My thoughts, things learned and proposal after getting a Slim Pack - Wired Controller - Sapphire Blue

[BoomerangAide]

Recently, I acquired a "Slim Pack - Wired Controller - Sapphire Blue" controller, and I wanted to share things I thoughts, learned, and would like to propose.
There is a way this post would be useless: if all the content that has the potential to be useful, you've seen it elsewhere, but it may not be the case for all, so I'm giving a try at writing this.

• When getting a new gamepad, be careful of the "dead buttons". There are those that will never send any signal at all, they work at the hardware level on the gamepad, and neither AntiMicroX nor any other program will ever be able to do something with them.
  On my previous gamepad, that was the "analog" button (that cause the joysticks to send the same signals as the cross-shaped buttons (directional or action) on both sides of the pad), and on my current one, it's the "turbo" button (will cause to send the next input(s) to be sent repeatedly). There may be others.
• Be careful about the fact that some gamepads have "modes". On my previous one, there was a switch in the back, causing the controller to be recognized differently by the system.
  On my current one, at first it was recognized as a XBOX pad, and some buttons weren't working. I'm not sure if it's installing some software, or pressing the right buttons (I was pressing the wrong ones at the beginning), or if both were necessary, but my controller was eventually recognized as a "Wired Gamepad", and 2 more buttons became usable.
• A gamepad never got enough buttons. The first thing that came to my mind to get around that, would be to get results from pressing 2 buttons at the same time, or holding a button and pressing another.
  AntiMicroX allow to do that.
  You need to use a new "set", copy data from your original set (there's an option for that), then "sacrifice" a button to be the switch, giving it the function "select set X while holding" (usually "2" but you could have more), then in set 2 change the function of the buttons that need to do something different. The "toggle" button will automatically have been updated in the "other set".
• It's a continuation of the previous point, but if you're not willing to completely sacrifice a button for toggle, it is possible to make a compromise.
  At the same time a button is used to switch set, you can set it to do a combination of buttons.
  If you use the "Hold" action (I use "Hold" with 0.50s), then the function the key had previously, you can get it back if you hold the button for the right time, without releasing it or hitting another button. May not work for all desired inputs, but you could always sacrifice another button "more compatible" with this trick if needed.

Now getting out of the list for something I've seen mentioned in other issues/discussions, but maybe it's just because the hardware was different (which is why I accurately put the description of my controller here), I didn't see solutions, but in my case, though I haven't tested yet, it should work: the back paddles.
At first view, they look like the 1st entry of my list, completely useless because they can't send their own signal, only record at the hardware level (no software can interact with it, it's all done on the gamepad itself) combinations or sequences of the other buttons, and send that as input.
BUT...if said combination is a "change set" button, followed by a button that do something else on that other set, it may be possible to use buttons combinations you would never do (because it's annoying to hold the first and hit the second, or because there's a risk to mix with another input and get a bad result), to create an use for those buttons.
Maybe it can work with gamepad with a similar feature?
Sadly, I just recently bought my pad, not used to it enough to figure what to use the paddle buttons for yet (I was hoping they would have their own signal, now I know they don't and I must also worry about hitting them by accident before allocating a function to them lol), but if it work, it may be useful to owners of those gamepads.

I hope my thoughts and experiences will be of use or interest to users and programmers alike.

Finally, 2 proposals (for the main dev, or programmers that can contribute to the project directly or indirectly):

• it could be convenient to have a "disable input conversion" checkbox or option (it can have a different name).
  Use cases:
• • You don't need the input to work while you're on the program GUI.
• • You're trying/calibrating the joystick set to emulate "up" and "down", and the GUI selecting list boxes and number boxes by default, causing the content to change when pressing "up" and "down", can be annoying.
• • You're trying to quickly locate a button of your pad by pressing it, but its input cause a system sound or another annoyance.
• A system of "wizards", for better calibration (entering sequences of commands to better understand how the joysticks and buttons are used in more real conditions), for dealing with "hold button + other button to produce a different input" in a more user friendly way, and maybe to allow users to configure the aforementioned back paddles without having to understand all the tricks behind it.

I hope some developers could be interested in trying that, not necessarily the main dev of the project that may already have many things scheduled and should not be split in too many directions by feature requests.
I wish I could help more, but while my brain is still ok with programming, the remainder of my body has not been that agreeable for a while.

Thank you for this program, thank you for reading this, and thank you for anything good that could come out of this.

[BoomerangAide]

Another thing I discovered today: DO NOT put BOTH the exe and the shortcut in "run as admin" mode.
For me it caused the touchpad to stop being recognized by AntiMicroX as a button.
Removing "run as admin" from the shortcut while leaving it on the .exe fixed that weird issue.
Maybe exchanging which "run as admin" and which doesn't would still work?
But I'm sharing my experience it case it help someone.