Hello all.

I've been working in C# for DirectX 9.0 in Visual Studio .Net, trying to work with force feedback via a MS Sidewinder joystick. I've culled code mostly from the MSDN knowledge base. I can upload an effect and I can read all of the buttons and axis info (took me a while to discover "polling", lol) but I can't for the life of me get an effect to play immediately after a button is pressed... it only seems to play when the joystick has been moved a little bit, causing something on the joystick called "SafetySwitchOn" to be enabled... it's weird. And not what I want... what I want is for the force feedback effect only to play when a controllable 'event' happens, like a button press, not just play willy nilly.

Anyway, I think/hope this is a simple question to answer. This is what code I have, if it helps:

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Collections;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Data;
using Microsoft.DirectX;
using Microsoft.DirectX.DirectInput;

namespace JoystickProject
{
/// <summary>
/// Summary description for Form1.
/// </summary>
public class Form1 : System.Windows.Forms.Form
{
private System.Windows.Forms.Label label1;
/// <summary>
/// Required designer variable.
/// </summary>
private System.ComponentModel.Container components = null;
private Device device = null;
private bool running = true;
private ArrayList effectList = new ArrayList();
private bool button0pressed = false;
private string joyState = "";

public bool InitializeInput()
{
// Create our joystick device
foreach(DeviceInstance di in Manager.GetDevices(DeviceClass.GameControl,
EnumDevicesFlags.AttachedOnly | EnumDevicesFlags.ForceFeeback))
{
// Pick the first attached joystick we see
device = new Device(di.InstanceGuid);
break;
}
if (device == null) // We couldn't find a joystick
return false;

device.SetDataFormat(DeviceDataFormat.Joystick);
device.SetCooperativeLevel(this, CooperativeLevelFlags.Exclusive | CooperativeLevelFlags.Background);
device.Properties.AxisModeAbsolute = true;
device.Properties.AutoCenter = false;
device.Acquire();

// Enumerate any axes
foreach(DeviceObjectInstance doi in device.Objects)
{
if ((doi.ObjectId & (int)DeviceObjectTypeFlags.Axis) != 0)
{
// We found an axis, set the range to a max of 10,000
device.Properties.SetRange(ParameterHow.ById,
doi.ObjectId, new InputRange(-5000, 5000));
}
}

// Load our feedback file
EffectList effects = null;
effects = device.GetEffects(@"C:\Documents and Settings\staton\Desktop\FFEffects\guna.ffe",
FileEffectsFlags.ModifyIfNeeded);
foreach(FileEffect fe in effects)
{
EffectObject myEffect = new EffectObject(fe.EffectGuid, fe.EffectStruct,
device);
myEffect.Download();
effectList.Add(myEffect);
}

while(running)
{
UpdateInputState();
Application.DoEvents();
}

return true;
}

private void PlayEffects()
{
// See if our effects are playing.
foreach(EffectObject myEffect in effectList)
{
//if (button0pressed == true)
//{
//MessageBox.Show("Button Pressed.");
// myEffect.Start(1, EffectStartFlags.NoDownload);
//}

if (!myEffect.EffectStatus.Playing)
{
// If not, play them
myEffect.Start(1, EffectStartFlags.NoDownload);
}
}
//button0pressed = true;
}

protected override void OnClosed(EventArgs e)
{
running = false;
}

private void UpdateInputState()
{
PlayEffects();

// Check the joystick state
JoystickState state = device.CurrentJoystickState;
device.Poll();
joyState = "Using JoystickState: \r\n";

joyState += device.Properties.ProductName;
joyState += "\n";
joyState += device.ForceFeedbackState;
joyState += "\n";
joyState += state.ToString();

byte[] buttons = state.GetButtons();
for(int i = 0; i < buttons.Length; i++)
joyState += string.Format("Button {0} {1}\r\n", i, buttons[i] != 0 ? "Pressed" : "Not Pressed");

label1.Text = joyState;

//if(buttons[0] != 0)
//button0pressed = true;

}

public Form1()
{
//
// Required for Windows Form Designer support
//
InitializeComponent();

//
// TODO: Add any constructor code after InitializeComponent call
//
}

/// <summary>
/// Clean up any resources being used.
/// </summary>
protected override void Dispose( bool disposing )
{
if( disposing )
{
if (components != null)
{
components.Dispose();
}
}
base.Dispose( disposing );
}

#region Windows Form Designer generated code
/// <summary>
/// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
/// the contents of this method with the code editor.
/// </summary>
private void InitializeComponent()
{
this.label1 = new System.Windows.Forms.Label();
this.SuspendLayout();
//
// label1
//
this.label1.BackColor = System.Drawing.SystemColors.ActiveCaptionText;
this.label1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(8, 8);
this.label1.Name = "label1";
this.label1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(272, 488);
this.label1.TabIndex = 0;
//
// Form1
//
this.AutoScaleBaseSize = new System.Drawing.Size(5, 13);
this.BackColor = System.Drawing.SystemColors.ControlText;
this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(288, 502);
this.Controls.AddRange(new System.Windows.Forms.Control[] {
this.label1});
this.Name = "Form1";
this.Text = "Joystick Stuff";
this.ResumeLayout(false);

}
#endregion

/// <summary>
/// The main entry point for the application.
/// </summary>
[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
using (Form1 frm = new Form1())
{
frm.Show();
if (!frm.InitializeInput())
MessageBox.Show("Couldn't find a joystick.");
}
}
}
}