yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
What I'm proposing is an app called (for example) gamezone that brings up to controls system and a list of compatible games which you then select and which run in the game window.

The advantage of a agreed single solution is that then skinning, modding and developing for it can be universal
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] gaelynx:
Gesture Area

There is some interesting ideas here :)

May I suggest that the 4 soft keys (receive call, home, back, hang up) are actually part of the touch-screen and therefore the whole area below the screen could be used as a "Gesture Area" (Sound familiar? Its a Preferable name ;)) giving us some control possibility without wasting any bit of display for the screen itself!

The most obvious use of this area would be for scrolling.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] montag09:
Multitouch gamepad for MorphGear

I'm attaching a multitouch gamepad for the MorphGear emulator. I've just added the multitouch capability; I took a QVGA gamepad built by someone called Tim Rolls, resized it and added a few virtual (non visible) buttons to it.

It's designed so that it works for me :) I have big thumbs and because of that, the 'multitouch' virtual buttons cover big areas. The downside is that I have a limited space and I can't add al the possible combinations. The currently working buttons (those that you can press simultaneously) are:

- Right direction + a button

- Right direction + b button

- Left direction + a button

- Left direction + b button

- right+down diagonal + a button

- left+down diagonal + b button

The position of the virtual buttons is not exact. Rather than calculate accurate positions and areas, I tried it playing with a real game (Super Castlevania IV for SNES module), and see how a player would press the buttons. You don't press in the same exact coordinates all the time...

This is not intended to be a solution, it's just a test to demonstrate that Kizmet and others are in the right direction.

If anyone tries this, please let me know if it works for you. If you open the BMP file and the .txt, you will see how it works. Easy to modify/improve!

P.D: and no code at all.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Major_Sarcasm:
I'm curious, did you think of this idea all by yourself or with some help... ;)

I'm not bothered if you ripped of my idea actually, I'm pleased that people are taking my/our idea further.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] montag09:
Hi Major_Sarcasm, I know you posted this in a previous thread, since I was in that thread as well... I don't know who had the idea first, but for sure was not me :) I just took that and made and very simple and buggy MG gamepad. And I can say the idea from you guys does work.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Major_Sarcasm:
And I'm pleased you did, my friend. Hopefully, this idea will help people play games on the HD. Let's face it, at the moment, games playing wise, it's a bit of a lame duck with no multitouch.

I wasn't really having a go at Kizmet ;) He probably didn't even see my post and arrived at the same conclusion as me (just a week or so later :D)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
Are you being sarcastic, major sarcasm? ;-)

I worked out the multitouch thing when i was skinning throttlelock... if you press on two parts of the grid the centre point is selected... that got me thinking.

And actually... the more i think about it the more unnecessary it seems... it

makes much more sense to use the hardware buttons at the bottom... home, back etc than spend processor power on that multitouch. the concept will come in useful... but for games it would be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut!

Those buttons would allow more screen space for the dpad thus better control and 8 way instead of just 4.

This is the more elegant way to go... seize control of those buttons and pause the game and return control when an incoming call comes.

Bigger d pad = better solution.

and throw g sensing in, mate, and then I don't care whos idea it was... I just want to use it and play awesome games. :-)

Peace.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Major_Sarcasm:
Quite so, bud :)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] blacktdm:
I'm so enthusiast !!

the simplest ideas are the best, and using center point is for sure a simple idea.

Montag's pad is working very well and I can play sonic completely well!! it really works well
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] montag09:
Any of you guys can help with some sites or resources where I can find info about the WM 6.1 API? I would like to implement some of your ideas, to have, at least, a proof concept for each one. I have good knowledge of .Net Framework platform, but not focused in WM or the API, so I need some starting point.

Thanks!
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
Well, you can forget about using the sensor method... i was playing around with the front sensor and I don't think it's sensitive enough.

Now it just remains to be seen whether the hardware buttons (back, home, call, end) can be pressed at the same time as the screen. First impression is no. :-( But that could be because they are bound to other tasks.

If they can't be used then we're down to just the calculated multitouch option... which is good... but not the best.

Anyone know if they can be pressed at the same time as the screen?
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] gaelynx:
Not possible because they are part of the touchscreen layer.

You can try by yourself: Keep holding one finger on the screen, then try tapping one of your 4 buttons.. They wont work because resistive technology=1 contact point at a time.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Major_Sarcasm:
Kiz, is it worth changing the title of this thread to [SOLVED] Multi-touch on Blackstone [WIP] Devs input required or similar?

We have got multi-touch working to a fashion... the title change would generate more interest.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
Merge with WVGAFIX ?

