Re: [AD] Keyboard timing problem

[Colin Ward <lists@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Peter

On 02/06/2007, you wrote:
> 
>> > I didn't realise you were targeting the 4.9 branch.  Cool.  The
>> > events/input stuff won't be changing much any more, but other stuff
>> > like graphics will be changing, so if you want something stable you
>> > should target the 4.2 branch, or maybe the 4.3 branch that we are
>> > planning on opening.
>> 
>> Um, I think I'm missing something here.  I have ported 4.3.1, which I
>> downloaded from a Sourceforge link that I found on www.allegro.cc.  In
>> docs/txt/allegro.txt it says "Version 4.3.1 (WIP)."  Does this use the
>> new keypress system?
>
> Yes.  Ok, it's a bit confusing right now but what used to be called 4.3
> is now going to be called 4.9.  The other "4.3 branch" that I mentioned
> is something else.  See http://wiki.allegro.cc/AllegroRoadmap

Right, so the 4.3.1 (WIP) tarball that I downloaded *was* the 4.3 branch in
Subversion but is now the 4.9 branch.  I notieced in branches/4.9 there was
a commit comment "Move allegro/branches/4.3 to allegro/branches/4.9".  So
that 4.9 branch is the same as my 4.3.1 tarball but with some additional
work, and will be released as 4.9.2?  And the old 4.2 branch is going to
have some newer stuff such as AllegroGL retrofitted into it, becoming 4.3.9
and then ultimately 4.4.  I think I got it.  :-)

So the question is: Which one should I be working on?  Also, will the user
level API be the same on the different branches (ie. only the backend will
change)?

>> This new keyboard API that you mention, is it in 4.3.1?  If so, could
>> you give me a pointer to the files/functions to look at?
>
> Incredible, you implemented it without knowing what it is :-)  See
> here:
>
>   http://wiki.allegro.cc/NewAPI/Events
>   
>   http://alleg.sourceforge.net/internaldocs/files2/allegro/events-h.html

Hmmm, I thought that was just how it worked.  Took ages to figure out!!! 
Especially given that the Amiga OS4 implementation of
pthread_cond_broadcast() has a *nasty* bug that locks up the entire system!
 *shudder*  Gotta report that one to the OS4 beta list and get it fixed
(using pthread_cond_signal()) just for now.

But more questions: Using this system, Allegro is still going to suffer the
keyboard problem because I send and event from my input thread to the
cokeybd thread, which then updates the key[] array which gets read in the
main thread.  And before this events system came into play, how did the
keyboard input system work in terms of threads and who checks for input?

My apologies for all of these questions - I have had a crash course in
Allegro architecture over the past week so I still have many question marks
hanging over my head!  :-)

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