Touch input on a Microsoft Surface Pro \ VOGONS

Touch input on a Microsoft Surface Pro

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First post, by jasondavidcarr

Posted on 2013-08-31, 20:21

jasondavidcarr Offline

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Joined: 2013-08-26, 07:30

Hey all,

I've been playing with DOSBox on a Microsoft Surface Pro. Everything works like a dream, except for touch input (no surprise there). I've noticed that for adventure games or other games where the keyboard isn't often needed, it would be fun and convenient to be able to play them/control them with the touchscreen, and you'd have a perfect little old-school gaming tablet.

Touch input behaves slightly differently depending on the game, but it never works correctly, unfortunately (you usually end up with sporadic results). I think the ideal way to do it would be to use the touchscreen as a trackpad/touchpad, much like Remote Desktop apps do on phones; this works extremely well, like controlling your mouse with a laptop touchpad (only the touchpad is a portion of the screen).

I've scoured the Internet for ways to make the Surface Pro work like a touchpad instead of an actual touchscreen, but I haven't found anything. I would imagine that if I had a driver that made the screen's touch input behave like a touchpad, it would work properly in DOSBox. But, unfortunately I haven't found anything that does that.

Does anyone have any ideas? I do know this support could be developed into DOSBox, so maybe it could be added to a requests list.

Thanks,
Jason

Reply 1 of 7, by Dominus

Posted on 2013-08-31, 23:39

Dominus Offline

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You could try An adaptation to SDL 2.0 (Alpha-level Android build attached) which has a win32 built against SDL2 which could be better with touchscreens.
Other than that it's not trivial what you ask for and has been asked for a couple of times in the last few years...

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 2 of 7, by jasondavidcarr

Posted on 2013-08-31, 23:49

jasondavidcarr Offline

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Ah, great. I'll give it a shot. I wondered if it might have to do with SDL. Thanks a ton. 😀

I'll update this ticket on whether or not I have any luck.

Reply 3 of 7, by jasondavidcarr

Posted on 2013-09-01, 00:10

jasondavidcarr Offline

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Joined: 2013-08-26, 07:30

Well, it gets a lot closer, but it's not really usable. For some reason full-screen isn't working properly in the alpha SDL2 version. The cursor does move properly and functions like a touchpad, which is cool, but it's so jumpy that it makes it unfortunately impossible to use.

Still, thanks for the info, Dominus. I'm still curious if a fake touchscreen mouse driver could be created for the Surface Pro that would make the current version of DOSBox work out of the box. But that's not for the DOSBox team to do. 😉

Thanks again.

Reply 4 of 7, by NY00123

Posted on 2013-09-01, 07:10

NY00123 Offline

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Joined: 2010-02-13, 19:42

Hey,

First of all, thanks for trying out this modification to DOSBox! On to some info:

- With the given modification, SDL touch input events are currently handled on Android only. On any other platform, usual SDL mouse input events are handled. On all platforms, mouse input is handled in the mapper UI, although that's not fully ready for Android. (Basically, for each touch event SDL further sends a simulated mouse event.)
- There are chances that SDL 2.0 can handle Windows touch/stylus input better, even if relative mouse motion (i.e. 'touchpad mode') is toggled on (with an SDL 2.0 call).
- Note that Android is the only OS for which I have tested touch input so far.
- DOSBox' mouse locking behaviors may have an effect. Chances are you want it locked, which should be the default once you toggle fullscreen on.
- Finally, tried playing with the dosbox-SVN.conf file? In particular check the output, renderer and mouse locking settings.
- Oh yeah, please check the SDL 2.0 patch thread for explanation about new/modified settings in the conf file. Alternatively, if a new .conf file is created then it should have relevant explanations embedded.