Re: [gamepad] Haptic Feedback/Controller Vibration

On 4/3/2014 12:05 PM, Florian Bösch wrote:
> Every controller is an assemblage of input and output hardware. It's
> vastly much easier to to oversee what kind of devices you'll get which
> are:
>
>   * Buttons (down or up)
>   * Axes (scalar value)
>   * Rumbles (speed)
>   * Motors (negative/positive force and/or scalar value for position)
>   * Screens (bitmap)
>   * Lights (intensity and/or color)
>   * Touchpads (touch events)
>   * Text displays (text)
>
> That's not a "monolythic API", that's how every other game controller
> API in existence on any platform works (like evdev, DirectInput,
> etc.). The attempt to wrap specific usecases is what is a monolythic
> monster API that tries to be everything and the kitchensink in the end.
>
Note: DirectInput has been deprecated in favor of XInput, a much simpler
API that maps directly to the Xbox 360 controller:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee417001%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Trying to design an API that's everything to everyone is extremely hard
and likely to produce unsatisfactory results. We chose to focus on the
most useful subset of things that are common to all controllers. I
believe the API we've spec'ed is useful in spite of not covering
everything that exists in the world. I am not opposed to the idea of
extending it to cover other common features of game controllers, but I
do think we'll stick to concepts that are widely accepted (like
vibration) and not bleeding-edge things supported by a single device
(touchpads, colored LED). If these things gain traction then it makes
sense to discuss spec'ing them. Otherwise you run the risk of spec'ing
something that has only one hardware example, thus making the API hard
to generalize to other devices that introduce similar (but not
identical) features in the future.

-Ted