Re: Android port

[Arsen Arsenović]

Hi,

Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> writes:

> Arsen Arsenović <arsen@aarsen.me> writes:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> While building initially, I got some make errors that looked like they
>> were from a race, for example:
>>
>>     GEN         execinfo.h
>>   mv: cannot stat 'execinfo.h-t': No such file or directory
>>
>> Further confirming my suspicion that these are coming from a race is
>> Emacs compiling fine if make is reinvoked, and that a non-parallel make
>> build works fine.
>>
>> I figured this was a fluke initially, but, I reproduced the issue today.
>> You can fetch the build log from here:
>> https://www.aarsen.me/~arsen/emacs-races.script
>>
>> There also appears to be a dependency missing between generating the APK
>> and running the pdumper, or such, since I could re-run make after make
>> concluded in the nonparallel case.
>
> This should not be a problem, since the dumping happens on-device on
> Android.

Ah, OK.

>> This seems pretty reproducible on my machine, I suspect due to the large
>> number of -t files utilized in Gnulib.
>
> I will look into this, thanks.
>
>> While I'm around, I was also thinking about how to enable using the
>> modifier keys on virtual keyboards without modifiers.  I was considering
>> mapping a key, say, KEYCODE_VOLUME_DOWN to ESC if pressed and Ctrl if
>> held in combination with another key, hence, the sequence Press VolDown,
>> Release VolDown, Press VolDown, Type x, Release VolDown would be parsed
>> as ESC C-x, or C-M-x.  Do you know if this is possible?  All methods
>> that I know rely on external tools (XKB configs, AHK, ...) that are not
>> available on android.
>
> I'm not sure how to do this, since those keys are not ``meta modifiers''
> on the system.
>
> I'd recommend an on screen keyboard which has those modifier keys
> instead.

Indeed, that'd require some state tracking, for instance, on press reset
a special-as-ctrl flag and set a special-held flag, if anything else is
typed interpret it as C-<N> if special-held is set and set
special-as-ctrl, and on key release, reset special-held and emit an ESC
if special-as-ctrl is reset.

I'm not aware of a better solution because, as you said, these keys
aren't modifiers, and register as normal keypresses.

My thinking here is that providing an alternative for folk who don't use
virtual keyboards with modifier keys already (which is, most likely,
almost everyone) could ease their transition and help them with muscle
memory.

Have a splendid day.
-- 
Arsen Arsenović

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