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Re: how to deal with varied input devices?

on 9/5/02 8:47 AM, Joseph J. Strout at email@hidden wrote:

> At 1:30 PM -0600 9/04/02, James Powell wrote:
>
>> It would be great if someone solved this problem and donated the
>> code to SDL (www.libsdl.org). SDL already has some level of support
>> for keyboard, mouse, and joysticks, but I don't see any support for
>> d-pads on OS X.
>>
>> This might work for you: HID Wizard from Z Sculpt.
>
> I looked at that, but right now I don't believe it's the right
> solution for my needs. There are primarily three reasons I say that:
>
> 1. It asks the end-user for a donation (as you pointed out); I think
> what we need is a widely-adopted solution that's free.

Me too :) but there wasn't one, so we went ahead and made HID Wizard.
I'm surprised more people don't use this shareware model, there's a
bazillion libraries out there, but do you ever hear them recognized in
games? I often wonder if we'd have better libraries available if the
original authors had more incentive to give out code. I mean, everyone on
this list has some totally kick-ass API just eager to burst out, but there's
no way in the world that they'd give it to, well, the "other guys". On the
flip side, we spent a lot more time than we intended on HID Wizard, and it
seemed like a shame to only put it in our games. In any case, it is still a
free library, and I honestly hope that it doesn't look all scary and
corporate :)

> 2. It didn't work with my controller, and there seems to be no way I
> can make it work through any configuration process.

It is probably not working quite right in OS X 10.2. It could be the
keyboard and mouse support that was added with Jaguar. We will have un
update up shortly to resolve this. So please don't be intimidated by a lot
of boxes with red slashes through them, they are just undeclared "buttons"
on a keyboard. If any of you have a Macally iShock, iShock II, or Saitek
Cyborg, you can see how simple the screen looks for a controller that's
already laid out. If not, go to edit mode and drag the buttons around to
make a layout, or declare a group such as a d-pad (more on this below) Then
just save the layout in the prefs. The great thing is, you don't have to
wait for hardware vendors to make device drivers (which never happens!)

> 3. It uses the ISp configuration interface, which frankly, I found
> confusing when it was first introduced and I still find confusing,
> years later.

Yah, we wanted to improve HID Wizard well over what was provided with
Input Sprocket. We have just been so swamped lately that we can't work on
it much. All of these ideas are great, and we actually thought of a few of
the important ones too (an internet depository of layouts so everyone is
always up to date) but we've had very little feedback from people, such as
layouts for controllers they own. I think a real-time updating utility has
to be built into the library or nobody uses it. Again, we just haven't had
time to add it.
As for d-pads, we have a group manager in the editor that you use to
declare a d-pad. It then works just like Input Sprocket did, the end user
just clicks the group and sets it to be "Player 1 DPad" or whatever. Just
download Meteor Storm and set up your controller:

http://www.zsculpt.com/downloads/meteor-storm.bin

You will also need HID Wizard:

http://www.zsculpt.com/website/appsutils/hidwizard/hidwizard.html

One more thing...I think that Apple probably has something very secret
and amazing in the works. Probably something like Rendezvous or "Output
Sprocket" or god knows what. Gaming devices and their GUIs are just so
quaint and primitive right now, whatever happened to goggles and gloves and
light guns? Frankly I just don't see HID stepping up. We are all dwelling
on an interface, like sockets or ftp. What we need is Plug 'n Play and File
Sharing and those sorts of powerful tools that let people just get stuff
done and not dink around all day like in Linux or DOS or whatever. Or maybe
Apple will come out with nothing. It's happened before. I still think that
the internet should have been built using HyperCard instead of (gasp) HTML,
but don't let me get started on a rant. Sorry for the long email,

Zack Morris
Z Sculpt Entertainment
email@hidden
http://www.zsculpt.com
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 >Re: how to deal with varied input devices? (From: "Joseph J. Strout" <email@hidden>)



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