itch icon indicating copy to clipboard operation
itch copied to clipboard
verified publisher icon itchio

Controller Support for UI

Open berserkwarwolf opened this issue 9 years ago • 9 comments

There are lots of really great games with controller support on itch.io, it would be great if the itch.io client could be controlled by a gamepad.

berserkwarwolf avatar Apr 28 '16 23:04 berserkwarwolf

Initial thoughts on this:

  • I think the controller UI should be a separate mode — I have doubts about the current UI being used with a controller, it was really designed with a mouse in mind.
  • I'd like to find a way to provide controller input for games that don't support controllers — or that only support XBox360 controllers. Maybe some sort of open-source, cross-platform joy2key+x360ce that the itch app uses & generate config files for that could then be freely shared & used by anyone.

fasterthanlime avatar May 01 '16 10:05 fasterthanlime

Tons of warnings about this.

  1. While I'm a strong supporter of gamepads vs mice and keyboards, the itch app isn't ready for it. It needs to be a 100% new UI that can be launched from the gamepad - and Steam already has the Guide button as a launcher. Worst case, make a button inside the desktop UI. I wouldn't be against calling it Big Picture Mode in itch.
  2. Don't implement a controller input for games that doesn't support it - insane people like me already have them =P Currently I'm using Controller Companion for this because enables itself when detects a Fullscreen app, and disables itself when leaving the app, but Xpadder and joy2key are good options - http://controllercompanion.com
  3. I can help with the UX for this I guess, but we have worse issues right now.

notNSANE avatar May 10 '16 16:05 notNSANE

Don't implement a controller input for games that doesn't support it - insane people like me already have them =P

opt-outs are for insane people ;) (ie. there could just be a preference to disable that)

I can help with the UX for this I guess, but we have worse issues right now.

agreed, hence the not right now label 😄

fasterthanlime avatar May 10 '16 16:05 fasterthanlime

I'd like to chime in and agree about the separate UI idea. Today I've been thinking about VR stuff and what a VR interface for the itch.io client might look like, and it presents some of the same UX questions as controller support (among the many, many UX questions in VR). I think both might work well as loosely-coupled alternative front-ends, but trying to layer either on top of the current one might get messy quickly.

nelsonpecora avatar Dec 06 '16 20:12 nelsonpecora

I've been wanting to develop something like this built on top of SDL, but I don't want to start work on it if people are already working on it. Is this something in the works?

lufinkey avatar Aug 11 '21 17:08 lufinkey

Same here @lufinkey ! Judging by the lack of replies it seems as though no-one is actively working on it. If you'd like to work on it together, drop me an email :-)

ejb avatar Sep 21 '21 00:09 ejb

@ejb I tried emailing the address in your bio and got a bounceback. Feel free to email me at [email protected]

lufinkey avatar Sep 26 '21 01:09 lufinkey

Is anyone currently working on this?

evnb avatar Apr 04 '25 13:04 evnb

@ejb and I tried contacting Itch to try to work out a way to be compensated to build it out, but we never heard back. I'd love to build this but I just don't have a ton of free time to dedicate sadly

lufinkey avatar Apr 04 '25 13:04 lufinkey