joy stick interface

[progrendon]

hey have a wingman force 3D and a friend who sometime struggles with the use of there hand. Was wondering how hard it would be to make a mood that would allow joystick interface? as you can see in the link'd picture it should have enough buttons to do the basics

[Neowulf]

Well, you could probably find a program to do the translation for them. I know there are ones that allow you to use a joystick as a mouse, and from there you just have to map the button presses to keyboard ones.

As for as a mod, I don't have the source infront of me so it boils down to if the input stream is private or public. If the majority of the input stuff is private then you'd have to modify base classes to get it to work. If it's public, it's possible a forge mod could do it (which makes things LOADS easier).

The specifics should be relatively easy, setup an input stream for the joystick and create a watcher to translate joystick input into keyboard+mouse inputs, and funnel it back into the normal input stream.

[ErusPrime]

a joystick is weird. You want multiple thumb controls so you can control pitch and yaw as well as direction.

There is no mod but there definitely needs to be some kind of gamepad support. I don't know how hard it would be to include hardware in minecraft. you can try irc://irc.esper.net#minecraftforge

[progrendon]

there's a link to a pic of the stick but it has a 8 directional hat and 5 buttons should do the basics just getting the input of the stick to the mouse and keyboard controlls

[ErusPrime]

I was trying to get at using the right tool for the job. I'm not saying it won't work. I'm saying it's inefficient. Unless you only have one hand. In which case I apologize for my insensitivity.

[progrendon]

no its a condition that some times can stop her using her left hand and well it would be nice for people that are missing there's

[theprolo]

I think it would just be a case of finding the Joystick's input, and working out how to replace the Minecraft regular keys with that, or perhaps just simulate that key being pressed if possible. The may well be a separate program for the second one if it's possible, but it's just an idea.

[ErusPrime]

you'd have to use a program like joy2key as MC can't recognize gamepads as hardware.

[progrendon]

well typing this to u using a on screen keyboard and the joystick now will it work with the MC we will see

[ErusPrime]

it won't. the MC window takes focus from the OSK

[progrendon]

it did actually don't know why i had the problem of MC not accepting things before but the suggested interface seems to work just fine

[Neowulf]

Hat- WSAD

Joystick x/y- scale a tick worth of mouse movement along that axis

Trigger- leftclick

2 of the buttons next to the hat- right click and inventory

other 2 buttons- space and shift

With the last 2 buttons on the base and not easily accessible while holding the joystick you don't quite have enough to round out a basic interface, since you need a way to change tool slots.

I would suggest looking into a slightly more complex joystick, 8 buttons or more easily accessible from the stick.

Or, there are trackball alternatives, like:

http://www.ergocanada.com/detailed_specification_pages/trust_2_in_1_numeric_keypad_and_optical_trackball.html

http://www.trackballworld.com/40-580.html

http://www.ergonomicsmadeeasy.com/store/ergonomic-keypads/product/galaxy-pad/

These give a thumb trackball and a full keypad worth of keys simultaneously accessible with just the right hand.

[progrendon]

we have looked at some gaming pads I have config d at the mo

trigger (1) left

top to the left of hat(2) right

bottom left to hat (3)space

the others to up down scroll

on the base top (6)e

as in this case only hand control is a issue

[phoenix987]

I saw this in a gamestop about 5 years ago. It's an old 3rd party N64 controller meant to be used with one hand. You strap it to your arm and the joint in the wrist acts like an analog stick. Add a N64 controller to USB adapter and a program like joytokey or xpadder and you're good to go. Unfortunately they're pricey on ebay right now.