Mac: mouse as the right stick (camera and aiming) with mouse buttons on ZR/ZL, and a keyboard key map #2346

What is missing

On the Mac, the mouse is only the touch screen (front_mac.m: left button = finger 0) and the keyboard's right stick is Shift + arrow keys, which is all-or-nothing. In third-person shooters such as Red Dead Redemption (01007820196A6000), aiming and turning the camera with Shift + arrows is very imprecise, so playing with a keyboard and mouse is not really possible: the game needs a controller.

The keyboard layout is also fixed (WASD, J/K/U/I…). Because it reads key positions (keyCode), it already works on AZERTY (ZQSD), but a player cannot move a button to another key.

What you propose

An optional "mouse as right stick" mode for the Mac front end, off by default so touch-screen games keep working:

• Mouse movement → right stick: the pointer is captured while the game window is key (CGAssociateMouseAndMouseCursorPosition(false) + raw deltas from NSEvent deltaX/deltaY), and each frame's movement becomes a right-stick deflection, with a sensitivity setting, an optional curve/dead zone, and the stick returning to centre when the mouse stops. Escape or losing focus releases the pointer, as input_release already does for held keys.
• Left click → ZR, right click → ZL (fire / aim in most shooters), and the middle button or wheel to another button (e.g. R3).
• Settings DM_MOUSE_STICK=1, DM_MOUSE_SENS=<n>, DM_MOUSE_BUTTONS=left=ZR,right=ZL,middle=RS, ideally listed in launcher.json so the launch window and front ends can show them. A game profile could turn the mode on by default where it makes sense (shooters), while games that use the touch screen keep the current behaviour.

Related, smaller: a key map setting, e.g. DM_KEYMAP=A=Space,B=E,ZR=…, using the same position-based key codes, so a player can rebind the keyboard.

Platforms

Mac