RE: [DOM3Events] Identifying mouse events derived from touch events

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rick Byers

> In the pointer events working group we had other reasons to want an input device API (eg. 'navigator' is really a poor place for 'maxTouchPoints').  Perhaps this is as good as a reason as any to start exposing an input device properties object.  I wouldn't argue here for hanging a bunch of extra stuff of it, but it's reasonable to think that over time we'll want an API surface like this.  Most other platforms have such a facility (eg. MotionEvent.getDevice() on Android).

This seems pretty compelling. Especially given the prior art.

It would be nice if someone were willing to sketch out a quick vision of what a future would look like with this idea fleshed out, e.g. I could imagine:

- navigator.getInputDevices() => a (sorted?) list of them
- some subset of the Android APIs at [1] on the InputDevice objects themselves
- the ability to pointer-lock a specific device!?

Even if we start small with a very simple TouchEvent.prototype.inputDevice that has a single property like "firesTouchEvents", it'd be helpful to have a vision for the future.

I'd also be curious if we could learn from developers on other platforms. E.g., maybe MotionEvent.getDevice() is a universally hated API and all the Android developers in the world wish that Android had done something different? Or maybe they love it? That data would be nice.

[1]: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/InputDevice.html