GamepadMicro

Micro library that interfaces with the HTML5 Gamepad API and publishes gamepad update events.

(No dependencies, yay!)

Example

An example of basic install and setup can be found in the Live Demo. The source for the example can be found here

Setup

Just include the library (from /dist or on npm), create an instance of GamepadMicro, and use the onUpdate function to register a callback for gamepad updates.

Install

GamepadMicro supports the UMD, meaning it supports install/usage through CommonJS, AMD, and globals.

CommonJS

 
var GamepadMicro = require('gamepad-micro');
var gp = new GamepadMicro();
 

AMD

define(['gamepad-micro'], function(GamepadMicro) {
    var gp = new GamepadMicro();
});
 

Globals

 
<script src="/js/libs/gamepad-micro.js"></script>
<script>
    var gp = new GamepadMicro();
</script> 
 

Updates

The onUpdate function is the main way to interface with GamepadMicro. It expects a callback, that will forward along a gamepads array. Look through this array to get all the details for each gamepad.

**onUpdate: ** The callback given to onUpdate will fires whenever any Gamepad API event occurs, including 'ongamepadconnected' and 'ongamepaddisconnected'. This means, if you want to see if a gamepad has been connected, its best to check inside this callback.

(Note: Checks for connection and support are available outside onUpdate as well.)

gp.onUpdate(function(gamepads) {
    if (gp.gamepadConnected) {
        // Parse gamepads
    } else {
        // Gamepad disconnected
    }
});

**offUpdate: ** Use this to clean up the gamepadconnection events and remove the onUpdate polling, if you're done using GamepadMicro.

gp.offUpdate();

Gamepads

The gamepads array returned from onUpdate is a list of all the gamepads connected, by their index.

Each gamepad object looks something like the following

{
    leftStick: { x: 0, y: 0 },
    rightStick: { x: 0, y: 0 },
    dPad:  { x: 0, y: 0 },
    buttons: {
    	rightTrigger: {
    	    released: true,
    	    pressed: false
    	    held: false
    	}
        actionNorth: {
    	    released: false,
    	    pressed: false,
    	    held: true
    	}
    }
}

• leftStick/rightStick: The axes for the analog sticks on the gamepad. Both x and y range between 1 and -1.
• dPad: The Dpad buttons mapped to axes, if you want them. Otherwise you can get the Dpad values from buttons.
• buttons: List of all the buttons released, pressed, held. Only one state should be true at any given time for each button.
• released: Is true once, after the button is pressed, think of this as onKeyUp.
• pressed: Is true as a button is pressed, will be false when released is set.
• held: Is true as long as the button is held down, will be false when released is set.

Buttons

The buttons object on each gamepad is the list of currently pressed buttons by their human-readable name. Here is the whole list of available buttons, ordered by their mapping.

This list can be retrieved programmatically off of the GamepadMicro instance from the buttonKeys array.

• 'actionSouth',
• 'actionEast',
• 'actionWest',
• 'actionNorth',
• 'leftBumper',
• 'rightBumper',
• 'leftTrigger',
• 'rightTrigger',
• 'select',
• 'start',
• 'leftStick',
• 'rightStick',
• 'dPadUp',
• 'dPadDown',
• 'dPadLeft',
• 'dPadRight'
• 'extra'

 //get list of button keys
 
 var buttons = gamepad.buttons;
 
 gp.buttonKeys.map(function() {
    var button = buttons[key];
    
    if (button.released) {
        //button was either pressed or held, and has now been released
    }
    
    if (button.pressed) {
        //button is being pressed, run desired action on release
    }
    
    if (button.held) {
        //button is being held
    }
 });
 

If you're interested in seeing the mapping for the raw Gamepad API, you can find it here.

Support/Connection

Support for the Gamepad API can be retrieved directly from GamepadMicro

gp.gamepadSupported //returns bool

Whether a gamepad is connected or not is also available at all times from GamepadMicro

gp.gamepadConnected //returns bool

Troubleshooting

This library obviously requires browser support for the Gamepad API. There is a helpful tester for troubleshooting gamepad connections here.