S Pen Button Customization

[vespucci-reporter]

Description:

Hello, I have been using a samsung S6 tablet for a lot of my on the go edits, or when I have somme down time and can contribute but am away from my home computer. I have found the accompanying s pen/ stylus to add a huge amount of precision and speed to my workflow, however my only gripe is that the s pen/stylus button just allows me to change zoom while holding it.

I assume this is intended, however I was wondering if it would be possible to allow this input to be a custom shortcut between perhaps adding a single node or single way (effectively clicking the + and add button for you) as I find I spend more time doing that than adjusting zooms. Jus being able to change it to a vew different selections would be great. Perhaps same for double tap with the pen, although I don't know if thats distinguishable from a regular double tap on your end.

Apologies if this appears to be a silly/niche request.

Device info:

App version	20.2.2.0
App version code	3003
Android build version	P620XXU5AXK6
Android release version	14
Android SDK version	34
Android build ID	UP1A.231005.007.P620XXU5AXK6
Device brand	samsung
Device manufacturer	samsung
Device name	gta4xlswifi
Device model	SM-P620
Device product name	gta4xlswifixx
Device hardware name	s5e8825
ABIs	[arm64-v8a, armeabi-v7a, armeabi]
ABIs (32bit)	[armeabi-v7a, armeabi]
ABIs (64bit)	[arm64-v8a]

Extra info:

OSM display name

Ommageden

[simonpoole]

I actually do most of my editing (on a phone) with a S Pen and have considered adding some more support than using a stylus has currently, so at least it isn't far fetched. What isn't possible was to add anything that requires Samsung proprietary libraries, which IIRC was the case I looked at things a couple of years back.

Anyway I'll give it a another look.

[simonpoole]

Alas, as expected supporting the button requires a proprietary Samsung library https://developer.samsung.com/galaxy-spen-remote/download.html Integrating that while not impossible, would have some quite far reaching consequences.

[david-allison]

@simonpoole Randomly saw this issue on your list. Would this be of use: https://github.com/david-allison/S-Pen-Remote-Open-SDK

This hasn't made it to production for us [due to lack of time], but was verified as working

Note: I don't personally have an S-Pen enabled device to test. I strongly suspect air actions do not need the above SDK, and could be enabled by manifest-only changes: https://developer.samsung.com/galaxy-spen-remote/air-actions.html, but this would need investigation on your side.

[simonpoole]

@david-allison thanks for the heads up, I'll give it a closer look asap (I'm away for a large part of February though).

A note of warning,: always when I find an interesting dependency and start using it, it goes unmaintained 6 months later :-/

[david-allison]

@simonpoole understood. Enjoy your time off!

The Samsung SDK hasn't been updated since 2019 and the known bugs are replicated and documented in the open SDK.

It's a very small library (~5 nontrivial files). You can go through everything in 10 minutes. I don't expect significant maintenance will be necessary here.

That being said, there's no downstream dependencies, and no publishing setup. It will need work to be taken to the finish line, and I won't have time to do this

[simonpoole]

Note: I don't personally have an S-Pen enabled device to test. I strongly suspect air actions do not need the above SDK, and could be enabled by manifest-only changes: https://developer.samsung.com/galaxy-spen-remote/air-actions.html, but this would need investigation on your side.

I did a very quick test of the air-actions mapping and couldn't get it to work with the manifest changes and mapping definition, I'll see if I can investigate more asap, but it didn't seem as if any key events were being delivered to the device. In any case the air actions only work with BLE enabled s-pens, which iirc was limited to S20-S24 Ultra and has gone the way of the dodo now, so I'll give the library a spin, which has the advantage that I can use an old device and don't have to test on my daily driver (S23 Ultra).