How to detect joystick button press

[Ralph Freshour]

I would like to press a joystick button and have my app detect that event so it can then act accordingly. How do I set up my code to detect when I've pressed one of my joystick buttons?

Thanks...

 

[ronh]

Ralph,

You'll have to add the INPUT stuff back in. See the SDK joystick example for C++ code.

add in another INPUTGroup - leave your notification group

        enum NOTIFICATION_GROUPS
        {
            GROUP0,
        }

        enum INPUT_GROUPS
        {
            INPUT0,
        }

add the joystick button input

                simconnect.AddClientEventToNotificationGroup(INPUT_GROUPS.INPUT0, EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET, false);

                // Map the keys , and . keys to the private events
                simconnect.MapInputEventToClientEvent(INPUT_GROUPS.INPUT0, "joystick:0:button:0", EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET, (uint)0, (EVENTS)unused, (uint)0, (bool)false);

you will need the STATE.ON

                simconnect.SetInputGroupState(INPUT_GROUPS.INPUT0, (uint)SIMCONNECT_STATE.ON);

And you will need the received event trigger - I used resetcamera event in this example.

                case (uint)EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET:
                    resetview();
                    break;

 

[Ralph Freshour]

OK...Yikes...!!! And I will take a look at the Joystick SDK example.

Thank you...

 

[Ralph Freshour]

I understand this line will map joystick button #11 press to the camera reset event, correct?

simconnect.MapInputEventToClientEvent(INPUT_GROUPS.INPUT0, "joystick:0:button:11", EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET, (uint)0, (EVENTS)unused, (uint)0, (bool)false);

 

[Ralph Freshour]

I had to remm out the code in the camera_reset event because it was firing every sec or so.
I thought this event would only fire when I pressed joystick #11 button?

void simconnect_OnRecvEvent(SimConnect sender, SIMCONNECT_RECV_EVENT recEvent)
{
switch (recEvent.uEventID)
{
case (uint)EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET:
//cameraDollyLeftRight = 0.0f;
//cameraDollyUpDown = 0.0f;
//cameraDollyForwardBack = 0.0f;
//cameraLensPitchUpDown = 0.0f;
//cameraLensBankLeftRight = 0.0f;
//cameraLensLeftRight = 0.0f;
//movingCameraDolly = false;
//simconnect.TransmitClientEvent((uint)SimConnect.SIMCONNECT_OBJECT_ID_USER, EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET, (uint)0, INPUT_GROUPS.INPUT0, SIMCONNECT_EVENT_FLAG.GROUPID_IS_PRIORITY);
break;

 

[ronh]

Not sure whey but using button:0 with my sidewinder just moved it to reset position. Are you sure you have a INPUT_GROUP0 separate from the notification group?

 

[JB3DG]

Button indexes in the strings start with 0 so button 11 would really be button 12 where marked on your stick.

 

[Ralph Freshour]

OK...thanks Naruto...

 

[Ralph Freshour]

Another question: is there a way to set one joystick button event rather than one for each joystick button?

Instead of this:
simconnect.MapInputEventToClientEvent(INPUT_GROUPS.INPUT0, "joystick:0:button:1", EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET, (uint)0, (EVENTS)unused, (uint)0, (bool)false);
simconnect.MapInputEventToClientEvent(INPUT_GROUPS.INPUT0, "joystick:0:button:2", EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET, (uint)0, (EVENTS)unused, (uint)0, (bool)false);
simconnect.MapInputEventToClientEvent(INPUT_GROUPS.INPUT0, "joystick:0:button:3", EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET, (uint)0, (EVENTS)unused, (uint)0, (bool)false);
simconnect.MapInputEventToClientEvent(INPUT_GROUPS.INPUT0, "joystick:0:button:4", EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET, (uint)0, (EVENTS)unused, (uint)0, (bool)false);
etc
etc

can I do a one liner something like this and then check which button was pressed:
simconnect.MapInputEventToClientEvent(INPUT_GROUPS.INPUT0, "joystick:0:button:??", EVENTS.CAMERA_RESET, (uint)0, (EVENTS)unused, (uint)0, (bool)false);

I guess the same question applies to mapping to a hot key...can we do this with one line vs having to map a line for each possible hot key?

Thanks...

 

[JB3DG]

Afraid not....

 

[Ralph Freshour]

Wow...for detecting hotkeys, that going to be a lot of lines...I'm surprises MS was so inefficient with this part of the SDK...thanks...

 

[ddawson]

Well, there's probably better ways than SimConnect to do that.
If I were watching for keyboard input, I would most likely hook the FS message queue and watch for WM_KEYDOWN or WM_CHAR messages.
For game controllers, you can use DirectInput to poll them - this allows you to check for the state of all the buttons on a controller with one call.

Doug

 

[Ralph Freshour]

Thanks Doug...do you have a reference where I can read up on how to hook into the FS msg queue? I googled around (including here) but so far have not found anything on that specific topic. I'm using c# if that makes any difference.

 

[mgh]

Look up SetWindowsHookEx() in C++

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms644990(v=vs.85).aspx