VOGONS

Remap joystick buttons to keyboard presses broken?

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First post, by rfnagel

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I'm not sure if I'm doing anything wrong here, but I can't seem to remap any of the buttons on my Gravis gampad to keyboard key presses.

I can start the DOSBox key mapper (via CTRL+F1), remap the buttons there, and then save the custom mapping (and yes, the "Mapper.txt" file is indeed being saved with the custom mappings). But, when at a DOSBox prompt the custom keys are not typed/entered into the prompt when pressing the corresponding joystick (gamepad) buttons.

Now, when the mapping is set to the defaults (e.g. "button 1 = button 1", "button 2 = button 2", etc...), that seems to work just fine.

Attached is a screenshot collage of what I'm refering to (and to prove that my gamepad is indeed functioning):

Screens 1 - 4 = Default key mapping for the joystick buttons.

Screens 5 - 9 - Just to show that my gamepads are indeed working with the default mapping (an old crude QBasic utility of mine running in DOSBox, works well shelled out of Windows XP as well).

Screens 10 - 13 = This does NOT work 🙁

Is this a bug in the current version of DOSBox, or am I simply doing something wrong (probably the latter of the two 🤣!)?

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

Reply 1 of 7, by ripsaw8080

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I think you may have the process backwards. The "event" is what happens, the "bind" is the key or button you press that triggers the event.

Reply 2 of 7, by robertmo

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was wondering if it wasn't more userfriendly if it was named input and output.

Reply 3 of 7, by NY00123

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Interestingly there was a report on the forums based on the exact same kind of confusion less than three weeks ago.

A few suggestions for alternative terms: "Emulated" on the other hand, and "Real", "Host" or "Physical" on the other.

I guess "Real" is the less bad choice 😀. "Host" can be a bit obscure (but so can "Emulated"?), while "Physical" may not make sense for some kinds of input devices. (e.g. sensors maybe?)

Reply 5 of 7, by rfnagel

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ripsaw8080 wrote:

I think you may have the process backwards. The "event" is what happens, the "bind" is the key or button you press that triggers the event.

That was it... MANY THANKS! 😀 Hehe, like I posted... prolly something that I was doing wrong 🤣!

That being said, my suggestion would be to simply flip the "bind" and "event" texts... it would be like almost all games that have a console.

e.g. bind a +attack

...meaning the "a" key perfoms the "+attack".

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

Reply 6 of 7, by NY00123

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Good to see problem is solved!

rfnagel wrote:

That being said, my suggestion would be to simply flip the "bind" and "event" texts... it would be like almost all games that have a console.

e.g. bind a +attack

...meaning the "a" key perfoms the "+attack".

Hmm, isn't it how it's done now? Bind a physical key (say the key 'g') to some event (like jbutton_0_0)? 😀

It must show this is a truly confusing situation, and different names may work better. There are actually two kinds of events involved: On the host (via SDL) and within the emulated machine.

Reply 7 of 7, by rfnagel

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NY00123 wrote:

Hmm, isn't it how it's done now? Bind a physical key (say the key 'g') to some event (like jbutton_0_0)? 😀

Please disreguard my previous brainless message <grin>... THAT is exactly how it works, the way that you stated (which makes perfect sense).

My ol' brain ain't what it used to be... and apparently is NOT currently engaged 🤣!

Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel
http://www.richnagel.net

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