[BRLTTY] Default braille device and driver.

Dave Mielke dave at mielke.cc
Wed Aug 31 17:56:12 EDT 2005


What do you all think about the selection of the default braille device and
driver? Right now, as has been the case since the outset, the default device is
the primary serial port. There's no default driver if none are built in, else
it's the first driver in the list passed to the --with-braille-driver=
configure option.

BRLTTY now supports the autodetection of several braille displays. I'm
beginning to think, therefore, that the time has come to switch the default
driver to auto. This could certainly easily be the case if no drivers are built
in since there's no current default driver in that case anyway. What about when
drivers are built in? One thing to keep in mind is that there are those who may
build drivers in but who also have more than one display. It'd sure be
convenient for them if the default, even in that case, were auto.

I don't personally like the concept of a default serial port because it could
easily mean that unexpected data is sent to some other unsuspecting device
which happens to be connected to it at the time. There was a case with
Gnopernicus a few months ago where a lady's speech synthesizer became unusable
after data for some other speech synthesizer or braille display (I can't
remember which) was sent to it. I believe it was subsequently determined by the
manufacturer that her synthesizer was inadvertently put into firmware upgrade
mode. One proposal for the default device, which I'll put on the table to get
the discussion going, is to use usb: if the driver supports USB, and to revert
back to the primary serial port if it doesn't.

One more thing I'd like to discuss regarding this topic is if this change
should be made in 3.7 or if it should wait for 3.8.

-- 
Dave Mielke           | 2213 Fox Crescent | I believe that the Bible is the
Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario   | Word of God. Please contact me
EMail: dave at mielke.cc | Canada  K2A 1H7   | if you're concerned about Hell.
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