Hi, just an idea:

If this upcoming app should be as universal as possible, shouldn't it be somehow merged with WVGAFIX3 ? I mean, most of the apps run anyway in VGA mode, thus the need of WVGAFIX to be able to run them. So instead of trashing the bottom pixels, wouldn't it be possible to reserve them for a kind of dpad ?

So we would have options as following:

- WVGA

- VGA (for apps not needing a dpad)

- VGA + VDPAD (Virtual DPAD) :)

- VGA + GDPAD (Game DPAD) :cool:

- SQVGA

and then the set button.

The main advantage would be to have this app also working fo things like moving through files in the explorer and menus and so on...

Note that I have no clues on how WVGAFIX is coded and if this is even possible without rewriting everything... :D

Just my 2 cents.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
I think you're right... but because HTC refer to them as hardware buttons I wonder if they have separate switches. The best way to test this is to use aebutton or similer to unbind one of the buttons and see if it affects the touchscreen input.

if not then we can use them and not have to worry about multitouch.

If they are then the possibility is to unbind them and use them as part of the touchscreen and calculate multitouch... this would give us maximum screen space and allow a 160 px dpad which is an ok size... any smaller is not as useable.

can someone with aebutton plus test this?
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
Good idea. I think it's stretching it to say it's solved... but we do have a potential solution. We have multitouch... but only in limited situations. however.... that's all we really need. :-)

How about [REQ] Dev input on Multitouch Gamepad for Blackstone....?

What is needed is a few people working on this to get it working asap. Perhaps we should get a team together?
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
From what I understand it would be possible... but because wvgafix hides those extra px from the system you'd need to write a shell app that used wvgafix as the display engine and intercepted touches first.

I think it might be easier to code the gamezone app to display vga games itself.

This form of multitouch can't be a universal solution because it renders much of the touchscreen useless.

So touchscreen games wouldn't work. This solution is for arcade games, really.

The options are:

wvga games should work natively and be designed for touchscreens.

vga touchscreen and dpad games work with wvgafix and a g pad virtual controller like tirinoarim's.

Vga games that need buttons but not touchscreen have no current solution. that's what we need. Games that require it would either autoload it or be run fom within it.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Major_Sarcasm:
How about [WORKING] Multi-touch gamepad on Blackstone [DEVS HELP TO REFINE?] Then at least people can see that we have some progress and it's not just another lame thread asking about whether it's possible. This would generate interest and separate it from other similar threads.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] gaelynx:
This thread is getting more and more interesting! :)

Before I own my Blackstone, I was hoping that the bottom area (with the 4 buttons) was similar to the scroll-wheel area of the Diamond (cf Multi-Touch on the HTC Touch Diamond!) and therefore we could use that bottom area for some pinching/zooming magic...

I even thought about creating a guitar hero / frets-on-fire game using that bottom area for multiple inputs. But now I'm sorry to realize that it wont be possible to get hardware multi-touch on HD.

And that's why if we rename that thread, please put "Software Multi-touch", otherwise it would be misleading, and somewhat disappointing...

I'm interested however in understanding how HTC manage that bottom area to make it as if it was 4 hardware buttons. There must be some process running in the background...

I would join the team if I was not already busy with another project (which is also a solution to "Game controlling on Blackstone"... wiimote ;) )
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
Ok, mate. Sounds good.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
Fair points, mate. But stay tuned... thanks to great work from montag we know it'll work... now it's just a case of doing it the best way.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] gaelynx:
I'll stay tuned for sure, this software multi-touch solution is a very good idea :)

Hopefully it will soon move to the "Themes, Applications and Software" section with a shiny new title "[APP] Software Multi-touch gamepad on Blackstone", or something like that, once more devs get into it.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] tobi1984:
very looking forward to this !!
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
duplicate post
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
Made a new skin for MG

I've made a new skin, trying to do some multi-touch in morphgear.

You'll see that because of the key layout, it's not so possible to map every combination.

It's designed mainly for SNES games, but you can just edit txt file to map other buttons (e.g. change x to c...)

Note that I haven't tryed it much yet, so it may need some refinements to fine tune multi-touch.

Here it goes:

Dredd67's WVGA Multi-touch skin for MorphGear v 0.1

Thought that a black skin would suit nicely our wonderful blackstone hehe.. :D

Thanks to Montag09 for MT concept.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] sschrupp:
You all are awesome! I can't wait to try this after work. :)

It's too bad we can't combine that with the g-sensor. The g-sensor just screams to be used as an analogue joystick/d-pad.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
Looks very cool, mate. :) As you say... the key layout makes all combinations impossible.. I think in the final version we need to be realistic and limit ourselves to two buttons and an 8way dpad.

I think it will also be easier to program the pad and the keys on opposite sides of the landscape screen... does MG allow you to test this?
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
Who says we can't? :)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
I don't know, will try this morning, but I think the pad only pops up in portrait mode, so quite unusable...
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Major_Sarcasm:
That is damned impressive.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
Thanks, although as I said it's not working 100% as I would like it to be. I may try to rearrange things a bit to get better multi-touch and usability, even if it will loose some sex-appeal...

