Question: Handling Hold Input on Entities

[itsOgden]

Hey guys,

Just trying to clarify the question I posted on the ImpactJS forums. I don't think I explained my issue very well so I'm going to try again :)

I'm wanting to (on any type of entity) get the inputPoint and do a few actions when it is tapped OR held. Do I do this with the handleInput method? I thought that is how I would do it, but I can't seem to get it to even register a console log when I hold.

[Pattentrick]

Hi @itsOgden,

yes you could do that within the handleInput of your game method and iterate through inputPoints = ig.input.getInputPoints(['tapped'], [true]); like it does in the original method:

https://github.com/collinhover/impactplusplus/blob/dev/lib/plusplus/core/game.js#L2210

So this console.log() won't show up for you?

javascript
handleInput: function(){

this.parent();

if (ig.input.released('tap')) {

    console.log('I should show up in the console :O');

}

}

[itsOgden]

@Pattentrick, Unfortunately, it does not, which is extremely weird! As of right now, the only way I've been able to get touch input to work is by an entity extending from UIButton using activateComplete() or by using update(). In the case of the update I've had trouble registering the proper inputPoints. It's been rather frustrating.

I've been able to get around it up until now, but I've reach a point where I need to be able to hold & tap and it can't be on UI elements.

[Pattentrick]

That's strange! Could you provide a small demo of your project and upload it to GitHub, or to another place? I am AFK for the next few hours, but once I am back I could look at your code and we may figure out together what's going on.

[itsOgden]

That would be very helpful!
A demo of what I currently have can be found here: http://itsogden.com/kcdevtemp/.
I uploaded the project to github so you can look at it here: https://github.com/itsOgden/KillerColors

Demo controls: Move through "blob" queue with WASD, hold SHIFT and move with WASD to mix "blob" colors. Click on the grid to throw "blobs".

Don't judge, it still has a long way to go :)

[collinhover]

Have you tried adding the following to your clickable entities?

...
targetable: true,
initTypes: function() {
       this.parent();
       _ut.addType(ig.EntityExtended, this, 'type', "INTERACTIVE");
},
...

[collinhover]

Also, your demo project on github has the ImpactJS source code in it. You should delete the github repo and upload it without the source code.

[itsOgden]

Thanks @collinhover, I completely forgot about that. I've never put a project up in any way so I didn't even think about it. Good catch.

Unfortunately, no dice on your addition. Even with that, it still will only work with the update.

[Pattentrick]

@itsOgden I get an 404 error when I am trying to get a local copy of your game running in my browser. The file that is missing is named lib/impact/gaPooling.js. Is this a plugin, or part of an older ImpactJS release? By the way, I am using version 1.23.

@collinhover What is the story behind INTERACTIVE in additon to targetable? Does this result in calling the activate method of the entitiy once it get's tapped/clicked?

Offtopic:

That really not belongs here, but I found a special piece of code yesterday that I have to share.

[2,3,4][+true]

Will return 3 by the way. Good cryptic way to retrieve an item from an array xD

[itsOgden]

Woops! It's a plugin that I forgot not to delete. I added it back and it should be good to go now.

On the off topic: How exactly does that work? I'm trying to figure it out and I'm stumped lol

[Pattentrick]

@itsOgden Great, works now! I will have a closer look at your code in a few hours. I am more into pixelart for myself, but i really love the smooth animation of your player. Also I kind of like the idea to select certain colors to defeat a specific monster. This has potential and is quite good for a first demo.

About the cryptic code: since JS is loosely typed, the interpreter will try to convert other values, that are not a number, to a number if you want to calculate with them. For example, true will be converted to 1, and false to 0. So true + true + 3 will be 5. And + true becomes 1.

So the [2,3,4][+true] is a very "creative" way to do this:

javascript
var arr = [2,3,4];
arr[1] // gets the second item of arr

[itsOgden]

Haha that's fantastic. Does it have any practical applications?

And thanks for the compliments!

[Pattentrick]

@itsOgden

I think i solved your problem. When you call the parent method of the handleInput method, you won't be able to use the same inputPoint inside the child method. I think this is because of this part:

https://github.com/collinhover/impactplusplus/blob/master/lib/plusplus/core/game.js#L2236

But this is more like a wild guess, than a real explanation, very unsure about that one. Maybe @collinhover could clear that up for us. Fortunately we can work around that, just overwrite the handleInput method at your main.js like that:

javascript
handleInput: function(){

var i, il;
var j, jl;
var inputPoints;
var inputPoint;
var targets;
var target;

if (ig.input.released('tap')) {

    // find all inputs that are tapping

    inputPoints = ig.input.getInputPoints(['tapped'], [true]);

    for (i = 0, il = inputPoints.length; i < il; i++) {

        inputPoint = inputPoints[i];
        targets = inputPoint.targets;

        if (targets.length > 0) {

            // check input targets

            for (j = 0, jl = targets.length; j < jl; j++) {

                target = targets[j];

                // toggle activation

                target.toggleActivate();

            }

        }

    }

}

}

Also make sure to add a type to your interactive entities and set the target property to true, like @collinhover has stated in the comment above:

``` javascript```
targetable: true,

initTypes: function() {

    this.parent();
    _ut.addType(ig.EntityExtended, this, 'type', "INTERACTIVE");

}

After that you should add an activate method to all of your interactive entities:

activate: function(){
    // Do stuff here ...
}

For actions based on hold just use the specific event. Hope this helps you.

[itsOgden]

Thanks @Pattentrick. I would love to have an explanation behind it, but I'll see if I can get it to work this way in the mean time!

[collinhover]

@Pattentrick you rock man! As far as the interactive type and targetable go, they are both there because targetable is intended for entities that can be targeted with something like an ability, while interactive type is more for mouse interaction. I think. To be fair, the current mouse handling system is not so good and is far too confusing :(

[itsOgden]

This is the first area I've had a real problem with. A few other things required some extensive researching to figure out, but all were understandable once that was taken care of. I still don't have a very firm grasp on what exactly is happening here.

I have tapping working now with the changes that you guys suggested, but I assumed that the following would solve my problem for holding and to no avail. The code for 'tapped' is all over the place, but no where is the same thing used for holding so I am kinda winging it:

    handleInput: function(){
        var i, il;
        var j, jl;
        var inputPoints;
        var inputPoint;
        var targets;
        var target;

        if (ig.input.released('tap') || ig.input.released('hold')) {

            inputPoints = ig.input.getInputPoints(['tapped'], [true]) || ig.input.getInputPoints(['holding'], [true]);

            for (i = 0, il = inputPoints.length; i < il; i++) {

                inputPoint = inputPoints[i];
                targets = inputPoint.targets;

                if (targets.length > 0) {

                    // check input targets

                    for (j = 0, jl = targets.length; j < jl; j++) {

                        target = targets[j];

                        // toggle activation

                        target.toggleActivate();

                    }

                }

            }

        }

    },

That doesn't work, but I would have thought it should. Thoughts?