How to detect holding down the input on a sprite on mobile?

[erikwittern]

Hi there,

 

I would like to react to the player holding down the input on a sprite (e.g., called obj, with inputEnabled = true). On a desktop, I can achieve this for the mouse using:

if(obj.input.pointerDown()){  // do something...}

On mobile, however, the code does not work - I believe I would have to use something like pointer1, but it seems only to be accessible for the game object, for example:

game.input.pointer1.isDown

Is there a way to activate/use pointer1 on sprites as well?

[Heppell08]

You can have it set as this.input.pointer1.isdown

As long as you've assigned all the proper code for the input on the sprite ie: inputEnabled then I don't see why it shouldn't work. Maybe back up the code with a pointer1.isUp so it releases but that is pure speculation since. But in general it should work. I had a game made with draggable sprites and it wasn't too complex.

[erikwittern]

Hm, you mean obj.input.pointer1.isDown ? Because that does not work, because pointer1 is undefined on obj.input (FYI: obj.inputEnabled = true is set)...

[erikwittern]

I actually also tried a hack by defining pointer1 as the input of obj like so:

obj.input = game.input.pointer1;

Interestingly, this works fine. Until you want to change the state in the game - then, it tries to call input.destroy() on pointer1, which does not exist.

 

Any other ideas?

[erikwittern]

I think I found my solution: I use the dragging functionality for my purpose (thanks, Heppell08, for hinting at this). So what I do is: I enable dragging with:

obj.input.enableDrag();

(Note: obj.input.draggable = true; does enable reacting to dragging as well, but produced errors in my case because some instantiations, e.g. of _dragPoint, are not performed - thus rather use enableDrag()).

Then, I can check for it (on desktop and mobile) using:

if(obj.input.isDragged){  // do something...}

Fortunately, obj.input.isDragged is true even if the pointer is just pressed, no matter of whether actual dragging happens, making this approach suitable for my purpose. As I do not actually want to drag something around (just detect the pointer being pressed), I also prohibit horizontal and vertical dragging using:

obj.input.setDragLock(false, false);

Edited April 25, 2014 by John135