Re: [AD] about driver lists

[Chris <kcat@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter Wang wrote:
> When al_num_joysticks() is called, there may not be a joystick 
> driver installed.  So do I find a working joystick driver, initialise 
> it, ask it the number of joysticks on the system, then shut down the 
> driver again?

I wouldn't. What I would do is either return 0 (no joysticks detected 
since no driver is installed) or -1 (no driver installed).

> More background: joysticks are to be (un)installed using the functions:
>
>    AL_JOYSTICK *al_install_joystick(int joystick_number);
>    void al_uninstall_joystick(AL_JOYSTICK *js);
>
> Right now I'm planning for the joystick driver to be initialised when 
> the first joystick is installed, and shut down when the last joystick is 
> uninstalled.

I personally would prefer explicit init/deinit functions (in case you 
want to pass options to Allegro's driver or something), though if you're 
not going to do that I suppose what you have is good.

> BTW, what advantages does the normal Win32 joystick driver have over the 
> DirectX joystick driver?

I would think the DirectX driver has more direct access to the hardware 
(which means it'd be faster) and is much more recent. Kinda like the 
difference between WaveOut and DirectSound.

- Kitty Cat