Proof of concept: Logitech GamePanel support

[noccy]

This nights hack: A proof of concept patch adding support for Logitech GamePanel found on G15 keyboards and G13 gameboards. It currently makes pretty limited use of the display, but it works and has basic drawing capabilities

When you fire up the game -- if you have got G15Daemon running -- your display will show the Warzone logo. As you enter the game, it will update to show your power bar. Albeit redundant, it gives a nice overview right at your fingertips. Adding the status of the player's factories and research should not be too hard and imo would be a really neat way to monitor your progress. Neither should making use of the four buttons next to the LCD, providing f.ex. page switching functionality.

Note that this patch currently only works on Linux, but as it is just a matter of initializing the display, polling keystates and pushing a buffer to the display, making it work on Windows and Mac is possible. As I have only got Linux boxes around, I don't think I will be able to write the support for these. The APIs are however available.

This is not intended to be merged with anything as I updated the Makefile.am to link with g15daemon, which is bound to fail on any other platform than Linux. At this time it's just a proof of concept.

So, anybody interested in helping to complete this implementation or add support for other platforms?

Feedback is welcome.

[KukY]

Interesting. Personaly I wouldn't have any use of it, but this truly is a interesting feature.
When is the last time you wiped your keyboard?

[Roux Le Corps]

nice work, the logo sitting there looks really good ^_^ i must say i am impressed ^_^

[noccy]

Interesting. Personaly I wouldn't have any use of it, but this truly is a interesting feature.
When is the last time you wiped your keyboard?

Lol I was thinking about adding a "don't mind the dust" to my original post, but I was too lazy :p It doesn't really look dusty to the naked eye. I guess 10 pounds isn't the only thing the camera adds :p

I'm glad you're enjoying the hack tho Take a look at the G13 GameBoard ($79.99 USD) or the G15 Keyboard, they are both pretty darn sweet. The GameBoard is at the top of my wishlist

It would be awesome to have Warzone join the loads of games that has full GamePanel support built in

[ouch]

Yeah, I have this keyboard as well and thought about making an addon for it myself. What I would like to see on it is the manufacturing and research progress bars.

[noccy]

Yeah, I have this keyboard as well and thought about making an addon for it myself. What I would like to see on it is the manufacturing and research progress bars.

That's the aim. There will be no indication as to what is going on in each factory/research facility, only the progress of it. To keep a somewhat even balance That way it gives *slightly* more information than the green flashing research icon (it will not just tell you if one of your facilities are idle, but show which one). This is visually already implemented (boxes with numbers and progress bars), just trying to find my way through the source to actually find where the factory status is stored.

Are you by any chance Windows based? If so, you could take a look at the actual LCD control code in g15.h/g15.c and wire it up to make the calls work against Logitechs API. They work in practically the same way -- init - send bitmaps - close.

[ouch]

I can, but I currently have other projects going at the moment.