Comment by kybernetikos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kybernetikos | Hacker News Reader

I'm currently using a logitech keyboard and mouse that support their new feature 'flow' that allows your keyboard and mouse to switch which computer they are paired with when the mouse goes to the edge of the screen. Now it seems that to support this feature, they must have the ability for the computer to instruct the keyboard and mouse to switch to one of the other paired computers. I would very much like to have the capability of doing that in my own code, but it seems to only be available through the official logitech app (that rarely works for my setup).

I've got an ereader that requires me to plug in to transfer epubs that I've downloaded onto it. If it were hackable, I'd be able to run a wifi sync program on it and my experience would be much better. It integrates with pocket, but I use pinboard.in and would like it to integrate with that instead. The default software doesn't give me a choice.

I've often wanted to purchase things based on their hackability - wifi routers, keyboard, mouse, sd cards, voip adapters, game controllers, cameras, e-readers, mobile phones, webcams....

But I often find it very difficult to find up to date information about what is user-hackable and what isn't. If this information were easier to find, it would affect my buying decisions more and would create more incentive for manufacturers to consider making their devices hackable.

Logitech flow looks interesting. From the 30 seconds I scanned the page about it, it seems the computers need to be on the same network. So this could be as "simple" as running tcp client on each machine. When the current active machine notices that the mouse left the edge of the current screen it disables the keyboard and mouse on current machine, sends a notification to the other computer and enables keyboard and mouse there. Custom USB drivers could likely handle disabling and enabling the keyboard and mouse just fine, but I've never written one, so maybe I'm wrong.

Edit: I was speaking more generically here. I doubt one could get the actual Logitech mouse and keyboard protocol and so couldn't implement an open source flow clone.

Synergy (https://symless.com/synergy) does exactly this, cross platform, and really effectively.

You don't need to write your own using a Logitech driver - it works with any standard keyboard / mouse.

Synergy stopped working for me one day, and it seems all machines have to use the same version. And they pivoted from free to charging for money.

I guess Logitech is doing the same thing, but if they actually implemented it by unpairing the input devices from one receiver and pairing it to the other, that would be cool, it means I can turn off the unpaired computer, and input still works on the paired machine.

It's still open source. So you can compile it yourself, if you want.

If you turn off the master computer or it crashes when the keyboard and mouse are controlling the other one, you're stuck. I would assume that this is not the case with Logitech Flow, since the keyboard and mouse genuinely do connect to both.

Incidentally, 13 years ago, I used to use something very like what you're describing, back then it was called Win2VNC and X2VNC

But the point I'm making is nothing to do with the seamless desktop thing, it's that the ability to switch input between different devices is something I'd like to be able to write code to control in all kinds of situations (time based, in response to events, etc), not just when the official software thinks I should or when I press the physical buttons on the device.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com