[bigbadlee1]

Hi guys,

Is there any planned support for the S Pen in the Samsung Galaxy Note series?

Thanks

[Ned Scott]

I assumed it would already work as if it were a normal finger touch. It doesn't do anything, though?

[bigbadlee1]

That's correct. The Note series have two input detection methods. Along side the capacitive touchscreen there is also an inductive input. The S Pen is not just a plastic stylus, there's a whole lot of circuitry inside.

There are a great deal of apps with S pen support and it would fantastic if this could be integrated into future Kodi updates. The on screen keyboard would be a breeze with this.

Thanks for reading my feature request.

[Ned Scott]

What I mean is, it should be handled by the phone and presented to Kodi as generic touch input. It is very doubtful that we would add device-specific support like the s-pen.

[bigbadlee1]

That's a fair point, however many android apps do have S pen support without having been written specifically for them.

[cborn]

I just installed the latest from the Play Store and was surprised to find the S-Pen didn't work and I had to fumble with my fingers.
I've never encountered an App where the S-Pen didn't work in the same way as a finger, unless additional capability had been explicitly enabled using the Pen SDK.

I just wrote a quick test App, did absolutely nothing special, and the S-Pen works the same as my finger for touch.
This is on a Note 4.

It is as if the Kodi build has somehow explicitly disabled the S-Pen, albeit unintentionally.

[Uoppi]

As a long-time XBMC/Kodi Windows user, I just installed Kodi for my Note 4 too and was indeed surprised to find S-Pen not working. A real PITA trying to adjust sub or audio offset, for example. Besides, I much prefer to keep my screen grease and finger print free while watching.

Hopefully something could be done about it because, as always, otherwise I'm loving Kodi and wouldn't want to switch back to MX Player.

[jacekrad]

S pen not working on galaxy note 10.1 either. The only app I have installed that has this problem. I've written standard android apps (not s pen specific) and s pen always worked. Something must have been done to explicitly block the s pen input. Why?

[Ned Scott]

S pen not working on galaxy note 10.1 either. The only app I have installed that has this problem. I've written standard android apps (not s pen specific) and s pen always worked. Something must have been done to explicitly block the s pen input. Why?

Nothing specific has been done to block that input, as far as I know. Do note that Kodi is not a typical Android app, as it is developed using the NDK, rather than purely using the SDK. I don't know if that explains why the pen doesn't work, but it could be a starting point in finding why it only happens in Kodi.

[jacekrad]

OK, I've never used the NDK so I'm guessing that you are correct about this being the problem. As I said before standard SDK apps work with the S pen with no S pen specific code.

With the HUGE numbers of Galaxy Note phones and tablets out there it may be something worthwhile to look at