Dimensional Data

C++ is one of the most powerful programming languages that we can use to create games that are playable with mouse, keyboard and gamepads or joysticks. We also use C++ in commerce, industry, in robotics, and in the control of IoT devices. Despite competition from other programming languages the games market is still very much dominated by C++. Many games seek to go beyond keyboards to control the gameplay by using specialized controllers either in addition to or instead of keypresses on the computer’s keys. Two of the most well-known controllers in these areas are joysticks or gamepads. The simplest examples of interfacing with game controllers on Windows is by using the XInput library. Even though XInput has been around for a long time it can still be used with the latest C++ Editor and compiler for Windows. In this post, we explain how you can use gamepad or joystick controller in C++ using with Xinput library. Is there a component for using a gamepad or joystick in C++ on Windows? If you are looking for a component library, there are Delphi and C++ Builder-compatible components built on the XInput library. The Controller library is a Delphi and C++ Builder component that allows applications to receive input from the Xbox Controller. The main features of this library are: Uses Windows XInput API Available for Delphi and C++ Builder from versions 6 right up to the current modern version 11. Source code included in the registered version. Royalty-free distribution. You can download the trial version of the XInput library, or you can buy a professional edition from here. How can I control a gamepad or joystick in C++ with Xinput Library? XInput library is deprecated but is still a supported library by Microsoft. They recommend moving towards the GameInput library or Windows.Game.Input for Windows applications. If we look at these kinds of libraries (i.e GamePad.h library), like MS’ own DirectXTK, we can see that the toolkit allows one to define USING_XINPUT vs. USING_GAMEINPUT vs. USING_WINDOWS_GAMING_INPUT to pick which underlying library is used. If we compare  XInput compared to GameInput: XInput library is old and easy to implement Windows applications. XInput library is limited to 4 controllers XInput library has no uniform interface to other input (like mouse/keyboard) XInput library occurs with higher latency XInput library is not friendly with other controllers. i.e. no support for Xbox One Rumble Motors. Briefly, DirectInput is better than XInput. If you still want to use XInput, you can check more about https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/xinput/getting-started-with-xinput XINPUT_GAMEPAD structure (declared in ) is explained here : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/xinput/ns-xinput-xinput_gamepad As in there, this structure has these members: wButtons, bLeftTrigger, bRightTrigger, sThumbLX, sThumbLY, sThumbRX, sThumbRY. Here wButtons member is used as a bitmask of the device digital buttons, it can be used as below, wButtons Device digital button flags Gamepad Bitmask XINPUT_GAMEPAD_DPAD_UP 0x0001 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_DPAD_DOWN 0x0002 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_DPAD_LEFT 0x0004 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_DPAD_RIGHT 0x0008 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_START 0x0010 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_BACK 0x0020 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_LEFT_THUMB 0x0040 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_RIGHT_THUMB 0x0080 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_LEFT_SHOULDER 0x0100 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_RIGHT_SHOULDER 0x0200 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_A 0x1000 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_B 0x2000 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_X 0x4000 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_Y 0x8000 How to use a gamepad or joystick in a C++ Builder FMX application? Here are the steps to use gamepad or joystick in C++ Builder FMX app, Create a new Multi-Device C++ Builder FMX application Drag a Timer (TTimer) component on to Form In Object Inspector window, set its interval to 15 and be sure it is enabled Drag a shape Circle (TCircle) component on to Form In Object […]

C++ Builder is the easiest and fastest C++ IDE for building professional applications with powerful GUI components like Memo, Edit, ListBox, StringGrid and many more. Each component can be ‘skinned’ with Styles to change their visual appearance. Styles are very powerful and because of this it can sometimes take a little to get used to how they work. In this post, we explain how to change background color of a component. Here is how you can do, How can I change background color of a component using styles in an FMX app? Syles are sets of graphical details that define the look and feel of an application visually and they are one of most beautiful and useful UI features of RAD Studio. Styles make your UI elements have a professionally designed appearance with minimum effort from you. Official Styles are designed by Embarcadero’s professional graphic designers. There are also