Re: [AD] demo of new joystick API

[Chris <kcat@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter Wang wrote:
> Matthew Leverton wrote:
>
> > I think the joysticks of A4 is one of the sections that is the least
> > broken.
>
> Agreed.

I wouldn't say broken.. more like convoluted and confusing. What I have 
a problem with is the axis stuff.. I mean, you have no idea where the 
stick/axis's are on the joystick, so its near impossible to just throw 
joystick support in. You have to provide manual configuration in case 
the user's joystick doesn't match what the game expects.

Now, if we could map axis's to seperate analog buttons, that would be 
cool. Because them all you have to do is specify different button 
placements. Much easier than having to worry about stick/button 
placement and useage.

> > > - Function: bool al_install_joystick_driver(void)
> >
> > Is there only going to ever be one joystick driver per platform?
>
> Well... Windows was the only one that had two joystick drivers.  Someone 
> might want to reintroduce the non-DX one, but I dunno why.

I prefer having explicit install functions in case you want to introduce 
pre-installation options. Though I personally think the *_driver bit is 
too much.. al_install_joystick is good.

> Yeah, I'm not sure.  But all the other al_install_*() functions look 
> like they will be returning objects, like:
>
>    AL_TIMER *al_install_timer();
>    AL_KEYBOARD *al_install_keyboard();
>    etc.

Well, the timer is a different type of object. It's not an input object 
so it's behavior should be allowed to be slightly different. Though with 
the input objects, perhaps they could return the first/only device of 
that type? So
x = al_install_keyboard();
would be equivilant to
al_install_keyboard_driver;
x = al_get_keyboard(0);

> > > 1. "request" & "release".  I'm not sure what to call them.
> > > "acquire/release" was suggested but it sounds too much like
> >
> > I think some of this will be more clear as the API evolves. I
> > personally would suggest the same naming convention. To me, the aspect
> > of grabbing a video bitmap or a joystick is similar enough that they
> > both could have the same prefix (acquire).

I'm not sure I like "request" either. When you request something (like 
request_video_bitmap), the program returns ASAP and does whatever in the 
background. What about "get"?

> The thing is, you're not allowed to acquire_bitmap() for very long 
> before doing a release_bitmap().  Whereas most programs would "request" 
> a joystick for the entire duration of a game, and perhaps never release 
> it (it is automatically released when Allegro shuts down).  So it's like 
> locking a mutex vs. opening a file.  Maybe it should just be 
> al_open_joystick()?

What about al_get_joystick? It gets a handle to the joystick number you 
pass (if available). The handle is then destroyed with the driver, so 
the handles you got just become invalid. I think that works..

- Kitty Cat