Moved to Dosbox forum

Dominus wrote:

Moved to Dosbox forum

Thank you! I thought I posted this in the right forum but I guess not. Hopefully soon someone will reply and I can get this problem solved.

Hey,

It probably worths to mention first that the mapping will have an effect on the whole DOSBox session. Even when you want to enter some text within some game (e.g. for a high score entry) or in the command prompt, the mapping is in use. So, choose the keys wisely.

And now, on to the mapping itself. When you display the mapper UI using Ctrl+F1, what you see is the keyboard an *emulated* DOS machine sees. It may resemble an actual keyboard you're using, but it can also be very different than what you're using. For instance, you can send keyboard commands on the emulated side using a gamepad in reality.

How to map something: Suppose that a game expects you to use Shift + M for some action (continental map). This is done on the emulated machine. You want to use the 'N' key instead (although a non-alphanumeric key is probably the better choice, as hinted before). Then what you should do is:
1. Select the left Shift key in the UI (or right Shift if the game supports that and you prefer this), click on the 'Add' button in the UI and then press on the 'N' key in your keyboard.
2. Repeat the same for the M key in the UI.

Note that once you select an emulated key in the UI, you may scroll between various bindings to real (non-emulated) controls using the 'Next' button in the UI. You may optionally delete older bindings in that way, using the 'Del' UI button.

*** The most important point to understand, though: The keys you see in the UI are the *emulated* ones, as "understood" by the DOS machine (and games). These are also referred to as "events" in the mapper UI. On the other hand, the word "bind" you may find in the UI refers to actual controls you're using.

P.S. On a second thought, the DOSBox README file has explanations regarding that. I realize it may be confusing, though.

YET ANOTHER EDIT: Oh yeah, if it still doesn't work, maybe it's because the game expects you to press on 'Shift' *before* you press on 'M', while the mapper may do so in reverse order (although I really have no idea at the moment). Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestion, apart from using an external program in some way.

The only issue I see with your suggestion is that I can only map a double key if I only need to map one key using a key form the double key . Example: shift. The problem with this is that I have multiple double keys I want to convert into one key but I cannot do this because a lot of them use the shift key as an example. Like idk how I would map the ctrl keys unless right ctrl works for the arrows as well as left ctrl... I am going to try and see. Thx.

EDIT: Actually after looking at what you suggested it won't work at all because if I were to lets say map shift to the N key instead well 3 commands use shift and another key as well so this would not work unless I wanted 3 things to happen at the same time when I click on 1 key...

Maybe someone else on this forum knows how to accomplish this???

Sorry, I don't understand what is the problem? Well, maybe I do, but then I don't think there should be much problems, unless there's some technical limitation hidden here?

It may worth for me to repeat the example, possibly a bit differently. Let's say that you want the game to 'think' that you have pressed on Shift and M simply by pressing on the N key. In that case, within the mapper UI, what should be done is:
1. Select the N key in the mapper UI and delete its current mapping (to the real N key) using the 'Del' button, at least if it interferes in any way (e.g. entering text).
2. Select the left Shift key in the UI, delete any mapping that may interfere using 'Del', then click on 'Add' and finally press on the N key on your keyboard.
3. As before, select M in UI, delete any potentially conflicting mapping using 'Del', click on 'Add' and eventually press on the N key.

With this approach, it is really the N key that should cause two emulated key presses (and similarly key releases). You can add more mappings involving, say, the (emulated) left Shift key.

If you want Left alt to simulate Shift J, that shouldn't be a problem. Repeat as done before, just make sure you don't remove any mapping done for the Shift-M <-> N change.

Okay you told me to map N to the shift key okay well what u don't see is that in order for me to lets say map Shift J to Left alt I would need to add J also to the left shift key... So basically what u are telling me wont work. Also in the case of shift M going to N what you told me to do was delete the current mapping to M well if i do this then when I press M it won't bring up my map so another problem there.... My main concern isnt the shift M to N or the Shift J to Left alt. It is my actual movement. I want ctrl left arrow to become A and I want ctrl right arrow to become D . I want the up arrow to become W and the down arrow to become S. I lastly want the Jump button to become Space. These are my main goals I was just using shift M to N as an example and apparently the example doesn't work 🤣... I will try what u just told me with my movement and hopefully *fingers crossed* it will work. Thank you.

Okay so I managed to successfully map my movement keys to WASD as it should be (Using both left and right ctrl to do this). However now I need it so when I drag my mouse to the left it turns left and to the right it turns right. Is there an option for this?

Currently to turn right I would have to click the right arrow and to turn left I have to click the left arrow (these arrows to turn don't work now since I managed to successfully map my movement keys)...

Good to see you've gotten something to work. I still don't see much problems with two (host) physical keys simulating the same emulated key (say left Shift) in two different (emulated) key combos. Oh, may you refer to the case when these two physical keys are pressed simultaneously? Yeah, that may be a problem, indeed.

whitezombie455 wrote:

Okay so I managed to successfully map my movement keys to WASD as it should be (Using both left and right ctrl to do this). However now I need it so when I drag my mouse to the left it turns left and to the right it turns right. Is there an option for this?

Here is what you may consider a sad fact: Without some changes to DOSBox itself, no mouse can be involved in the mapping at all. Not the real mouse, nor an emulated one. Basically the real mouse is *always* mapped to an emulated one (and it's the only one which is mapped).

These numbers and directions you see in the UI refer to (emulated) joystick controls.

Dang it so there is no way to make it so when I look move my mouse left or right my player looks left or right???... dang it....🤣 kinda one of the most important things...

Bump......

What's there to bump? NY's answer was thorough enough.
You may find a Windows program to do what you want or you can probably use autoit to achieve this

There is no way to remap a mouse axis to a keypress using solely DOSBox.

You may be able to accomplish this by modifying DOSBox and SDL sourcecode. (Your requested feature may not work easily with SDL.)

You may be able to accomplish this with an AutoHotkey script. General suggestions on where to look.
http://www.gog.com/forum/realms_of_the_haunti … gling_mouselook
http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/45832-m … yboard-buttons/

If you want that level of input mapping built into a PC emulator without using helper apps, you could try switching to MESS (http://mess.redump.net ), based on MAME's framework if you are familiar with it - though it is still catching up to DOSBox in terms of compatibility and ease of use.

Stiletto wrote:

There is no way to remap a mouse axis to a keypress using solely DOSBox. […]
Show full quote

There is no way to remap a mouse axis to a keypress using solely DOSBox.

You may be able to accomplish this by modifying DOSBox and SDL sourcecode. (Your requested feature may not work easily with SDL.)

You may be able to accomplish this with an AutoHotkey script. General suggestions on where to look.
http://www.gog.com/forum/realms_of_the_haunti … gling_mouselook
http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/45832-m … yboard-buttons/

If you want that level of input mapping built into a PC emulator without using helper apps, you could try switching to MESS (http://mess.redump.net ), based on MAME's framework if you are familiar with it - though it is still catching up to DOSBox in terms of compatibility and ease of use.

Alright I posted my query on the autokey forums so hopefully I can get a response there or at least figure out how to write the script myself. Thank you all for all your help I appreciate it!