Android plugin

Just saw that there are some apps for flight sims that let you use you smartphone as an instrument panel etc. Anyone think it would be possible to make an app that transfers the action menu or map or gear list or arty computer to smartphone?

An Acre radio dialog would be awesome. :)

lol.....Discussion reloaded

For the record: i don't own a android phone (or any other smartphone for that matter) but i wouldn't mind if such an app would exist.

That only partially relates to Wolfbites question. Smartphone screens are so small that a map would be practically useless.

Perhaps we should concentrate in this topic on other uses?

It's possible to have instrument panels on a secondary PC with touchscreen using an application called Touchbuddy. Sounds a little gay, I know. :)

I used it when I had a touchscreen laptop and it worked well. Using a client/server model, it can basically send keystrokes to the gaming machine depending on what you touch on the other one. The question is, can it be made to work using an Android device? I'd like to think so - I own a Desire HD. :)

**edit** in fact, I remarked on the possibility here.

---------- Post added at 01:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:31 PM ----------

OK some further thoughts.

This is how it could be done.

You'll need either an android phone (with remote desktop app installed), gaming pc with (A)multiple display support or (B) another PC.

In option A, you need to run the touchbuddy application on your gaming PC, and have that run a suitable interface with buttons and such like. You then use a remote desktop application on Android to RDP into that screen.

Option B, which is probably more likely to work means you run the touchbuddy server application on your gaming machine. It receives data from the client and turns that into keypresses the game can see and use. On the other PC (potentially just a small laptop) you run the touchbuddy client. You'll need to design a suitable panel, there's an old one for Armed Assault so that'd do. Normally the client PC would have a touchscreen, but for us, you'd RDP into that machine using an Android smartphone. You'd get the touchbuddy touch panel on your phone screen and can use it's touch screen.

There's no reason why this wouldn't work - it might be a bit laggy and would need some tweaking to make it look half decent - only one way to find out. :)

That sounds pretty sweet. Lag may be an issue thugh. Intridguing to say the least though..

I'll have a bash at it over the weekend, or maybe this evening if I get a chance.

I'm guessing, but when I say laggy, we're probably talking less then 100ms of lag between touching the phone screen and the game getting the keypress.

---------- Post added at 01:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:29 PM ----------

Agh. I just can't walk away and do some work! LOL

Anyway, Touchbuddy stopped development a couple of years ago, but one of it's users picked up the torch and went with "TouchDown". This might be exactly what we want.

http://desrat.lightning-bolt.net/TouchDown/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6

From what I can see, you run a lightweight webserver on your gaming machine which the smartphone connects to and sends screen key presses to the webserver and thus, to the game. He uses an iPod touch, but essentially the webserver doesn't care what device connects to it, so Android, iPad, iPhone, Symbian... all are useable.

This is very much a beta, but looks to be much more elegant and it seems the project already has a user making an Armed Assault profile.

I'm quite excited about this. Can you tell?

This sounds sweet so what kind of things could we display on the screen of the smart phone etc?.

Well, not map, that's for sure.

You'd need to design a simple webpage that had pictures of appropriate buttons such as 'gear up', 'reload'. When you pressed them on the phone, the game would see them and do the appropriate thing.

umm looks good did you down load this

this is what ya mean :)

http://desrat.lightning-bolt.net/TouchDown/download/file.php?id=2

I'm at work, I'll give it a try this evening.

That profile looks good. Wonder if it fits on a small screen though?

Tankbuster I look forward to your findings matey.

I have 2 small PDA`s and a smart phone lying around here so may be able to finally find a use for one of em ;).

OK, I did try the Touchdown program, with varying degrees of success.

The server app runs fine on the gaming PC and allows my netbook to connect to it. The netbook loads the Armed Assault profile and if I click on it's screen buttons, keystrokes appear on the gaming machine. Excellent. No noticable lag either.

However, the Android fails to connect to the server. I've reported it to the developer and another user replied that it's a known, pipelined issue. That's progress of sorts.

I've not looked at the profile on the phone screen yet. I'm lucky enough to have a Desire HD so there's plenty of resolution available, but it's likely to result in minuscule touch screen buttons, probably unusable. I'm quite sure a custom profile with webpage and buttons will be required.

Nice got any vids on the use of it in ARMA ;)

I didn't take any video because it didn't actually work. :) Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly. My laptop can connect to the machine and display the buttons, but as it's not a touchscreen monitor, it's not much use. I can activate the screen buttons by using the mouse on the laptop, but that sort of defeats the object - it's much easier to press a key on the gaming machine.

Here's a pic of an Armed Assault profile. That's the squad control screen, you can see tab buttons at the bottom for switching to other screens.

Once we can get this displayed on a touchscreen device, such as a smartphone, then we're in business.

