Just wanted to provide a bit of feedback on my experience with this Joypad plugin, but first I wanted to thank you guys for the effort you've put in to developing this useful tool!
So, I purchased a two-pack of very simple retro SNES game controllers to use on two Taig desktop CNC machines. I downloaded the joypad plugin, and overall it was relatively easy to modify the provided example script to determine which button combinations are pressed, and then to display messages, and take certain actions.
One potential issue I note is that on this style of controller, it has the "X-Y joystick" portion, the SELECT, and START buttons, the BN, BE, BS, and BW buttons, and the SL and SR bumper buttons, but there are no AL or AR buttons. I believe this limits me from using STEP JOGGING mode in X/Y directions. I chose this controller because it has very few buttons or joysticks because I wanted limited functionality to mimic what I have used the keyboard to do--setting up my X, Y, and Z axis values, and moving the table away from the Z-column to allow me to move work, etc... My intention was to have the XY in the obvious location, and then to use the SL or SR with BN for Z upward, and with BW for Z downward. I specifically picked a very limited joypad to limit the number of inputs to avoid confusion--I already have complete support from the keypad for unusual or complex activities...
I had hoped to use the SL or SR with BE and BS to toggle the jog between step and continuous, and perhaps to cycle through the step sizes. As I look further at this, it seems that toggling the jog-mode (CTRL-J in Mach3) is not supported (nor is explicitly setting the mode to continuous or step). I believe my only option for moving the Z up or down is through scripting GCode.
Am I misunderstanding the limits of the plugin? If I'm not, I'm surprised by a couple of choices. First, limiting the mapping of Z output to only work on 3-axis or greater joypads, when all have available buttons, and this very closely maps use of keyboard. Second, is the many options that seem far less useful from a joystick, though great for a keyboard (edit gcode, shifting screens, etc...). Third is fixing the X/Y with assumption all joypads have AL and AR buttons.
Any feedback on how best to use this plugin is greatly appreciated.
Best Regards,
Josh