Multiple Mice

Multiple Mice

• David R. Williamson

  Where abouts did you read that it had been removed

  DirectInput didn't need to be (and hence wasn't) changed between v8 and v9. It's common practice to enforce this by putting the following #define before including dinput.h:

  #define DIRECTINPUT_VERSION 0x0800

  hth
  Jack

  
  

• rgerbig

  Hello,
  
  I'm new to the whole Windows programming scene. I'm researching what multiple mice can offer with respect to video games. I have also read that DX9 does not support multiple mice anymore.
  
  "On Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft DirectInput enumerates only one mouse and one keyboard device, referred to as the system mouse and the system keyboard. These devices represent the combined output of all mice and keyboards respectively on a system. For information about how to read from multiple mice or keyboards individually on Windows XP, see the WM_INPUT documentation."
  
  The page can be found here
  
  I have multiple mice running but I had to use Raw Input because just about every PC on the planet is running WinXP. Is this the only way that two or more mice can be listened to in a Windows environment I found Raw Input to be way too much "Windows programming" oriented for my liking ( yeah it sounds stupid, but remember I have next to no Win programming exp). I sorta figured that somewhere there'd a cross-platform API for handling multiple input devices of the same class.
  
  Thanks eh,
  
  
  
  

• Artem V

       There is an unmanaged C++ function SetWindowPos that allows you to set your window to topmost.  I'm pretty sure there is a message for when your application's z-order changes, and then everytime you get that message and your window isn't topmost then you can just call that function again to reset you application to be topmost.
  
       If that doesn't work then you could just try drawing directly to the screen's graphics handle (although that is a bit harsh).
  

• WaveyDavey

  To answer your question about where I read it, here's an example
  
  http://link.mywwwserver.com/~jstookey/arcade/rawmouse/
  
  "Microsoft removed support for using multiple mice independently from DirectX in Windows XP. The alternative is to use "raw input", or (specifically) "raw mouse" instead of DirectX."
  
  I couldn't find the one where it said it was specific to directx 9. 
  
  Here is a completely unrelated question but since people on this particular forum seem to be quite knowledgeable, I'll throw it out there:
  
  There's these programs - windows dancers, which I find kind of lame except for the fact that they can draw topmost, regardless of which program has focus.  I'm interested in doing that but don't know where to start.  If someone can throw out some buzzwords for me to google I would be very happy =)   <---happy emoticon
  

• sulphox

  The URL for my page on using multiple mice under Windows XP with raw input has changed in case anyone is looking for it. You can find it here:
  
  http://jstookey.com/arcade/rawmouse
  
  
  
• Multiple Mice