Note that the map icon simply displays a static overall map, nothing dynamic or updated.

Thats awesome.

I hope some one steps forward that owns a touch screen and does this.

like I said I have a few touch devices but there very small I may give it a go any ways.

I am a noob at this stuff.

I downloaded the latest server.exe and downloaded the arma profile and extracted it to the data/doc folder.

I started server and then went into firefox (i did install the active X) and try to connect from the same laptop but in the server screen it says connection blocked?.

Do I need to do it from a diff computer?.

EDIT

Ok got it to work Wow zero lag for me to.

And when all functions are working this should be very very neat.

Just wanted to throw in my 2cents - As your probably aware by my name the TouchDown program is my Work In Progress and is as previously mentioned very much in the beta stages.

The idea is as stated - run a lightweight webserver built by me that interprets custom html commands sent via any web enabled touch screen device.

I've had successful tests using other pc's, a distro of ubuntu and the iOS of my iPod, but I am getting reports that android enable devices are unable to connect, I am looking into it but I've had 2 weeks off development as my father in law has been seriously illl and in fact died yesterday.

I will be picking up development again soon but please don't take my lack of input in the short term as a sign that nothing is progressing it's really difficult to spend any time on this project at present.

Hi Des, yeah, I'm on your and the TB forums too. If I can help in any way, please don't hesitate to ask.

Sorry to hear about the stuff in your family. Come back when you're ready.

I am so sorry to hear about your loss.

Right. I got it working... God knows how!

desrat asked me to try using Opera Mini on the phone and it didn't work, then I went back to using firefox and pow, it started working!

What you're seeing in the youtube is nothing more than me switching between third and first person. The profile is for Armed Assault and many of my key bindings are non standard, so it took me a while to find a game action that I hadn't changed AND was the same in Armed Assault. And one that was demostrable enough for a vid. :)

As you can see, I'm pressing the "External View" toggle on my phone and the view is changing in the game. Cool or what?

Sure, it's VERY basic. The profile needs rewriting for such a small screen and the key commands need updating for Arrowhead, but it IS actually working.

O6QogcTIrvM

I have managed to reproduce the error (using live android in a virtual machine) but I cant find the cause - the android browser requests the page in the same way as any other browser (IE/Firefox/Safari) and my app returns that request in the same way.

I'm trying to get some insight on the way the android browser works compared to its counterparts and trying to find any previously documented issues with android and LUASockets (the webserver is based on this).

Something great is going on here!

The possibilities from this seem potent to be ArmA-unique.

For instance, by (somehow) transmitting the players xyz coords to the phone and projecting it on a scale picture of the map

(those 8mb jpg´s) would have you an outgame GPS tool for ingame orientation.

Other games use render-to-texture, only ArmA has render-to-cellphone

Or an ACE2 Kestrel .... Arty/FAC Dialer *drools*

This definitely can't do moving map. Yes, the fact the screen is so small would me it's more of a secondary display GPS rather than a map. Given the strength of feeling about secondary map displays, perhaps we should keep away from that topic?

What you're actually seeing on my phone there is a webpage generated on the gaming machine by a lightweight server application and then transmitted (wirelessly in my case) to the phone.

Your arty dialer is a distinct possibility. Dare I say once the basic of the app can be made reliable, it's actually quite simple. You just need a few button images on a html page and a tiny bit of code to say what keypress each buton should be. If you look at the first few seconds of my vid, you can just see (rather overexposed) the tabs at the bottom of the screen. They open different pages on the phone screen and it'd be simple to add on that looks just like the ingame arty computer.

*disclaimer* I've not used the ingame arty comp though. If it has a map-click-to aim arty thing going then it probably can't do that.

For instance, by (somehow) transmitting the players xyz coords to the phone and projecting it on a scale picture of the map

(those 8mb jpg´s) would have you an outgame GPS tool for ingame orientation.

Not possible in TouchDown's current implementation as its not really designed for that however if all you want is a GPS type display of the map with your current position then I could probably do that as a seperate project if someone can create an addon/script that outputs the xyz to file or something.

ArmALib could be the way to do it if someone has an example of how pipes work in it.

It was late lol, i misread most of the info here and thought there was a .dll hook already, similar to jaynus' - with something like that, im sure my fantasys may come true. The current talk about using your smartphone as a backup controller (like Wii Mote & PPJoy) is interesting nonetheless. And it´s still a very unique feature, even in it´s beginning form :)

PS: BI should hire an ArmAda (:D) of people with such ideas and make it all real. The shooter genre is in desperate need of fresh air.

LOL Burnsy. :)

Me and Desrat used the predecessor application, called Touch Buddy, so I like to think he has already made most of the design decisions. If he's planning to recreate that functionality but with a much lighter application, this is going to be good.