Re: [AD] X11 unresponsiveness

[Chris <kcat@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Evert Glebbeek wrote:
> Just to be sure I follow you correctly - you mean we could require
> poll_keyboard() and poll_mouse() to be called regularly when using the sigalrm
> version of the library?

Not quite. Polling wouldn't be 100% necessary. The input handler 
(unpatched for the signal version) would run as normal by default, but 
the various *_needs_poll functions would still return TRUE and when the 
corresponding poll_* function is called, that device is removed from the 
signal handler.

> A potential problem I see with this is that it changes behavior of the library
> on a platform that is already supported.

Not really. By default, the signal version would still work without 
being polled, but remain laggy. But once it starts being polled, the 
signal handler would no longer poll the device. The Allegro docs already 
state that once the poll_* function is called, you must continue to call 
it for the device to work.

> If this works properly, I have no objections in principle, but then I do think
> that keyboard_needs_poll() and mouse_needs_poll() should return FALSE on
> platforms where it is not needed (such as the pthreads version of the library,
> which already works fine with Elias's most recent patch) rather than forcing you
> to poll even if it is not nescessary (which is the main reason I never liked
> using them).

Of course. The pthreads version has been fixed to my satisfaction (which 
patch is being used currently though?) and doesn't need polling. But the 
signal version does to eliminate the potential lag.

> I'd still prefer Allegro to handle the polling though, so I'd see it as a last
> resort or easy way out. ;)

The signal input handler would continue behaving as it does in 4.1.14, 
AFAICS. The only difference will be that the various *_needs_poll 
fucntions would return true. :)

- Kitty Cat