Input and Sensors

By creating your game and extending gameplay::Game, you'll be able to add all the required handlers of input events. Additionally, there are methods on gameplay::Game to poll for the current sensor data. This architecture insulates you, as a developer, from the platform-specific details on handling keyboard, touch and mouse events, and from polling the accelerometer state. The following illustrates overridden methods to handle input events:

#include "gameplay.h"
using namespace gameplay;
class MyGame : public Game
{
    // Input events
    void keyEvent(Keyboard::KeyEvent evt, int key);
    void touchEvent(Touch::TouchEvent evt, int x, int y, unsigned int contactIndex);
    bool mouseEvent(Mouse::MouseEvent evt, int x, int y);
    void gamepadEvent(Gamepad::GamepadEvent evt, Gamepad* gamepad);
    
    // Input methods
    void displayKeyboard(bool display);
    void registerGesture(Gesture::GestureEvent evt);
    void getAccelerometerValues(float* pitch, float* roll);
    // ...
};

Mouse

Game::mouseEvent() is called when a mouse event occurs.

Mouse events that are not consumed will be interpreted as a touch event. You can consume a mouse event by overridding Game::mouseEvent() and returning true. This gives you the option to uniquely handle mouse events from touch events. Game::mouseEvent() returns false by default.

Note that some mobile devices can use a Bluetooth mouse.

Mouse Capture

Game::setMouseCaptured() can be used to enable mouse capture. While mouse capture is enabled, all mouse move events will then be delivered as deltas instead of absolute positions.

Game::setCursorVisible() can be used to hide the mouse cursor.

Touch

Game::touchEvent() is called when a touch event occurs. x and y are screen coordinates where the top left is 0,0. Some platforms may allow you to touch outside the bounds of the screen so negative x and y values are possible.

Multi-touch

You can enable multi-touch using Game::setMultiTouch(). The Game::touchEvent() parameter contactIndex is used to differentiate the touch contacts. Do not assume that the contactIndex values are sequential.

Keyboard

Game::keyEvent() is called when a keyboard event occurs.

Showing the virtual keyboard

You can call Game::displayKeyboard() to show or hide a virtual keyboard for platforms that support it.

Gestures

Some platforms support gestures. Game::isGestureSupported() can be used to determine which gestures are supported.

Game::registerGesture() is used to register for a type of gesture. Once a gesture is registered, you will receive callbacks via Game::gestureSwipeEvent(), Game::gesturePinchEvent() or Game::gestureTapEvent().

Accelerometer

You can call Game::getAccelerometerValues() and pass in pointers to parameters that will be populated with the current sensor values for the accelerometer.

Gamepad

You can listen for gamepad events via Game::gamepadEvent(Gamepad* gamepad), this will return you a gameplay::Gamepad instance that has been connected or disconected which you can manage yourself. You can also use a game.config file to define a virtual gamepad from a UI form that would typically be used on mobile devices. The form contains joystick and button controls with data bindings to the appropriate button mappings defined in an enumeration in the Gamepad class.

Ex. game.config

gamepads
{
    form = res/common/gamepad.form
}