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[on:]

I'm trying to understand how AnalogButtons works

How would I code the analog buttons do to this
Btn1 to toggle intUserSelection between 2,4,6,8 or 10 (rolling back to 2 from 10)
Btn2 runs the function 'SolenoidOn' (which sets pin4 high for a time determined by intUserSelection)

But then while in the SolenoidOn function, I want to have the option 'Press any key to cancel'

So I've really got two different operations for a button--the normal operation that it does, but then if SolenoidOn function is running, the buttons take on a new purpose, to abort the SolenoidOn operation

[Reply #1 on:]

Do you have code to share ? (please use # button) as these questions make not much sense without for me.

[Reply #2 on:]

I'm trying to figure out how the code works to use AnalogButtons.  So I don't have any code yet.

[Reply #3 on:]

Analogue buttons are one of those things that nobody in the history of human understanding has ever understood. It has long been thought to be either a marketing phrase, or something lost in translation long ago that should have meant something entirely different.

[Reply #4 on:]

Please?

[Reply #5 on:]

As in explain what an analog button is in your context.  I've never heard of the phrase, and google mumbles on about Play Station controllers which isn't much help. 

[Reply #6 on:]

What the heck is an AnalogButton?

______
Rob

[Reply #7 on:]

An oxymoron....... 

[Reply #8 on:]

Ah, I think I get it. Shirt buttons, coat buttons, pyjama buttons, that sort of thing. Before digital clothing, buttons used to be manually operated, hence the confusion with the term “analogue”. We get the same thing in photography. New people who aren’t old enough discover film for the first time, and to differentiate it from the digital photography they know, they call film “analogue photography” erroneously.

[Reply #9 on:]

SouthernAtHeart
You said:-

I'm trying to understand how AnalogButtons works

We don't know what your analogue button is.
At a guess it is several push switches that short out some resistors with some connection to the analogue input pin. But that is just a guess and without a schematic even that is not sufficient to tell what you are on about.
So post a link to these buttons or post a schematic of how you have wired them up please.

[Reply #10 on:]

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/AnalogButtons

...sorry, I thought everybody but me knew what they were, where the library was, and had used them numerous times.  But upon googling 'AnalogButtons.h' I see I'm like the 2nd person that knows this library exists.



Here's the sample code, I'm just hoping for a little more insight on how it works.

Code:

/*
  AnalogButtons,
 
  created 02 Jan 2009 V 0.1
 
 Connect more than one button to a single analog pin,
 register a call-back function.which gets called when a button
 is pressed or held down for the defined number of seconds. Includes
 software key debouncing which may need to be adjusted, the the second
 argument to AnalogButtons class. Define the ANALOG_PIN in the constructor
 of AnalogButtons.
 
 The circuit:

 * 5 buttons, 1 side of all buttons connected together to +5V.
   The other side of each button is connected via a different value
   resister (tested with) 1k, 2k5, 5k8, 10k, 18k to one side of a
   100k resister which is in turn connected to GND. At the point
   where all the different resisters are joined you make a connection
   to your analog input. Basicly a different voltage divider is setup
   depending upon which button is pressed. You have to configure the
   Buttons Hi/Low values, see the comments in example code below and the
   AnalogButtons::configure(ANALOG_PIN) function.
   
   More or less than 5 buttons could be added, just pick different values
   of the resister sot hat all buttons have different values which arn't too
   close in size.
   
   I'm not sure what happens when Arduino is powered from batteries and Power V
   drops below V5.
 
 by Neil DUdman and everyone who's ever used Arduino
 
 */
#include "AnalogButtons.h"

#define ANALOG_PIN 0

// A call back function that you pass into the constructor of AnalogButtons, see example
// below. Alternitivly you could extend the Button class and re-define the methods pressed()
// or held() which are called
void handleButtons(int id, boolean held)
{ 
  if (held) {
    Serial.print("button id="); Serial.print(id); Serial.println(" was pressed and held");
  } else{
    Serial.print("button id="); Serial.print(id); Serial.println(" was pressed only");
  }
}

AnalogButtons analogButtons(ANALOG_PIN, 30, &handleButtons);
Button b1 = Button(1, 1013,1014);
Button b2 = Button(2, 1002, 1002);
Button b3 = Button(3, 970, 971);
Button b4 = Button(4, 929, 933);
// Default hold duration is 1 second, lets make it 5 seconds for button5
Button b5 = Button(5, 860, 875, 5);

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println("Testing your Analog buttons");
 
  analogButtons.addButton(b1);
  analogButtons.addButton(b2);
  analogButtons.addButton(b3);
  analogButtons.addButton(b4);
  analogButtons.addButton(b5); 
 }
 
void loop()
{ 
  // To check values when button are pressed
  analogButtons.checkButtons();
 
  // To configure the MAX/Min values for each
  // Button, uncomment this line, make sure you've called Serial.begin(9600);
  // Then in turn hold town each botton, noting the max/min values
  //AnalogButtons::configure(ANALOG_PIN); //delay(1000);
}

[Reply #11 on:]

I'm just hoping for a little more insight on how it works.

Essentially it is a simple digital to analogue converter. You create different voltage outputs by bypassing different resistors, so that by reading the voltage on the output of this circuit you can work out what buttons were pressed.
If you have this library then you use the result just like you would use a real button, to make decisions in your program.

What you want to do is not too complex but it is not trivial either. You are best to draw out the flow you want your program to follow in the form of a flow diagram. However you need to learn some techniques first. I would recommend that you do, and understand the "blink without delay" example in the learning section.

[Reply #12 on:]

This is basically what is sometimes known as a “window discriminator”.

[Reply #13 on:]

Am I correct that analogButtons.checkButtons();
should be in my Loop routine, and then in the function
void handleButtons(int id, boolean held)
is where I actually put the commands to call different routines, depending on which button was pressed?

[Reply #14 on:]

...I'll be working on a Flow Chart in Excel, be back later, but I still hope someone answers my previous post, I think I'm correct in the way I understand it.
A flow chart is a very good idea, thanks.