Mouse support added to Android input driver - feedback appreciated

[diablodiab1]

External mouse support and touch screen mouse emulation was added today to the Android version. I’ve done a lot of testing myself of the functionality, but I’m still a little worried that something might have been broken by the implementation (eg. issues with overlays) so feel free to provide feedback here if you want to test it.

You can read how it works here:

This adds external mouse support to the Android input driver. It also adds support for using the touch screen as mouse in cores with mouse support (eg. ScummVM).

Please note that the current version of ScummVM available on the updater has problems on Android Nougat. I’ve compiled a version that works on Nougat while working on a pull request that fixes it. You can download that version of ScummVM (for armeabi-v7a) by pointing the core updater to this url: http://lindqvist.synology.me/shield/

[Thatman84]

@diablodiab1

This has come just at the right time for me. Sorry to be dumb but I have never used mouse support in retroarch before.

What’s the process for enabling it. Is it all done after content is loaded? I found mouse support in Settings-> input. The tool tip says it’s for menu navigation. When switched on with a wireless BT mouse connected to my Shield TV I have no control of the menu. I do have the standard shield/mouse cursor though.

I don’t have scummvm setup. But will test other cores.

if you get a chance a couple of examples of the uses of the upgraded support would be awesome to help me understand what cores & games it will be useable with.

As a user I appreciate you helping to improve RetroArch

[diablodiab1]

I will need to do some testing myself in other cores, as I have only focused on ScummVM until now. For ScummVM you don’t need to do anything. If you install the core and start it you will get to the built in ScummVM menu. In there you can test if you can move the mouse cursor using the touch screen or using an external mouse you have connected to your device.

[diablodiab1]

Mouse support should work in other cores now as well, once the next nightly Retroarch build has been compiled. The mouse can be used as a lightgun in BSNES and Nestopia, for example.

It looks like it works pretty well with an external mouse, but with the touchpad it’s a little trickier. I’d appreciate feedback on how you think the touchpad mouse should handle mouse buttons.

[Thatman84]

So I have done limited testing on my Shield TV for other cores. I have to get some stuff over to my Nexus 7 tablet to duplicate it.

The one noticable thing is that the mouse range of motion is fairly large to cover the screen. Maybe 12 inches or so. This lead to me getting fully stretched out quickly.

Tested BT wireless mouse as Lightgun,

Nestopia tested fine bsnes Accuracy also tested fine Genesis Plus GX for SMS games I had no movement but if I set BOTH players to MS Light Phazer I could use left click to shoot. Only player 2 had the option for MD Menace gun but I could get it to shoot or move the rectile

Here are some videos of the tests

[diablodiab1]

Thanks for the feedback.

I think there is a general problem with the Lightgun support in Genesis Plus GX, and that it might not work on any platforms at the moment. It would be interesting to check this first.

About the mouse range of motion - would you prefer that it was somewhat similar to the motion of the native Android mouse cursor?

About the Android mouse cursor - I could submit a pull request that would by default disable the native Android mouse cursor on Android devices that supports this. If at some point Retroarch supports mouse clicking of the GUI menus it might conflict with that if it is hidden by default. What are your views on this?

[Thatman84]

Cool, I think for the motion range it could do with being a bit more sensitive but I expect it would need more user feedback incase i’m the only one.

Disabling the mouse cursor imo would be better as a core/Main Menu option if possible and on as default. Help first time users to gauge things. Which would probably future proof it.

I also had time to test on my tablet. I found the cursor to be more responsive although it drifted and was really hard for fine movement in bsnes & Nestopia as the rectile tracks your finger, staying put when finger leaves the screen. NES games were really fast making it very hard to get hits. Bsnes was one tap shot & Nestopia was double tap

The bigger finding was that body count for Genesis recognised the MD Menacer When set as player 2 so I could select the gun controller and game play was great. Quick left right finger tap was grenade and double tap-hold was machine gun. Accuracy was pretty good. Other games for SMS worked with quick double tap but a bit more difficult to play, rectile sat a bit off to left in all games. Rambo III, marksman, missile defence.

I tried lethal enforcers 1 & 2 without success for Genesis

For gen plus core the rectile would snap to the centre when releasing the screen but responded well to tap shooting around the screen but a little off on accuracy. Easy to get decent scores and adjust to it.

I have no clue how the games above played previous to today as never tried them.

And Shield TV wise in Body Count for MD left and right mouse click worked fine but no rectile movement with mouse at all.

[Thatman84]

Another test with MAME this time (I have no clue if this worked already). Similar result to snes & nes on speed and mouse range.

MAME wouldnt recognise my right click or wheel click buttons on droid or windows

[rclong]

I’d love to get an AirMouse and play ZeroPoint on Mame.

[Thatman84]

I may give ZeroPoint a go see how it plays!

[talos91]

It seems Metal Combat is unplayable using the Snes9x Superscope with only the touchscreen because the secondary attack is mapped to the mouse middle button and there is no way to do that with only the touchscreen making the tutorial part when you have to use the cursor button to change to the bomb unpassable, please see:

Superscope for Android?

So the Snes9x core for Android has Superscope support that works with the touchscreen but is there any way to use the other Superscope buttons on Android? For example in Metal Combat you need the cursor button to use bombs. I simulated a physical mouse using an app (needs root) and it seems the middle mouse button (BTN_MIDDLE) is mapped to that cursor button, is there any other way to play this game with only the touchscreen? Maybe an overlay that adds those buttons can be added.

[sandro81]

Hello. please could you let me know how i can disable it? I did not got what to do with the android_input.c. I use overlays into dosbox and this is causing issues. I like play using the joypad and when i need i use overlay keyboard to input, having the touch mouse create issues. Many thanks.

[talos91]

it seems the touch input to move the superscope cursor no longer works on RetroArch 1.7.3 and latest Snes9x core. Was it removed?

[talos91]

Nevermind the touch to move cursor is working now on latest nightly, still no way to play the snes game metal combat with just the touchscreen cause you get stuck in the tutorial where you have to press the superscope cursor button. Any way you could add a way to remap superscope keys to buttons? The superscope had a cursor button, turbo switch and pause button I think. Or could you create a overlay that has those supercope buttons?

[rclong]

sorry to resurrect it always wants to use touch and never grab the cursor. how can I toggle it?

[falk42]

Reviving this thread as it’s the appropriate topic: Would it be possible to add support for the “requestPointerCapture” API (see description over at https://developer.android.com/training/gestures/movement) so to only show the game’s mouse cursor? This has been implemented for a few other apps (Magic DosBox or Steam Link) and works great from Android Oreo and up.