other 3rd party Styles; also, users may generate their own styles. Styles are similar to themes in Windows or skins of old-style applications like WinAmp – but brought right up to date for the modern world. In RAD Studio, Multi-Device C++ Builder FireMonkey Projects, using styles on your new projects is very easy. You design your application’s screens in normal ways with buttons, labels, edit boxes, memos, trackbars, panels, switches etc. These controls will automatically adopt whatever appearance is enabled by the chosen style. You can also add these Styles to your Old C++ Builder Projects or to Old C++ Builder Unit files. You just need a RAD Studio, C++ Builder version which supports styles. We highly recommend you use the latest RAD Studio or C++ Builder versions which have new features and improvements on Styles. Here is how you can use Styles. In addition, you can create your custom styles in RAD Studio and C++ Builder. Here are two examples about Memo (TMemo) and Edit (TEdit) components. How to change background color of an FMX component in C++ code? Here is a simple function example to change background color of a component in C++, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 void SetBackgroundColor(TStyledControl *control, TAlphaColor color) {   control->NeedStyleLookup();   control->ApplyStyleLookup();   TFmxObject *fmxobj = control->FindStyleResource(“background”);   TRectangle *rect = new TRectangle(fmxobj);   fmxobj->AddObject(rect);   rect->Align = TAlignLayout::Client;   rect->Fill->Color = color;   rect->Stroke->Color = claNull;   rect->HitTest = false;   rect->SendToBack(); } Is there a full C++ example of how to change the background color of a component in FMX and C++? In this example there are Memo, Edit, ComboBox, ListBox components and a Button component. You need to create a new C++ Builder Multi-Device application and then you should drag these components on your form. You can choose your colors from here https://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Alexandria/en/Colors_in_FireMonkey If you want to know more about colors in Modern C++ here are some examples of how to use RGB or ARGB colors in C++. After that, you can modify your code as below. Here is a full C++ example of to change the background color of a component in an FMX C++ application. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 #include #pragma hdrstop #include “Component_Background_Color_Unit1.h” //————————————————————————— #pragma package(smart_init) #pragma resource “*.fmx” TForm1 […]

C++ Builder is the easiest and fastest C++ IDE for building everything from simple to professional applications using visually amazing GUI controls and forms. Each form and component can be skinned with Styles which allow your application to have its own professionally designed attractive look and feel. The Style systems of the VCL and FMX (FireMonkey) award-winning frameworks is very easy to use but there is sometimes a learning curve to climb to understand how to get the best out of them. In this post, we explain how to change background color of an Edit (TEdit) which is one of the most frequently asked questions. These methods below, can be applied to other components too. How to change the background color of an Edit control using Styles? Styles are sets of graphical details that define the look and feel of an application visually. They are one of most beautiful and useful UI features of RAD Studio, that makes your UI elements ‘skinned’ with a professionally designed graphical look and feel. RAD Studio’s C++ Builder version comes with the award-winning VCL framework for high-performance native Windows apps (not wrapped in some kind of runtime interpretation layer) and the powerful FireMonkey (FMX) framework for cross-platform UIs. Both VCL and FMX apps support Styles. There are many different styles available, and they cater for almost every possible taste in aesthetics as well as providing dark and light mode versions. More details about Styles can be found here. You can also find additional Premium Styles here. If you want to learn how you can modernize your components with styles here is the post you need; Right-click on the Edit and select ‘Edit Custom Style…’ Expand Edit1Style: you’ll see the background node. Click on background to select it. Then add a TRectangle via the Palette. The IDE should expand the background node and show a new Rectangle1Style tied to the TRectangle, Via the Object Inspector change the Color of TRectangle Click on the Apply Style button in the ‘Style Designer’. Compile and run your application If you still have problems to set color, may be this docwiki can help you : https://blogs.embarcadero.com/edit-custom-style-to-change-the-background-color-of-a-fmx-tedit/ How to change background color of an Edit in C++ code? If you want to change the background color of a Edit component (TEdit) in C++ Builder, first you should set the StyleLookup property to “Editstyle” as below.   Edit1->StyleLookup = “Editstyle”;   If you look at the Custom Style of Edit, there is “background” property, so we should find this resource by using the FindStyleResource() method of Edit as given example below.   