Detect mouse scroll in console application - c++

I want to write a C++ program which will act as a feeder of a virtual joystick http://vjoystick.sourceforge.net/site/.
I now successfully use the mouse cursor position to feed X and Y axis. Now I want to use the mouse wheel to feed the Z axis. But I tried of finding the way to detect the scroll. Can anyone suggest me on this? I use MinGW compiler.
By the way, this is my code : http://pastebin.com/WuFV8X3h

Related

Getting mouse movement input rather than the cursor position (C++)

I want to have my code read the movement of the mouse and act accordingly, for example, if you are moving your mouse up, you print the mouse is moving up in the console and sort of like that. (I am using Windows 10.)
The problem is, I could find a lot of articles that take the coordinates of the mouse cursor, but couldn't find one that deals with the real raw mouse input. The reason I want to do it this way is that when your cursor hits the border and cannot go further, the cursor position wouldn't change and the program won't recognize the mouse movement even though the mouse is "physically" moving. Another problem is that certain programs can "lock" your cursor to stay in a fixed position. For example, most FPS games do that.
Therefore, I wanted to get the raw input that the sensor of the mouse gives to the computer and utilize them instead of cursor position.
Therefore, I wanted to get the raw input that the sensor of the mouse gives to the computer and utilize them instead of cursor position.
Use the Raw Input API for that. Call RegisterRawInputDevices() to register the target mouse device(s) you want to monitor (there could be multiple connected to the PC), and then handle WM_INPUT messages containing the raw input data from the mouse(s).

Capture mouse movement in win32/Opengl

At the moment I simply use the WM_MOUSEMOVE message, but it limits the mouse movement to the maximum resolution. So what's the best way of capturing the mouse with Win32 (on a OpenGl window)? I don't want to use freeglut or any extra library.
For games and realtime DirectInput is very suitable, it's moderately hard to use.
That is not core win32 api, the winapi way of getting the input is either GetCursorPos/SetCursorPos driven by your own update loop, so you query and reset with your own frequency.
Or SetCapture and then upon WM_MOUSEMOVE you call SetCursorPos.
The point of setting the cursor pos is to give room for movement so you can get the delta, the amount the cursor moved since the last update and then put it back the cursor into the center of your window.
If you want to be able to capture mouse events after the mouse has existed the window, then you might want to look into the SetCapture function
If your problem is that you want to make a FPS game and you want your character to be able to spin in a continuous motion, then you want to set the mouse position to the center of the window after each mouse move event and handle input based on the difference between the position of the cursor when the mouse move event is fired and the center of the screen. To set the position of the mouse you can use the SetCursorPos function.
Your best bets are to either use DirectInput (which can be a bit of a pain to set up) or RawInput.
There is a fairly comprehensive example available in the Using RawInput page (See example 2).

C++ DirectInput Mouse Scroll Wheel with a Laptop Touchpad

When using DirectInput, it is my understanding that the mouse wheel delta should be stored in DIMOUSESTATE objects lZ variable. However, when I am scrolling with my laptop touchpad instead of an actual mouse with a wheel, it seems like the scroll is not being recognized since 1Z remains zero always. Is there a better solution than using WM_MOUSEWHEEL if that will even work? Since I am currently using DirectInput for the rest of the input I would like to stay consistent and use that but how can I get the scroll information from the touchpad?
Thanks!

Getting mouse position unbounded by screen size, c++ & windows

I'm currently writing a c++ console application that grabs the mouse position at regular intervals and sends it to another visual application where it is used to drive some 3d graphics in real time. The visual app is closed source and cannot be altered outside it's limited plug-in functionality.
Currently I'm using the GetCursorPos() function which is easy and fast enough, but I'm running into the issue that all of the data is clipped based on the current screen resolution of 1920x1600 so that all x values are between 0 and 1920 and all y values are between 0 and 1600 no matter how far the mouse is physically moved.
I need to get the mouse position before it's clipped at the edge of the screen, or possibly the deltas which I could use to calculate the current position.
I've seen some references to the windows MouseMove event but I would really not want to implement a window to make it work or especially have it as the active to receive those events.
I'm working in a windows environment and a language change is not feasible.
I might be wrong, but in Win32 land you don't get mouse move messages when the mouse is at the edge of the screen because, well, the mouse isn't moving. The usual way to get an infinite mouse area is to do the following:
Hide the mouse, get exclusive access and record position
Centre mouse to window
When mouse moves, get delta from centre of screen to current position
Centre mouse to window again
The next mouse move should have a delta of (0,0), so ignore it
Go to 3 until end of mouse move operation
Reset position, show the mouse and release exclusive access
If you didn't hide the mouse, then you'd see the mouse moving a small distance and then snapping back to the centre position, which looks nasty.
This method does require a message pump for the mouse move messages so the console application idea probably won't work with this. Can you create a full screen invisible window for grabbing the mouse?
Just get the position, and move it to the center and return the delta yourself
This is how FPS games do it
I don't have any direct experience with raw input, which is probably what you need to tap into. According to MSDN, you have to register the device, then setup your winproc to accept the WM_INPUT messages and then do your calculations based on the raw data.
Here's another relevant link.

How do I display dynamic text at the mouse cursor via C++/MFC in a Win32 application

I would like to be able to display some dynamic text at the mouse
cursor location in a win32 app, for instance to give an X,Y coordinate that
would move with the cursor as though attached. I can do this during a
mousemove event using a TextOut() call for the window at the mouse
coordinates and invalidate a rectange around a stored last cursor position
to clear up the previous output. However this can suffer from flickering and
cause problems with other things being drawn in a window such as tracker
boxes. Is there a better way to do this, perhaps using the existing cursor
drawing/invalidating mechanism ?
You can do this via ToolTips - check out CToolTipCtrl.
If you want flicker free tracking ToolTips then you will need to derive your own classes from CToolTipCtrl that use the trackActivate messages.
You may want to consider a small transparent window that you move to follow the mouse. In particular, since Windows 2000, Layered windows seem to be the weapon of choice (confession: no personal experience there).
You can overwrite OnSetCursor to get a dynamic mouse cursor. I just found a German tutorial.
German tutorial
English translated tutorial