I think it's time for an update on this topic!
I did a first quick test on the FireTV and found immediately a problem. If you try to change the player name, the virt. keyboard pops up but you cant change the name. You didn´t see the actual name and any changes. If I leave the virt. keyboard all controller settings are lost. Only the d-pad is working. I have to restart RnD.
I was able to fully reproduce this problem -- very strange indeed! Especially as using the virtual keyboard with the Android R'n'D port works just fine with my Android phone and tablet. So something must be severely going wrong here: No working screen keyboard, and messed up game controller settings after leaving the screen keyboard. Especially the last one is strange: After leaving the screen keyboard, the Fire TV remote control does not produce joystick and game controller events anymore, but sends keyboard events!
Even though I do not have a solution for these problems for now (I have the suspicion that there might be some problems buried in the SDL2 library, as I have no idea what I might do wrong in R'n'D to cause game controller events to be turned to keyboard events), I have at least improved support for these keyboard events from the remote control, especially for the "select key" event that is produced by the button in the middle of the "navigation ring" on the remote control. So it is at least possible to leave and restart R'n'D (or even play games using those key events).
I will try to find out what happens here, or ask in the SDL forums...
My connected keyboard has no function.
It's a Bluetooth keyboard, right? Does it also refuses to work immediately after (re)starting R'n'D? Or only after the screen keyboard mixed up the controller settings?
... as a small solution I´ve changed the playername in setup.conf
That is possible, yes, but not very end-user friendly, of course!
But there's another (clumsy, but easier) way to change the player name: Use the screen keyboard, then blindly erase the existing name using the backspace ("<=") key, then blindly type the new name and leave the screen keyboard. (You might want to restart R'n'D afterwards due to the mixed up game controller settings.)
If I dont try to change the player name all other functions are working as described.
That's at least good to know!
If you also want a Windows (?) binary with the latest game controller code for testing, let me know!
Ja, sehr gerne
You can find the latest development version here:
http://www.artsoft.org/RELEASES/rocksnd ... 0726-1.exe
For the new game controller stuff to be working, you will most probably need a more recent version of the SDL2 library, as I don't know exactly at the moment which SDL version the last R'n'D release version is shipped with (but I think it's too old for the new game controller support to be working). (However, you don't need updates for SDL_mixer.dll etc.) It should be possible to download the following zip file and just replace the file "SDL2.dll" in the R'n'D main directory with the new one from the zip file:
http://libsdl.org/release/SDL2-2.0.5.zip
So, I would especially be interested if all the game controller stuff is working fine on Windows, as I haven't tested it at all so far.
If you want exit the game and you use the HOME button, but then decide against it and use the BACK button, the controller is going crazy
The steering is very fast and the controller mapping is gone. You have to restart the game. The problem occurs only if you use the button combination HOME and BACK.
Strange -- I wasn't able to reproduce this behaviour. When leaving the game via the "home" button, I will be thrown back to the Fire TV main menu. When I select the R'n'D icon again, I'm back in R'n'D where I left it, and everything is up to normal, including controllers (like the remote control).
How to you return from the Fire TV main menu to R'n'D using the "back" button? Maybe I just did or understood something wrong...
... RdN version in game is 4.0.0.2, app information shows 4.0.0.1
Manually fixed for now. But I still have to update the build process accordingly, or 4.0.0.3 will be shipped with "4.0.0.2" again...
Thanks for noting this!
Did also a quick test on level import on the android fire tv/stick version.
Level import is fine.
How did you import the custom R'n'D levels? I would like to add a description to the "Levels" page that is as user-friendly as possible. Did you use some download/unzip tool/app directly on the Fire TV? Or some third-party Windows tool to copy files to the Fire TV file system?
I was able to add "BD2K3" to R'n'D on the Fire TV using the "adb push" command line tool after I connected it to the Fire TV via WiFi, but the ordinary end user would not be happy with this procedure...
Only "Zelda 2" isn´t working, because it has a different menu. You do not know where you are in the game menu.
Good point. Levels like this (and also the upcoming new "R'n'D jue" level set from Juergen Bonhagen) will only be usable with a pointing device (mouse, finger), but not with a keyboard or game controller.
It would be possible to create a slightly modified version of "Zelda 2" though, which contains some graphical highlighting of the currently selected menu entry. This would require a minor change to the game's "graphicsinfo.conf"...
Can you please put the direction control also on the d-pad?
In my opinion you can react faster in game with the d-pad as with the left-stick.
You're definitely right -- R'n'D needs a digital joystick or game pad, not an analog one, which is usually not precise enough for these kind of games.
Please try the new joystick configuration of the latest Android version (see link below) to configure your game controller accordingly -- it will then support all analog sticks and the d-pad simultaneously, just as it should, and saves it as a new personal game controller mapping, which will then be loaded at each start of R'n'D.
The next version of R'n'D will also ship with a database of already supported/known game controllers, so the joystick configuration is then only needed for new/unknown devices.
If you use the calibration you are stuck on the screen. You have to restart RnD.
Yes, because there's no "escape" key on the Fire TV remote. :-/
The old joystick calibration screen is gone now (as it is not needed anyway for modern joysticks and game controllers), and is replaced with a new configuration screen that is used to map all supported game controllers to an Xbox style controller. Check it out!
(To leave the joystick configuration screen without changes, just press the "back" button.)
My fire tv stick is a nice little emulator station ... I was surprised how well all emulators run.
Sounds great! I'm also surprised how "open" the Fire TV is! That's really a great (and not-so-usual) thing...
On another port I´ve added a keyboard and mouse combi adapter. All is working fine. Keyboard and mouse are running out of the box.
Unfortunately RnD does not recognize the direction keys (up,down,left,right). I have to customize it to other keys like wasd.
That's really strange! So in general, the keyboard works with R'n'D, but you have to configure it to use keys different than the cursor keys to move the cursor? I really wonder which keyboard events are produced by the cursor keys then?
Do you know how to connect to an Android device using "adb", the "Android Debug Bridge" command line tool? If so, you could watch/monitor the keyboard events using "adb logcat", and see which events are send when pressing the cursor keys.
Does the mouse work in R'n'D then? (Not sure if "running out of the box" also was true for R'n'D, or only for other apps...)
And finally, here's the link to the new Android development version:
http://www.artsoft.org/RELEASES/rocksnd ... 0726-1.apk
For me, it now works fine with Bluetooth game controllers now, including d-pad support after using the new joystick configuration screen in the input setup.
Have fun with it!