Introduction

LibGDX doesn't have any built in method for determining if a keyboard button is being held down, as such this feature needed to be implemented primarily for using weapons

Implementation

Determining whether a button is being held can be found by keeping track of when a button has been pressed and checking if it has been released since then, which is why this feature was implemented in the KeyboardPlayerInputComponent class. Continuously sending inputs was achieved using the Timer and TimerTask classes, where each method is allocated a Timer which is given a unique TimerTask when the keydown input is received and has it cancelled when the keyup input is received. The task repeatedly calls the method every few milliseconds, as determined by the inputDelay constant (10ms), until it is cancelled when the button is released.

Example

Attacking with the melee weapon while the button is held

    # Adding the method to the 'keyDown' actionMap
    actionMap.put(MELEE,  (i) -> holdMelee());

    # Adding the method to the 'keyUp' actionMap
    actionMap.put(MELEE,  (i) -> unMelee());
    
    private final Timer holdMelee = new Timer();
    private RepeatMelee taskMelee;
    private static final int inputDelay = 15; 

    private class RepeatMelee extends TimerTask{
        # Task calls the 'melee' function when run
        @Override
        public void run() {
            melee();
        }
    }
    private boolean holdMelee(){
        # Cancels old task if it somehow exists
        if (this.taskMelee != null) { 
            this.taskMelee.cancel();
        }
        this.taskMelee = new RepeatMelee();
        # Schedules the task to run repeatedly
        this.holdMelee.scheduleAtFixedRate(taskMelee, inputDelay, inputDelay);
        return true;
    }

    private boolean unMelee() {
        # Cancels the task when the button is released
        if (this.taskMelee != null) {
            this.taskMelee.cancel();
        }
        return true;
    }

Ranged weapon

Each ranged weapon can only fire in a single direction a time, as such each of the directional shoot buttons have only 1 timer between them with the task being updated on button press. The unShoot method is also modified from the example to only cancel if the task matches the button being unpressed.

Melee weapon

Follows the example code shown above

Other implementations

Player movement uses a different system involving addition/subtraction of vectors on keyDown/keyUp inputs.

No other current implementations (contact Jordamnmn for requests)

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