Edit1->StyleLookup = “Editstyle”; auto fmxobj = Edit1->FindStyleResource(“background”, false);   if this resource object found, we can create a rectangle (TRectangle) as a background as below.   std::unique_ptr rect(new TRectangle(fmxobj));   Here we used unique_ptr which more modern to create this rectangle. Now we can set properties of our Rectangle, including its color.   rect->Align = TAlignLayout::Client; rect->Fill->Color = color; rect->Stroke->Color = color; // = claNull; rect->HitTest = false; rect->SendToBack();   Now, at last we need to add this object by using .get() method of unique_ptr. And the final trick here is you must release this unique_ptr by using .release() otherwise it doesn’t have any effect.   fmxobj->AddObject(rect.get()); rect.release();   I asked one of Embarcadero’s engineers to explain this a little more to me and he noted that “If you insist on using unique_ptr, you must add a call to .release(); to tell the unique_ptr that you no longer want it to clean up […]

C++ is one of the most powerful programming languages that we can use to create games that are playable with mouse, keyboard and gamepads or joysticks. We use C++ not just in games but also in almost every kind of industry, in robotics, and in the control of IoT devices. Games frequently have better playability if the user can control the game with input devices other than keyboard. The most popular controllers for games are gamepads and joysticks. One of the simplest ways to use such game controller hardware on Windows is using the venerable XInput library. Despite XInput having been around for a long time it can still be used with the latest C++ IDE and compiler for Windows. In this post, we explain how you can use gamepad or joystick controller in C++ using with Xinput library. Is there a ready-made component for controlling a gamepad or joystick in C++ on Windows? If you are looking for a component library, there are Delphi and C++ Builder-compatible components built around the XInput library. The Controller library is a Delphi and C++ Builder component that allows applications to receive input from the Xbox Controller. The main features of this library are, Uses Windows XInput API. Available for Delphi/C++ Builder 6 – 11 and Lazarus 2.0.12 Source code included in the registered version. Royalty free distribution. You can download the trial version of the XInput library, or you can buy a professional edition from here. How can I control a gamepad or joystick in C++ with the Xinput Library? XInput library was developed quite some time ago and is a deprecated but still supported library by Microsoft. They recommend moving towards the GameInput library or Windows.Game.Input for Windows applications. If we look at these kinds of libraries (i.e GamePad.h library), like MS’ own DirectXTK, we can see that the toolkit allows one to define USING_XINPUT vs. USING_GAMEINPUT vs. USING_WINDOWS_GAMING_INPUT to pick which underlying library is used. If we compare  XInput compared to GameInput: XInput library is easy to implement Windows applications. XInput library is limited to 4 controllers. XInput library has no uniform interface to other input (like mouse/keyboard). XInput library occurs with higher latency. XInput library is not friendly with other controllers. i.e. no support for Xbox One Rumble Motors. In brief, DirectInput is better than XInput. If you still want to use XInput, you can check more about https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/xinput/getting-started-with-xinput XINPUT_GAMEPAD structure (declared in ) is explained here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/xinput/ns-xinput-xinput_gamepad In there, this structure has these members: wButtons, bLeftTrigger, bRightTrigger, sThumbLX, sThumbLY, sThumbRX, sThumbRY. Here wButtons member is used as a bitmask of the device digital buttons, it can be used as below. wButtons Device digital button flags Gamepad Bitmask XINPUT_GAMEPAD_DPAD_UP 0x0001 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_DPAD_DOWN 0x0002 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_DPAD_LEFT 0x0004 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_DPAD_RIGHT 0x0008 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_START 0x0010 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_BACK 0x0020 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_LEFT_THUMB 0x0040 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_RIGHT_THUMB 0x0080 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_LEFT_SHOULDER 0x0100 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_RIGHT_SHOULDER 0x0200 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_A 0x1000 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_B 0x2000 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_X 0x4000 XINPUT_GAMEPAD_Y 0x8000 How to use a gamepad or joystick in C++ Builder VCL Application? Here are the step to use gamepad or joystick in C++ Builder VCL app, Create a new VCL Windows application in C++ Builder. Drag a Timer (TTimer) component onto the Form. In the Object Inspector window, set its interval to 15 and be sure it is enabled. Drag a Shape (TShape) component on to Form. In Object Inspector window, set its Shape property to stCircle, change Brush color something that makes you happy. Double click to […]