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I'm building out a G1000 button box. The CLR (clear) button has two states short press and long press and are mapped to two different MSFS2020 events
G1000 PDF
-> AS1000_PFD_CLR
-> AS1000_PFD_CLR_Long

how can I simulate this with a single button? Should I map this to a joystick then do a lua script or is there an easier way?

Hi

I think your right.
For the moment i not see a way to build this within mobiflight (Counter or duration detection)
(I need to talk to Sebastian if this is maybe a option for a future release.... but i don´t think thats a easy patch. This would need may a bigger rework of logics)

So lets figure out your options for now (or for ever if this is not a feature Seb. like to build in MF)

1. Electrical or with a second external Controller. ( Difficult and not so comfortable)
There should be a way to use electrical Elements or a second Arduino ( e.g. a little nano/micro with a own written sketch) that split the Switch into TWO (or more) Pins....
Means... If you Press and release within short time it send a signal on Ouput line 1..... IF you make a otherwise a "hold" or a Long Press with more then e.g. 0,5 Sec) then it send a Signal on Output Line 2.

2. Via LUA Script !
But here i think we are not "bind" to a Joy Button..... We can use also MF to "fire" the script! Pretty sure via VJOY but i think it should also work by writing a Free Offset to 1/0 with the button..... As i understand for the Lua Script its no matter if it use a Real Joystick or VjoyButton or Offset for indication.

Please check the "TrippleUse.LUA" from the "Lua Example Files" included in the FSUIPC SDK.

Code:

-- Example of making a single button give three separate uses:
	-- To keep things relatively simple, here we deal with one
	-- specific button (defined as joystick 1, button 0 below).
	-- But you could generalise this and have multple buttons,
	-- each with multiple actions
	
	-- The multiple use is obtained by a simple method:
	  -- A short press and release (like a mouse click)
	  -- A double short press and release (like a double click)
	  -- A press held for longer (over half second)
	
	-- Just for a visible example which can be applied easily,
	-- here a single button is used to select left view, right
	-- and forward view, using FS controls. You could just as
	-- easily send keypresses or sequences of either.
		
	-- Single short press = left view (VIEW LEFT = 65680)
	-- Two short presses = right view (VIEW RIGHT = 65676)
	-- A longer press = frward view (VIEW FRWARD = 65674)

joy = 1
btn = 0
interval = 500 -- 1/2 second press, gap, press limits
ignorepress = false

-- Function to time the button being pressed or left released
-- Allow only up to "interval" till decide no change
local function timebutton(test)
  while true do
		time2 = ipc.elapsedtime()
		if (time2 - time1) > interval then
			ignorepress = false
			return false
		end
	 	if ipc.testbutton(joy, btn) == test then
			time1 = time2
			return true
		end
	 	ipc.sleep(20)
	end
end

function buttonpress(j, b, du)
	if ignorepress then
   	ignorepress = false
   	return
	end
  
	-- Note time button was pressed
	time1 = ipc.elapsedtime()
	time2 = 0

	if timebutton(false) then
		-- First press / release counts: see if there's another
		if timebutton(true) then
			-- got another press in time, look for release
			if timebutton(false) then
				-- this was a double press, send VIEW RIGHT
				ipc.control(65676)
			end
  	else	
			-- This was a single press, send VIEW LEFT
			ipc.control(65680)
			ignorepress = false
		end
	else
		-- This was a longer press, send VIEW FORWARD
		ipc.control(65674)
	end
end

-- Enable event on button being pressed (only)
event.button(joy, btn, 1, "buttonpress")

If we "change" the variable from Joy and Button into e.g. a Offset then it should be possible also with MF. ( Or you use Vjoy for that)

Awesome! thank you for taking the time to write a full how-to on this. I'll give this a try. I might look into the MF code and see if there is something I might be able to hack into. I was thinking a new tab under the button setup that allows for hold (similar to the press/release tabs) and then when you get button,0 start a counter until you see button,1 if < x short if >= x long.

I'm already using vjoy for and a macro for setting the heading bug to current so I'll do something similar.

I finally had a few minutes of free time. I added a tab to the button panel that allows for a long hold. It works more like if long held then released do X vs short hold do Z. I Think the best way would be to modify the Arduino code to monitor the press time and then send up a 3 instead of a 0/1 if the button is held for more than y ms. I might look into that next.