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STICK_MODES_UPDATE.md

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Stick modes update: Persistent mode + Edit Binding window polish

Context

The Edit Binding dialog had three problems that landed in one change set because they all live in the binding editor + stick model layer:

  1. The window was clipped at the bottom — Height="540" wasn't tall enough to show the OK/Cancel button row when the Stick model section had two parameter rows visible.
  2. The Stick model section labelled its inputs Param 1 / Param 2. Meaningless without reading the source — the labels gave no hint about what the parameter controlled or what range was sensible.
  3. Both existing stick modes auto-recenter — Velocity decays toward 0 the moment the mouse stops, and Accumulator springs back continuously. There was no "stick stays where you put it" mode. The user wanted a third behavior where the only way to recenter is to physically move the mouse the same distance the other way.

What changed

  • New PersistentStickModel record + PersistentStickProcessor implementing IStickProcessor. Integrates mouse counts into a deflection just like Accumulator, but with no spring/decay term. Single parameter: CountsPerFullDeflection.
  • New "persistent" discriminator added to StickModel's [JsonDerivedType] table. New arm in StickProcessorFactory.
  • New tests in PersistentStickProcessorTests covering: hold-without-input, reverse-from-clamped-point, overshoot-discarded, clamp range, sign, reset.
  • Edit Binding window:
    • Sizing switched to SizeToContent="Height" with MinHeight="600", MinWidth="520", and ResizeMode="CanResize" so the window always fits its content even when the param row count changes.
    • Outer grid row 2 changed from Height="*" to Height="Auto" (the star row was incompatible with SizeToContent="Height" and the stick model groupbox should size to content anyway).
    • Stick model dropdown gained a third entry: Persistent (no recenter).
    • Param rows now use x:Named labels (Param1Label, Param2Label) and a named row (Param2Row) so the code-behind can rewrite labels, attach tooltips, and collapse the second row entirely for Persistent mode.
    • Code-behind has new OnStickModelChanged() (defaults + labels) and ApplyStickModelLabels() (label text, tooltips, row visibility). LoadFrom and OnOk handle the third mode.
    • Param 1 column widened from 120px to 160px to fit the new descriptive labels (e.g. "Counts/sec → full").

Key decisions

  • Third mode, not a flag on Accumulator. Could have been done as AccumulatorStickModel with SpringPerSecond=0, but the user explicitly wants the behavior to be discoverable from the dropdown rather than hidden behind a parameter value. A separate record also gives the persistent mode its own label/tooltip/single-param UI without conditionals leaking into Accumulator's path.
  • Clamp + discard overshoot at ±1.0. When the user moves the mouse past the full-deflection point, the extra counts are dropped. Recovery distance is measured from the clamped point (1.0), not from however far past the edge the mouse went. The alternative — let the internal accumulator overflow and require the user to "undo" the overshoot before the stick comes off the edge — was rejected because it makes recovery feel sluggish and unpredictable. With the chosen behavior, "move back N counts to deflect by N/CountsPerFullDeflection" always holds.
  • SizeToContent="Height" over picking a bigger fixed height. The Stick model groupbox grows from 2 rows (Persistent) to 3 rows (Velocity / Accumulator) depending on the selected mode. A fixed height tall enough for the worst case wastes vertical space in the others; SizeToContent="Height" with a MinHeight is robust to future row count changes too.
  • Defaults populate on dropdown change. Switching the dropdown rewrites the param textboxes with mode-appropriate defaults (Velocity 8.0/800.0, Accumulator 5.0/400.0, Persistent 400.0). LoadFrom sets the index first (default fires), then overwrites with the persisted value — same pattern the original code used.
  • Tooltips, not inline help text. The descriptive labels are short ("Decay /sec", "Counts → full") so the GroupBox stays compact; the longer "what does this do, what's a typical range" explanation lives in a tooltip on the label. Hovering surfaces it; nothing wastes space when the user already knows.
  • Scale-parameter tooltips warn about overlap with Sensitivity. With a default curve (deadzone=0, saturation=0, exponent=1), the per-mode "counts → full" / "counts/sec → full" parameter behaves much like the Curve's Sensitivity slider — both effectively scale how much mouse input pegs the stick. The two only diverge when the user has a non-trivial curve (the stick-model param shifts where deadzone/saturation fall in mouse-distance/speed terms; Sensitivity scales after the curve). To avoid users tweaking the wrong knob first, all three scale-param tooltips (Persistent's Counts → full, Accumulator's Counts → full, Velocity's Counts/sec → full) carry the same advice: leave at default, tune Sensitivity instead, only change if you specifically want the deadzone/saturation interaction. The time-domain params (Decay /sec, Spring /sec) don't carry the caveat — they control response over time and are genuinely independent of anything else.

Files touched

Deliberately unchanged:

  • BindingResolver.cs and InputEngine.cs — they call against the IStickProcessor interface and need no awareness of the new processor type.
  • The curve evaluator and per-binding curve UI — orthogonal to the stick model.

Follow-ups

  • The persistence schema version (schemaVersion: 1) was not bumped. Profiles saved by older builds without a PersistentStickModel keep working unchanged; profiles using the new type written by this build will fail to deserialize on older builds. If backwards-compat with older app versions becomes a concern, bump the schema and gate on it. For now this is fine because the user runs only one build at a time.
  • The Param 1 textbox value carries over visually when the user switches modes (e.g., switching from Velocity to Accumulator overwrites the field via the defaults). If users want the editor to remember per-mode values within a single dialog session, that's a future iteration.
  • No UI yet for visualizing the stick's current deflection in real time. The user mentioned wanting to verify Persistent behavior with a gamepad tester (e.g., joy.cpl); a built-in live view would be nicer but is out of scope here.