@Kizmet

I've spent some time this morning to try things and gather some informations:

it's not possible to make a skin with a right and left part, because for that we would need to use transparancy, and .bmp files doesn't handle this. Without that, we are stuck with a one-area-only skin.

I think the vpad part should be rewrote, but and can't get the hand on the source code even if it's stated that the code has been made available.

If someone knows where to find this, it would be nice to have an eye on it:

- We need to be able to use GIF or better, PNG for transparancy.

- We should to be able to decide in the skin where the actual game window renders exactly.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
wip

just a wip for full mt:

I just need to move the buttons a bit to the right and do the corresponding map which is a hassle, but it should work this way with full multi-touch...
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
By the way, I've got FPSECE 0.96 working on my device, with VGA driver, and .bin images:

Only 30 fps, but I have high hopes for version 0.1 which should be released soon.

I will try to do a skin also for this new version, with MT support. (It's a pain to play FF when you can't run (direction + square) and stuck with 30 fps...)

Oh, and you need to use WVGAfix for proper VPAD mapping...
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
I'm thinking that if we hard code the vpad into an app and then run the game in a window in the app that would solve speed issues without needing transparency.

I think we need to keep this as simple as possible to make it effective in use.

To summarize the processs steps that I think are necessary:

Launch GameZone app

App presents you with a list of compatible games and key configurations

On launching a game the App then unbinds hardware buttons at the bottom and rebinds them to game functions and install 150 px dpad at the top of the screen.

The dpad must have a haptic feedback ring around it so that, in use, a signal is provided to the user that he/she is approaching the edge of the dpad.. this will improve the usage.

Additional 10px can be used at the bottom of the screen to provide labels for the bottom hardware buttons (if necessary)

The game then runs within the remaining 640*480 landscape window and recieves virtual keypresses directly from the App.

On phonecall state is suspended and control returned to the OS. Resume resumes state.

The distance of 600px and height of 480px will make the calculating of multitouch much easier and will allow for larger 'fuzzy' areas where the finger is not 100% accurate.[

Any vital ideas for changes or additions are obviously welcome...
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] scottyuk:
OMG!

Do you think you'll be able to get FF7 working on the touch HD??:eek:

That is my all time favourite game!!

Please tell me its possible!! :D

There's some really great work happening for our Touch HD's!

Keep up the great work! :)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
I think you didn't got me right mate, it IS running on my touch HD. Just quite slow but usable (30 fps, that's the half of the real speed).

What you need:

- FpseCE 0.96beta

- PSX bios (I'm using SCPH1001, but SCPH7502 will also work and maybe others)

- the 3 iso of the game's CD. It only worked with .bin and .cue format. Don't use PocketISO 3 right now, it's not working.

Google for the softwares listed above.

Then use WVGAFIX3 that you can find on XDA, to set up your screen as a VGA device for proper pad mapping.

My settings:

- Bios: SCPH1001

- Country: EUR

- CPU mode: recompiler

- CPU Type: ARM V4

- GFX Driver: VGA

- Frameskip enabled, and set to 3 with th virtual pad.

Orange 1.19 stock, rom, no special driver installed (quartz, omnia,...)

Maybe other options are working, didn't try all the combinations.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
I have one issue with this: if I understand correctly, you want to use the virtual buttons as real buttons, and the area on the top as a place for drwing a dpad. So that the hidden virtual buttons will be in the middle of the screen.

Problem is that some softwares like Morphgear will just take you back to the portrait mode and menu bar if the screen is pressed in the middle. So no multitouch possible with this solution, or you will need to isolate the app from receiving inputs from this part of the screen...

I'll try to think to other possible issues and ideas, got to work a bit now. :D
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Morden:
If possible, could you guys periodically update the first post with updates? It's a bit difficult to understand what you guys managed to do by following the end of the thread.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] sschrupp:
Kizmet and Dredd67, you two need to set up donation links for yourselves. I think this is the most excited I've been so far since I bought my Blackstone! Seeing FF7 being played almost made my heart skip a beat! :)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] scottyuk:
Agreed, this is donation worthy. This has so much potential! :)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
I think Kizmet will do it as soon as we have some real improvements.

Some things need to be cleared up:

- I'm currently working on a skin for Morphgear that use the concept of fake multi-touch (when you press two areas at the same time, the OS thinks you have pressed in the middle of these areas.) That's what you see on the screenshot I've made. It's almost done now, maybe I will release this skin tomorrow. This is kind of proof of concept for multitouch.

