[Ohrrpgce] OHR Game Pad Buttons as Strings

[Ralph Versteegen]

There really isn't anything we can do on backends other than gfx_sdl2 and
possible gfx_directx (which uses DirectInput which might sometimes provide
useful button metadata, but probably not) but I would not spend any time on
DirectInput.

On Fri, 20 May 2022 at 02:31, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com> wrote:

> I like this idea.
>
> I think we could reasonably use SDL's detected controller names to provide
> real button names whenever possible, and then fall back to some reasonable
> best-effort default for SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPE_UNKNOWN and for other backends
> that don't support this. I don't think we should stress out too much about
> button swapping and custom configs. Users who do that know what they've done
>
> It won't be perfect, but it will probably be good enough to be useful
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:22 AM Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> There is currently no way to get the actual label of a button on the
>> player's controller. The "get scancode name" command can be used for
>> joystick buttons but returns a fixed name. There's also a separate system
>> in Custom for defining OS-specific button names which can be embedded in
>> strings with ${B#} codes but that won't help either, as it's intended for
>> smoothing over PC/Android/Ouya/etc differences.
>>
>> I spoke about wanting to implement something to make a best guess as to
>> the button names, which would then be returned by "get scancode name" and
>> used by ${B#} codes.
>> SDL has a function to get the type of a controller, as one of the
>> following:
>>     SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPE_UNKNOWN,  (everything else)
>>     SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPE_XBOX360,
>>     SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPE_XBOXONE,
>>     SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPE_PS3,
>>     SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPE_PS4,
>>     SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPE_NINTENDO_SWITCH_PRO,
>>     SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPE_PS5,
>>     SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPE_AMAZON_LUNA,
>>     SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPE_GOOGLE_STADIA
>> So I can use that to at least easily handle PS3+ button names correctly
>> (and I can go add that)... but not my PS1 controller. It also can tell the
>> name of a controller, which we could use to try to detect PS controllers or
>> ones such as NES, SNES or Gamecube where the actual button labels may not
>> match what SDL/OHRRPGCE calls them... however I don't know whether the
>> buttons are actually swapped around on these, because SDL has a config
>> setting for whether to swap the buttons, and special cases for whether to
>> respect the config setting (e.g.
>> https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/issues/3497) and so many other special
>> cases that it simply requires testing to figure out how it actually behaves.
>>
>> Someone also started on a library to provide controller button names for
>> SDL (https://github.com/cxong/SDL_JoystickButtonNames) but unfortunately
>> its database only has 4 controllers, and it doesn't even have defaults
>> according to the SDL_CONTROLLER_TYPEs above. I was thinking of extending it
>> with the defaults/guesses I described above, and we can extend its DB if
>> anyone wants to report their controller. Or maybe it's just simpler to skip
>> it.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 19 May 2022 at 13:47, Matt Edson <colesloth at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hey guys,
>>>
>>> This is mostly for Ralph as I think he's done something before but in
>>> the event James has information first...
>>>
>>> I'm at the very very end of Mr. Triangle's Maze. Game pad support! I
>>> need to be able to convey to the player what the buttons are when it's not
>>> keyboard related, but the problem I have is there's a lot of different
>>> kinds of game pads. The average player probably uses an X-Box equivalent
>>> but that's assuming.
>>>
>>> I thought about just calling them left face button, right face button,
>>> etc. but then I remembered I saw a file TMC made where it showed different
>>> values for game pads. Ideally I'd like to use the correct button verbiage
>>> to not confuse players. Is there also a way to tell if the player is
>>> actively using a game pad or a keyboard beyond checking for individual
>>> keypresses?
>>>
>>> Am I mis-remembering this?
>>>
>>> Thanks fellahs!
>>>
>>
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