Event Handling

So back to the matter of Events. These represent the interactions the player can have with the program. On the one hand, you have everything the player can do with the computer; pressing keys, moving the mouse, etc. On the other, you have the actions you can assign to one or more of these keys; moving the character, using items, shooting, etc.

The SFML already provides me with the player events. What I have to do is create the actions that correspond to them. I would then have a function that is fed an event and outputs the correct action. I'll start with the most basic event: a command to close the window and end the execution of the program. I'll provide the 'Esc' button for it.

After reading the events and generating the associated commands, I have to execute the command. For the most part, these commands are going to represent state changes in the game, and not so much actions themselves. In the case of a move forward command, pressing the 'move forward' key would toggle the entity's state to 'is moving forward', and releasing it would reset it to 'is stopped'. Then in the update loop the game would check if the player 'is moving forward' and if so advance it's position.

Of course, if I have each command execute itself from the event loop, I have to riddle the entity interface, and anything the player can interact with, with functions to access the members that define their state. Instead what I'll do is read the command, build a command queue for each target that might receive a command, and pass the stack to the target. That way the target (be it an entity, the window or whatever) can apply the commands internally.

I'll start with some basic commands: 'Esc' to close the game, and 'WASD' to move forward and back and strafe left and right. I'll use 'Esc' on press, meaning as soon as the key is pressed the program will end. The four keys will actually mean eight commands. Four to start and four to stop, on press and on release respectively. This allows to have several keys pressed at once, and if opposite keys are pressed, they can both be applied (it would result in no effect at all, but it wouldn't bother the game).

 My command class is going to mirror the structure of the event class provided by SFML. It will consist of an enumeration describing the kind of command it is, such as a window or movement command, and a union of structs that each describe the kind of command in detail.

The Commands are mapped to Events in structures called Contexts. Each context represents a set of Commands that are available. We do this because particular keys could have different meanings depending on the state of the game. For example, it could be that when the inventory is open, the movement commands are disabled. The contexts give the ability to remap keys and alter the available commands on the fly.

Well, this gives a bit of an overview of how I'll be handling user input. Next up, I'll be describing the process in more detail as I finish writing it up. I have the basic structures coded now, but I still need to assemble it all together.