Control panel feedback

[alandrogers]

Here's my current control panel layout ... this is a jpg export from the freehand file.
After all the talk, reading, etc., I actually ended up changing a couple of things while i was drawing. 1. I dropped the 4th button on the primary joysticks 2. swapped the 4-way and spinner positions 3. I dropped the 3rd button by the 4-way stick. I couldn't find any 4-way games I play that used the extra buttons (the neo geo layout or 3 buttons with the 4way).

This should leave enough clear space above the trackball, and you can reach the spinner without going directly over the player 2 joystick.

Buttons are on 1-5/8" centers, 2-3/4" from joysticks. the blue buttons are mouse buttons, Pause buttons are the black ones in the upper right/left.

Not shown are the pinball buttons on the front and side; and the admin buttons which will be on the front and left side.

Thanks in advance for your input.

[Chris G]

Although I haven't implemented it yet myself (working on my design too), I understand that other buttons can double as mouse buttons, so you may want to consider that if you haven't already.

And I've never seen a layout with two pause buttons... what's your thinking there?

Chris

[alandrogers]

The thinking is just a pause button for each player ... without having to reach across  the cp.

[paigeoliver]

Nice layout. I have one small suggestion.

Kill those dedicated trackball buttons. They are panel clutter, are not needed and if you set them up to be used in games they will make trackball games almost impossible for right handed players.

[leapinlew]

Looks like a pretty smart layout - I'd change a few things.

Get rid of anything in front of the trackball if you play games like: Shuuz, World Class Bowling, Golden Tee or Shuffleshot - they will get hit.

In my experience - the game rarely gets paused. Having 1 is all you need.

Ditch the dedicated mouse buttons (the least amount of buttons the better).

[paigeoliver]

Other things you may want to consider.

Putting the buttons to the left of the 4-way rather than to the right of it.  Make a mockup panel with a 4-way on it and put buttons on both sides of it and see which hand you actually prefer to use on the stick in 4-way games. I have found that many people actually prefer to play 4-way games with their right hand on the stick and not their left hand. This is because 4-way games are usually the kind where the control of the stick requires more fine motor control than the buttons, which the the reverse of most 8-way games.

[alandrogers]

I got to thinking about what you said about the 4-way games ... I think you're right.

Here's another take.

Mouse buttons - out (but i may install them on the front under the overhang just cause I like having mouse buttons available)

Pause - gone also

4-way moved.

Button spacing opened up a little between stick and first buttons.

[paigeoliver]

You can have mouse buttons available without actually having dedicated mouse buttons. I always just use the start buttons as the mouse buttons.

[mwatson]

I hadn't thought about having secondary mouse buttons like that, that'll clean my CP design up rather well. This is definitely a good read before finalizing my panel. Thanks

[alandrogers]

Hmmm ... paigeoliver, I'm a little confused about this ..   I'd like to see your CP encoder mapping to make more sense of it.

I haven't looked, but are there some examples of those (encoder maps) on this board someplace?

[paigeoliver]

Shouldn't be anything confusing about it. Those wires that were going to go to whatever dedicated mouse buttons you were going to have just go to the start buttons instead.

You know mame allows you to set any keypress as any input, right? You wire your start buttons up to your mouse buttons and then set them to be the START buttons. You don't HAVE to wire them to the things labeled "Start1" and "Start2" on your encoder.

[ahofle]

I have a layout very similar to this.  I used the two buttons to the left of your 4 way as my mouse buttons.  Then, in MAME my games are all mapped to use either Ctrl OR Mouse1 for fire.  But in windows, you can use them for mouse activity.  That way I get dedicated mouse buttons with no extra clutter. 

[alandrogers]

aha.

sorry for the confusion, but up to this point, I've just been playing MAME using my keyboard. And I havent remapped anything.