[scott967]

Not really a gamer except for flight sim, but want to understand nuances of getting controllers setup properly on Kodi 21 for skinning.  I have a bunch of flight sim controllers on my simming system, AFAIK intended to use DirectInput.  I think the T.16000M is most appropriate for use in Kodi, but I have a hard time figuring out how.  IIUC I need to create a addon for it with a layout.xml, but not sure how the layout should be defined.  It looks like "category" is arbitrary?   Do the categories need to be associated with some sort of virtual controller layout?  Nothing on the controller really maps to an idea of "face", "shoulder" etc.

Then I guess the "feature" type is pre-defined.  This controller has 16 (0-15) buttons on/off and I think DirectInput might also have button-down button-up events?  Also 4 (0-3) axis that AFAIK output integers 0-1023.  I guess axis 0 and 1 (known in DirectInput as x-y) are considered an "analog joystick"?  And then an 8-way POV "hat" which I think is implemented as 8 buttons (32-39).

Is the "name" given to these arbitrary?

This is what it looks like in windows game controllers:



scott s.
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[garbear]

One option is to just map it to the default controller. You don't need to create a controller add-on for it. But if you want a better mapping experience you could create a controller add-on, as I'm sure it would be welcome by others who want to get flight sim controllers working in Kodi.

Category is mostly arbitrary, and only used to show a header label in the list of features in the controller dialog. The exception is the "key" category, which adds an addition "Select Key" button above the keys.

DirectInput is kinda wacky, but the internal joystick logic should handle anything DI can throw at us, including offset axes and POV hats. If not, I'd probably need a way to reproduce the wacky input on my end to improve the joystick logic in Kodi.