⚠ IMPORTANT

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AnalogButtons

In order to reduce the number of pins used by some projects, sketches can use this library to wire multiple buttons to one single analog pin.

• Features
• Usage
  • 1. Buttons definition
  • 2. Analog pin definition
  • 3. Setup
  • 4. Periodic verification

Features

You can register a call-back function which gets called when a button is pressed or held down for a defined number of seconds.

Includes a software simple de-bouncing algorithm that can be tweaked and is based on the max sampling frequency of 50Hz (one sample every 20ms)

Minimum hold duration (time that must elapse before a button is considered being held) and hold interval (time that must elapse between each activation of the hold function) can both be configured.

By default the maximum number of buttons per pin is limited to 8 to limit memory consumption, but it can be controlled by defining the ANALOGBUTTONS_MAX_SIZE macro before including this library.

Starting from version 1.2.0:

• the maximum sampling frequency can be controlled by defining the ANALOGBUTTONS_SAMPLING_INTERVAL macro, defaulting to 20
• holding a button does not imply a click event being fired, greatly simplifying writing complex user interfaces

This work is largely inspired by the AnalogButtons library available in the Arduino Playground library collection, but it represents a substantial improvement in terms of code organization as each operation is going to be defined in a separate function removing the need to determine (through if or switch statements) which button has been pressed/held.

Contributions are welcome under the Apache Public License version 2.0.

For wiring instructions please refer to the sample schematics or, if you prefer, to the sample breadboard.

Here is an animation showing how the voltage at the analog pin varies depending on which button gets pressed.

Also, a test rig is available to play with the circuit and experiment with alternative layouts.

Usage

Basically, the library usage can be divided into the following four steps.

1. Buttons definition

Each button is defined in isolation in terms of:

• an associated value (an unsigned integer within the board ADC range)
• a click function executed upon button click
• a hold function executed once the button is identified as being held (defaults to click function)
• a hold duration determining the number of milliseconds the button must remain pressed before being identified as held down (defaults to 1 second)
• a hold interval determining the number of milliseconds between each activation of the hold function while the button is kept pressed (defaults to 250 milliseconds)

In its simplest form, a button definition resembles something like the following which defines a button with only a click function.

void aButtonClick() {
  // do something
}
Button aButton = Button(512, &aButtonClick);

In its most complex form, a button definition includes also a reference to a hold function and the parameters to detect the hold minimum time and reset delay, looking like the following.

void aButtonClick() {
  // do something
}
void aButtonHold() {
  // do something else
}
Button aButton = Button(512, &aButtonClick, &aButtonHold, 5000, 50);

2. Analog pin definition

Because buttons will share the same analog pin, some configuration is required to distinguish and manage the different buttons:

• the analog pin the buttons will be attached to
• the pin mode to set on the analog pin, it can either be INPUT (default value) or INPUT_PULLUP, depending on your wiring layout
• the debounce frequency multiplier which determines the minimum duration a button must remain pressed to be considered being clicked in order to avoid false positives (defaults to 5)
• the analog value margin which takes into account slight resistance fluctuations and ADC errors transforming the button value into a range (defaults to 10)

AnalogButtons analogButtons = AnalogButtons(A2);

3. Setup

Once you have everything defined you need to link everything up, more than probably within your setup() function:

analogButtons.add(aButton);
analogButtons.add(anotherButton);

4. Periodic verification

Now all you need is to periodically activate the analog buttons verification which checks the analog pin to determine if one of the many possible conditions occurred and fires the corresponding code. The following code goes into the loop() function and needs to be executed as often as possible: this means you shouldn't introduce any delay(...) statement in your code, otherwise, the library will not work as expected:

analogButtons.check();