions regarding mouse support, but the answers imply that an
> > on-screen pointer is requested. I would find it very useful to be able to
> > use the mouse scroll wheel (which is just two switch clicks if I understand
> > correctly) to move up and down between entries, and one click on the left
> > mouse button to emulate pressing Enter.
> > 
> > All that would seem necessary is for wheel up-button to do up arrow, wheel
> > down-button - down arrow and left-button - Enter.
> > 
> 
> GRUB mostly relies on firmware support. At least for EFI there is no
> notion of "wheel", only mouse move events. I do not know if mouse can be
> accessed via BIOS at all.

I'm able to scroll through entries on pages in my BIOS using the wheel
(Asus Maximus VII Formula). Not sure if that means anything.

> 
> For tablet type devices using volume up/down and tap may work for menu
> selection, assuming that modern devices are EFI based.
> 
> > I have my own reasons for wanting the feature, but, while searching for
> > information, I saw that some users are finding their USB keyboard isn't
> > supported and they may have found simple mouse button and wheel support
> > useful.
> > 
> > It could also help those who usually use on-screen keyboards like the
> > quite excellent OnBoard.
> > 
> 
> Someone who has hardware and can actually test it needs to send patches.

Happy to test on mine, but I'd need a few pointers on how to apply a patch.
(I've tested kernel patches for a developer, which were committed.)

-- 
I've joined the list, so no need to CC, thanks.

Re: Mouse support for just the wheel and left button.

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 01:34:10PM +0000, John Murphy wrote:
> I'm able to scroll through entries on pages in my BIOS using the wheel
> (Asus Maximus VII Formula). Not sure if that means anything.

That probably doesn't mean anything.  The firmware can choose to handle
the mouse in any way it wants, but the interface actually provided to
the boot loader through EFI is more limited.

The UEFI spec mentions x, y and z axis for a pointing device and
recommends using z-axis for scrolling, but I don't know if the mouse wheel
would be used as a z-axis, or just button 4 and 5 (which uefi doesn't do,
only left and right).

-- 
Len Sorensen

Re: Mouse support for just the wheel and left button.

[John Murphy]

On Thu, 17 Dec 2015 11:03:41 -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 01:34:10PM +0000, John Murphy wrote:
> > I'm able to scroll through entries on pages in my BIOS using the wheel
> > (Asus Maximus VII Formula). Not sure if that means anything.
> 
> That probably doesn't mean anything.  The firmware can choose to handle
> the mouse in any way it wants, but the interface actually provided to
> the boot loader through EFI is more limited.
> 
> The UEFI spec mentions x, y and z axis for a pointing device and
> recommends using z-axis for scrolling, but I don't know if the mouse wheel
> would be used as a z-axis, or just button 4 and 5 (which uefi doesn't do,
> only left and right).
 
If 'standards' have carried through from xorg.conf / mousedrv, buttons 4
and 5 would be wheel buttons. Button 4 is the default for "which button
must be held down to enable wheel emulation mode." (man mousedrv) but again
- may not mean anything.

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