[aquaria] D-pad support for gamepads

[Andrew Church]

>Really, though, there needs to be a way to configure the d-pad through
>the key config menu, so that you can change the songs that the d-pad
>activates. Ideally, this could use all 8 d-pad directions. There are two
>main problems there. First, the key config menu does not have room.
>Maybe if it were split into two pages?

I think the key config menu needs an overall redesign -- no offense to
Alec, of course, but it does look rather plain compared to the other
menus (plus the small text would be unreadable on handheld systems).
I wonder if there's a "plain" version of the frame used for stuff like
confirmation dialogs; we could use the regular bitmap font on that,
maybe with drop shadows for clarity, and have however many pages are
needed for the various controls.

Come to think of it, it might actually be a good idea to split the
config pages up by input type (mouse/keyboard/joystick) -- that way,
non-PC devices (PSP, Android, etc.) could just skip the inapplicable
pages entirely while keeping roughly the same interface.

>And second, in order to get all 8
>directions, we'd need some sort of delay so that when you press to the
>left/up, you can momentarily be pressing left without effect.

IMHO, that's not really feasible, because no matter how you set it up,
you end up with (1) accidental left input as you try to press left/up
(which you're trying to avoid) or (2) delayed response to left input
when you're _not_ trying to press left/up.  You could probably tune it
so that it works for "most people most of the time", but to be honest,
one of my pet peeves is exactly that sort of thing -- because Murphy's
law says (and my experience agrees) it _won't_ work when you need it to.

I've actually been thinking of mapping the D-pad to the singing
interface on the PSP, since the analog pad isn't accurate enough to
consistently sing correctly.  There are two songs that end on a diagonal
note (energy and Li), but since you can close the singing interface with
the D-pad held down, you can at least work around the above problem.

  --Andrew Church
    achurch at achurch.org
    http://achurch.org/