GE

Warning: this page is outdated. The GIMX Event Library is superseded by the gasync library.

The GIMX Event Library

GE is a cross-platform event library for handling input from keyboards, mice, and joysticks.
It can be used in Windows or Linux.
It is released under the GPLv3 license and is available in the GIMX git repository.
GE supports multiple mice, keyboards and joysticks, which means the source of each event can be identified.
In Linux, it interfaces with evdev or X, and allows to write "interrupt-based" event processing.
In Windows, it interfaces with the RawInput API or the SDL library to get keyboard and mouse events. To get joystick events it uses the SDL 2.0 library, which handles standard joysticks and Xinput gamepads. RawInput event processing is "interrupt-based", whereas SDL 2.0 event processing is "polling-based".

This page only gives a pseudo-code example. Check the test directory for a complete example.

To use GE in Linux, make sure to have read access to the input devices.

Example

 #include <GE.h>
 
 int process_event(GE_Event* event)
 {
   //handle the event
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char* argv[])
 {
   if (!GE_initialize(GE_MKB_SOURCE_PHYSICAL)) //or GE_MKB_SOURCE_WINDOW_SYSTEM
   {
     //handle the error
   }
 
   GE_TimerStart(10000); //microseconds
 
   GE_SetCallback(process_event);
 
   GE_grab(); //grab the mouse pointer
 
   while(!done)
   {
     GE_PumpEvents();//returns when timer fires
 
     //do something periodically
   }
 
   GE_quit();
   
   return 0;
 }

Build and test

Build the static library

cd ~
git clone -b master --single-branch --depth 1 https://github.com/matlo/GIMX.git
cd GIMX/shared/event
make

Build the test

cd ~/GIMX/shared/event/test
make

Run the test

cd ~/GIMX/shared/event/test
./GE_test

The test displays all keyboards, mice and joysticks, and it then displays all input events. Press Escape or Ctrl+c to exit.