Game Input for Single Actions

Question

So I'm not 100% sure what you would call this type of keypress, but it is essentially a keyTyped event but in reverse order. Instead of being triggered when the button is released, it is triggered when the button is first pressed, but can't be triggered again until the button is released and pressed again.

Right now I have events for buttonDown and buttonUp and I also have two HashMaps to keep track of the currentInput and previousInput of each action in the game (jumping, moving, crouching, etc...) How can I provide a function that when called returns true for this type of button push?

Answer 1

You are almost there : you need to detect whether the key has just been pressed. So it is currently down, but wasn't an instant ago, which is easy to test since you have both states.

bool pressed(Action action) {
    return !previousInput[action] && currentInput[action];
}

Answer 2

I suggest doing the following:

1. Create an integer variable.
2. Set it to zero if the current state is up.
3. Increment it if the current state is down.
4. Only activate the desired method when the value is zero and the state is down. Alternatively, if you increment prior to checking, only activate if and when the value is 1. Good luck!