Touchscreen mouse emulation

[Dunny]

Over on the GP32X forums, I've been informed by Mr Craig Rothwell that patching an amiga emulator to use a touchscreen to control the mouse is likely impossible.

I disagree - I envisage a system that translates touchscreen coords into mouse movements (a displacement from the current mouse pointer coordinate to the new position). This would be quite easy for say, intuition, and might be a tad more involved if you're running a game, but I think it should be easy enough to do.

Any thoughts? I mean, it's not like it's impossible to detect when a game reads the mouse, is it? You just supply your values instead of the real mouse coords/delta.

In particular, Toni, what are your thoughts on this? I'm not asking for it in WinUAE, but I need to know how difficult it would be in general under emulation.

D.

[Photon]

Well, WinUAE works already with my LCD tablet, so. I guess what is needed is to translate the Wiz pen movements to mouse coords the same way my tablet's driver does? And then it will work as a mouse. As for games, well a mouse is relative and a tablet is absolute. So defo more work. But I think pre-translating the pen input instead of patching the emulator has a better chance. Doesn't the Wiz pen already work just like a mouse?

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Photon

Well, WinUAE works already with my LCD tablet, so. I guess what is needed is to translate the Wiz pen movements to mouse coords the same way my tablet's driver does? And then it will work as a mouse. As for games, well a mouse is relative and a tablet is absolute. So defo more work. But I think pre-translating the pen input instead of patching the emulator has a better chance. Doesn't the Wiz pen already work just like a mouse?

No idea This is for the Pandora.

I've already said that games will require a case-by-case solution, but overriding the games' behaviours without necessarily modifying the game code. I'd love a version of carrier command that used the touchscreen properly...

D.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Dunny

No idea This is for the Pandora.

Maybe this thread belongs to http://eab.abime.net/forumdisplay.php?f=54 then?

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

Maybe this thread belongs to http://eab.abime.net/forumdisplay.php?f=54 then?

Not sure if it's a problem, as such, I'm just looking to explore the possibilities of modifying one of the UAE branches for that platform.

D.

[Merlin]

Touchscreens will still use a PS/2 protocol for the mouse movement, so I wouldn't have expected any nasty surprises with the pointer. I'm not sure about the button clicks though....

[Toni Wilen]

There is no way to have generic game compatible absolute mouse to relative mouse conversion and I don't like game specific hacks, sorry.

System friendly software works perfectly fine with built-in "mousehack" input handler. (was external in older versions)

[eLowar]

Why not just translate dragging to mouse movement?

I mean you can't point and click then, but I could imagine it being convenient enough once one gets used to it, and if the speed is adjustable. Kind of like a combined screen/trackpad.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

There is no way to have generic game compatible absolute mouse to relative mouse conversion and I don't like game specific hacks, sorry.

System friendly software works perfectly fine with built-in "mousehack" input handler. (was external in older versions)

I wasn't asking you to do it - I just wanted to figure out how possible it is. If I need to modify UAE sources to do it, I'll do it myself

D.

[s2325]

Is there a way to use WinUAE with NEC AS221WM monitor and Windows 7? Amiga pointer is at random position with each touch.

[Mnemesi]

WinUAE 's pretty random with a Fujitsu P16xx series laptop's touchscreen too, sadly. I was hoping to rip some pixels using DPaint, but no, it wants to jiggle back to the lower right corner on first contact.

[Toni Wilen]

You need Amiga-side driver for touchpads or any other absolute pointing devices, real or emulated Amiga.

Enable "Virtual mouse driver" (Checkbox in Game Ports panel). This is improved old mousehack option.

You can try to use a software that is named Cok Free Mouse Emulator to contorl your touchscreen.

[xArtx]

How is the mouse position X:33 Y:210 stored in the Amiga's memory,
and why couldn't you directly change it to the touch point coordinates returned by the touch screen device
(after a coordinate translation from the native screen resolution to the Amiga's resolution)?

Is there anything preventing someone setting the Amiga mouse position directly,
causing it to instantly jump from one location to another?
I mean by altering the emulated Amiga's memory directly, not talking to it through
a UAE interface that says "please move the mouse this way".
The mouse position has to exist in memory somewhere, or it wouldn't exist.

[Toni Wilen]

It wouldn't work. Learn how input.device and IDCMP work.

Programs don't read some memory location when they need to check mouse position, they ask the OS to send messages (nearly everything is message based) when mouse moves or if "something" happens (menu selected, window close button clicked, disk inserted, etc..) and also most programs want mouse position relative to their window's top/left edge, not absolute coordinate.

[xArtx]

and also most programs want mouse position relative to their window's top/left edge, not absolute coordinate.

Oh, bummer, I def wasn't pretending to know better, or I'd be making statements
rather than asking questions.
It did occur to me that the Amiga program could be receiving mouse movements
rather than coordinates, and have to process that itself, but I didn't want to
provide an answer for the question I'm asking.

[Retro1234]

This must be possible with System friendly stuff, the mouse coordinates can be set from a Tool in Cli so it must be possible.

[Daedalus]

Of course it is - Toni said so a few posts up.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

System friendly software works perfectly fine with built-in "mousehack" input handler.

[Retro1234]

Android UAE needs it.