| /---\ \ / /---\ | / /---- \ /
| | | \ / | | / | \ /
| | | | / |-- |--- |
| | | | / | \ | |
|___| \---/ | /____ | \ \---- |
*1.6.1*
Greetings!
Ever had some awesome game that was great in every way, only to be
spoiled by horrible keyboard controls? Wished you could pull out your
trusty joystick or joypad and start blasting aliens in STYLE? Now you can!
Joy2key will translate your joystick movements into the equivilent keystrokes
and send them to your application or game! Works great, no muss, no fuss!
Joy2key works both in X and at the console, (both raw and terminal modes.)
WHAT YOU NEED
-------------
- Support for the /dev/js interface. You _must_ have version 1.0 (included
since the 2.1.x kernel series) or later. All 2.0+ kernels theoretically
will support version 1.2.1 and on of the joystick driver. The driver
homepage is:
http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~vojtech/joystick/
(if for some reason you can only use the joystick driver 0.8.0 or earlier,
get joy2key 1.2 - however it lacks many features this version)
- A desire to play games with the joystick :-)
- The source code (joy2key-1.6.1.tar.gz) for joy2key, which you probably already
have if you are reading this.
COMPILING & INSTALLATION
------------------------
(note: for the rest of this file, commands to be typed will be denoted '$ foo',
where foo is to be typed in at the command and run)
- edit the makefile to your satisfaction
- type '$ make', (this will build the program)
- type '$ make install' (optional, will put joy2key in /usr/local/bin and
the joy2key man page in /usr/local/man/man1)
That's it! EASY!
USING JOY2KEY IN X
------------------
In this example, I'll use the game xkobo, which is a great shoot 'em up game
for X available here:
ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/systems/linux/sunsite/games/arcade/xkobo-1.9.tar.gz
It is perfect to joy2key.
Ok, assuming you have installed xkobo and all is good and well,
playing it with your joystick is only moments away!
Do this:
start xkobo '$ xkobo'
start joy2key '$ joy2key -X -buttons Shift_L s -axis Left Right Up Down'
You will be prompted to calibrate the joystick. Center it, press a button,
move to the low/high points, rinse and repeat, following the instructions.
Make sure it doesn't display a '?' when you press the button (you may have
to move the stick around a bit.) This calibrates joy2key to your stick.
These settings are NOT saved - if you want to avoid going through the
calibration each time, see "JOY2KEYRC" below.
The mouse cursor will turn into a crosshair. Click on
the xkobo window and joy2key will start.
Here's the meaning of the options.
-X means we're using X (as opposed to raw console or terminal mode.)
-buttons sets buttons 0 and 1 (we programmers like to count from 0 you know)
to Shift_L and s, which are shoot and pause in xkobo.
-thresh sets the axis threshold for the X and Y axis.
-axis sets the axis keys (what event to send when the joystick passes
the previously specified threshold)
See include/X11/keysymdef.h for the complete listing of key symbols in X. Don't
include the "XK_" when passing to joy2key. You can also use the program 'xev'
to catch keypresses and find out their key symbols.
It's possible to supply the window name (joy2key "xkobo" -X ...) on
the command line, then you will not be prompted with the crosshair to
select the window.
USING JOY2KEY IN TERMINAL MODE
------------------------------
This is for ncurses applications and other programs that use the
standard console interface.
In this case, you need -terminal instead of -X, -buttons and -axis
take either a) the ascii code of the character argument supplied (for
example a or H) a decimal (example: 65), octal (example: 034), or
hexidecimal (example: 0x60) number which is the ascii code you are
intersted in.
In terminal mode, the first argument may be the terminal that you want
to send keys to. "/dev/tty" is automatically prepended to it, so
"joy2key 3 -terminal ..." sends to /dev/tty3. You can also use
the full /dev/whatever path.
USING JOY2KEY IN RAW CONSOLE MODE
------------------------------
Only for the brave! Lets you interface with SVGALIB applications like
Doom and Quake.
In this case, use -rawconsole. Look in the file "rawscancodes" and
find the keys you want. You must supply these to -buttons and -axis.
Note: single digits 0-9 are interpreted as ascii 0-9 (which is ascii
40-49 or thereabouts) so you need to use hex notation (0x0 to 0x9) for
SCANCODE_ESCAPE through SCANCODE_8. Other option are unaffected.
The first argument on the command line works the same as in terminal mode.
AUTOREPEAT
----------
Thanks to Pierre Juhen, joy2key now has an autorepeat option.
Simply put -autorepeat on the command line and joy2key will repeatedly send
held down buttons at either the default or specified frequency.
CALIBRATION (-deadzone)
-----------------------
Alright, automatic calibration is pretty straightforward. If you
don't supply -thresh to the command line (as described below) you have
to calibrate yourself. The only non-obvious part is the -deadzone
option. Normally the threshold is set halfway in between the midpoint
and maximum for each axis. -deadzone is a percentage of how far from
the midpoint the threshold will be.
threshold = middle + ((maximum - middle) * deadzone)
1% is very sensitive (probably unplayable due to drift creating false events)
50% is normal sensitivity (default, threshold halfway between midpoint & extreme)
99% is very unsensitive (probably unplayable as well since nothing will register)
Feel free to experiment. -deadzone does not affect the -thresh option in
any way.
AVOIDING CALIBRATION
--------------------
Ok, earlier versions of joy2key required a clunky method of specifing
at what point (the "threshold") a joystick axis move would trigger a
key press/release event. New in this version you can calibrate
automatically, but I'm sure that will get annoying quickly, and you
will want to put you calibration in the below-mentioned joy2keyrc :)
This is the -thresh option. Did you notice that when you were
calibrating it spat out "Axis # low/high threshold set at #"? Those
are the threshold values. Put '-thresh low high low high ...' on the
command line where the first low is the low threshold for axis 0, high
is the high threshold for axis 0, the next low is the low theshold for
axis 1, etc. and you won't be bothered by the demand to calibrate
manually.
JOY2KEYRC (new in v1.4)
---------
Now you can avoid typing long annoying command lines for joy2key! The
new .joy2keyrc will store your configurations and let you use them
with the -config command. For example, running xkobo is now a simple
matter of:
'$ joy2key -rcfile joy2keyrc.sample -config xkobo'
However, if your rc file is in the default place ~/.joy2keyrc
'$ joy2key -config xkobo'
Neat, eh?
The format of joy2keyrc is simple. It consists of two types of blocks,
"COMMON" and "START" (case matters).
START blocks are followed by the configuration name ('START xkobo' in
this case) and then normal options as they would appear on the command
line. In the case of xkobo, it looks something like this:
START xkobo
-X
-buttons Shift_L s
-axis Left Right Up Down
COMMON blocks are always applied when the file is read in, so this
will contain settings common to all configurations (like -thresh or
-deadzone). Note that COMMON blocks are only read in when there is
either a -rcfile or -config on the actual command line.
Note you can include -rcfile and -config option in rc files themselves...
... I think :)
COPYING, LEGAL STUFF
--------------------
This software is under the GNU general public license (see COPYING in
this archive.) This basically means you can do whatever you want with
it, and to it. Have fun. Send me mail if you make something cool. I
CANNOT be held responsible for any damage, real or imagined, this
program might wreak upon your system. In the words of one great
hacker who escapes me at this moment: "If it breaks, you get to keep
both pieces."
That said, please mail me about your joy2key experiences!
I can be reached at:
tetron@interreality.org <Peter Amstutz>
Also there is a web page that will always have the latest version of
joy2key:
http://interreality.org/~tetron/technology/joy2key/
Have fun.
- Peter Amstutz
15:43 27 January 2005