-FPSECE is another promising emulator, and it runs actually quite well but slow due to the lack of proper htc drivers and optimizations. A new version should come out soon, and I will probably do the same sort of skin if possible as the one I'm working on for Morphgear.

- The main project is completely different, as its aim is to develop an app that will basically add virtual buttons and multitouch to any applications. In this project I'm involved as skinner only... ehhhh I think.

Well, I think that for the moment you should'nt be too much excited yet, this is only the beginning of the project. The proof of concept has been made, but that's all. Personally I don't feel the need to ask for any donations, it's a hobby, not a job.

You know, I already opened an account for donations when I made some skins for SPBMS2 and manilla2D, because some people asked for, but I never got any cent on it, even if the download count was measured in thousands... So I'm quite pissed off with this donation stuff, and from now on, I only do things that I like working on.

If you feel the need to donate, donate to XDA in my name ;)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
The advantage of running the app as a 'shell' is that then it will only pass on screentaps that are pre-defined.. and this solves that issue.

Theroetically emulators can run in the window using full resolution or native games written for the ppc that require hardware keys. Anything that *requires* touchscreen input won't work.. but you can play them using wvgafix anyway.. so there is no point in trying to find a solution for that.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
Aye. Keep your money in your pockets, guys for the moment.... as far as I am concerned this is an open development in much the same way as the fingerkeyboard.

I strongly believe that many hands make light work so if anyone has ideas or suggestions or expertise that can improve this app.. then please contribute... either on here or PM me if you're shy... ;)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
sorry.. double post

In the meantime here is rough idea of how I think the app will look:

(Dredd67 - I put in some Playstation buttons... just for you.... ;) :D)

As you can see there is space on the left hand dpad for as many action buttons as we need... however only 2 multitouch buttons... for simplicity.... we could have all four...
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
LOL thanks for the PS buttons ;)

I was just thinking that this thread should be in the develeopment section to grab some attention from real devs...

We should ask a mod to move this thread to blackstone>themes, apps and so on.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] chaosdefinesorder:
Just a question, but does your virtual button mapping actually work? Not even CorePlayer set to grab all buttons or AE Button can re-map the "home" key - wouldn't you be better off mapping the End and OK buttons instead?
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] montag09:
Hey guys, I'm also working on a proof of concept built in .Net framework. I leave the art for others, though :) You will have news of me in this post...
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] gaelynx:
Here is another Proof of concept (by Jamie Fuller on a Nokia 5800) of the same idea of software multi-touch on resistive touchscreen.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
Sounds good ! Why not join our task-force and improve it together ? I'm in for the "art" ;) :D
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
I've already seen this article on engadget. Seems good, but its based on S60, so useless for us.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] vijay555:
G Sensor

Guys, I wrote Kizmet a long private message that he'll relay here, I hope.

But I forgot to add - why the long face re the G-Sensor? Adding in the functionality is easy, there are many open source examples.

I suggest looking at the Sensor Maze source code on this site to find a good clean implementation.

V
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
To be honest I was never concerned that the idea wouldn't work the theory is sound... what I was interested in was the easiest, fastest and best way of getting it to work on our phones. And making an app flexible so that it can be used in lots of situations.

:)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
I've just made a new thread for the Morphgear skin v0.2, with a link to this thread also:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=3415514#post3415514

Nice that the thread has been moved, I think more people will pay attention now.

@Kizmet: Maybe you should update the 1st post to reflect the current status.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
And what a PM it was! :D

I had considered using a third party app for g-sensor control.. but it makes much more sense to include it as part of the App.

FYI the main part of vijay's PM:

Genius. :)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
The problem with this forum is the speed at which threads move off the page.. I'll have to keep updating a lot to keep it up...

:D
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] wedge666:
Just to add something to the discussion, I'm playing Return to Mysterious Island on the HD using WVGAFix3. The game is controled by touchscreen (tap on the right to turn right, tap on the left to turn left, etc.) and what might interest you is that the black area is accepted as input (left in this case since the game is landscape), so it seems to me that that area might be dead to the OS but not to the driver. Hope this helps.

EDIT: I just did some more testing using the inventory screen where a cursor is controled by touch and "multitouch" seems to work even using the black area, the cursor stays between my fingers.
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Kizmet:
Nice work, mate... that's useful to know... a quick question.... on the inv screen does the cursor stay at the edge of the screen or can you move it inward with one finger in the black area and one in the active screen?
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Dredd67:
That's a nice feedback I'm sure it will help our programmers here. Thanks for your comment. :)
[Touch HD Themes and Apps] seawaves:
I'm playing the same game wedge666 played. And to answer your question, Kizmet, there is no curser in the game. It works by pressing anywhere along the edges of the screen, and the display (of the character) moves to that direction. But the thing is that when I press on the black area the "display" of the character moves to that direction!