Flexible button mapping

[ace-dent]

With different keyboard layouts and left / right-handed players, it might be nice to add custom button mapping. Perhaps at least add a toggle option to support:

• Right-handed 'default' : cursor arrows + a / s (and z / x).
• Left-handed : WASD + , / . (this also matches the default mapping for Thumby's emulator).

Any key mapping options should be stored in a cookie, so it can be kept as the user's default and available when using the embedded player.

... I'm actually thinking of getting the 8bitdo Micro... is it possible to support controllers? 🙏🏻

[tiberiusbrown]

I believe all of that is possible but not simple, and I'll consider them.

• Currently the player has no GUI, so it'd need to expose a settings popup similar to the debugger.
• Adding game controller support is more challenging as the cross platform abstraction I am using (sokol headers) does not support controllers. I'd likely need to switch everything to SDL. This would also increase the file size of the player by quite a bit.

As an immediate alternative, Ardens has a working RetroArch core, so for more serious Arduboy gaming, you can use RetroArch, which will support keyboard mapping, controllers, custom shaders and filters, etc. and will work on pretty much any platform. Currently you have to build the core yourself but I can add it to the build actions for each platform if you'd like, so it'd be included in releases.

[Pharap]

@tiberiusbrown If you do end up going down the SDL route and find you need any help or information, I may be able to assist with that since I have a reasonable amount of experience with SDL.

[tiberiusbrown]

Thanks -- back in the beginning of the project I did use SDL but found that it added ~1MB to the web build. I also struggled to get high DPI working correctly with it, so if I do go back I'd definitely accept any help.

[tiberiusbrown]

@ace-dent The latest release includes the libretro cores for each platform except web.

[Pharap]

I also struggled to get high DPI working correctly with it

Unfortunately all I know about high DPI is that there's a window flag called SDL_WINDOW_ALLOW_HIGHDPI that you can pass to SDL_CreateWindow as part of the flags parameter. I've never had access to a high DPI monitor so I've never actually dealt with that sort of thing.

it added ~1MB to the web build

I suppose one other possibility would be to try to extend Sokol using the parts of SDL relevant to dealing with joysticks and game controllers.

One of the issues on Sokol also mentioned this library, though given how minimalist it seems I'm not sure it'll cover many devices.

[tiberiusbrown]

Added a branch to experiment with using SDL as a backend. Builds here

[tiberiusbrown]

Basic controller support added in v0.21.0 (tested with wireless Xbox controller on Windows 10).

Not closing this issue yet because bindings are still not customizable.

[tiberiusbrown]

@ace-dent Due to Ardens being available as a libretro core, would you consider this issue obsolete? Controller support isn't really on the roadmap for the debugger/player apps atm but is well supported in libretro frontends like RetroArch.

[ace-dent]

@tiberiusbrown - feel free to close as a valid 'WONTFIX'. The controller support would have been nice, but the original issue was:

With different keyboard layouts and left / right-handed players, it might be nice to add custom button mapping.

Fair enough if that's not on the roadmap, or reasonably outside the scope. I agree, it's hard to imagine how that could be integrated nicely into the Player. Perhaps to provide minimal left/right handed support, you could add a non-persistent toggle by pressing tab (or a more hidden key combination!) to switch modes?

[tiberiusbrown]

Ah I forgot, keyboard adjustments! :+1:

That should be possible to add to the player, and I can work on adding customizable rebinds to the debugger.

For the player, maybe something less prone to accidental press than a sole tab (pretty close to the 'a' key for A button).. a shift+tab? Do you have a preference for this?

[ace-dent]

@tiberiusbrown - I like the idea of shift + tab. 👍 Not sure whether the left/ right handed key choice should be persistent between session?

[tiberiusbrown]

:+1: And I think it's reasonable to make it persistent in the player.