Re: [AD] mouse state variables and poll_mouse

[Chris <chris.kcat@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Marcio Afonso Arimura Fialho wrote:
> Besides the scenario given by Evert, reverting back to
> assyncronous mode could save some calls to
> poll_mouse();

You shouldn't need to call poll_mouse, ever, as long as the system 
doesn't need it. And if the system does need it, there's no way to get 
away from polling.

> (eg., if the programmer wishes to offer to the
> user of his game the possibility of setting back and
> forth between assyncronous and polling mode).

I'd think uninstalling and reinstalling the mouse would be enough for 
that, wouldn't it?

> By the way, why does Allegro offers an assyncronous
> mouse state update? Isn't the polling mode alone
> enough?

Asynchronous was first (used by DOS, which AFAIK, updated the mouse vars 
from the hardware (system called) interrupt), and polling was added 
later "just in case". IMO, you should never poll unless needed. 
Hopefully future versions of Allegro can add block-until-event updating 
(start a thread and do a blocking call to read input events, which will 
(should) put the thread completely to sleep until an event occurs.. no 
looping or background polling necessary).