DailyStruggleButton is yet another Arduino library to debounce button (push tactile switch) and manage its events. Events supported include pressing, releasing, holding down, long pressing (hold button for x time) and multi-hitting (hit button x times in y time). For simplicity, there is only one callback function for all events, that passes an identifier as a parameter to indicate the event that just happened.

Original meme by Jake Clark.

• 0.5.1
  • Fixed spelling mistakes.
  • Example file to use <> instead of "".
  • Changed versioning.
• 0.5.0
  • First upload.

For every instance of Dailybutton, there is only one callback function. A callback function is a user defined function that DailyStruggleButton will call when a button event occurs. This callback function takes a parameter buttonEvent of byte datatype. It is essentially positive whole numbers from 0 to 255.

buttonEvent is updated before the function is being called back. Thus, you can use switch /case or if/else to dictate what to do in each situation.

Here is an example:

#include <DailyStruggleButton>

DailyStruggleButton myButton;

void setup(){
	myButton.set(0, myCallback);
}
void loop(){
	myButton.poll();
}
void myCallback(byte buttonEvent){
	switch (buttonEvent){
		case onPress:
			// Do something...
			break;
		case onRelease:
			// Do something...
			break;
	}
}

To set up the example code, you need a Arduino (we tested it on Pro Micro but it should work on most common ones too) and a push tactile button.

One end of the button is connected to Pin 4, while the other is connected to ground.

The internal pull-up resistor will ensure Pin 4 does not float (change between HIGH and LOW sporadically}, rather stay on HIGH (hence pull-up) unless it is deliberately connected to ground. When it is connected to ground, it becomes LOW, thus the logic is inverted, where LOW is pressed and HIGH is released. You need not be bothered with the inverted logic as DailyStruggleButton will take care of it, as long as you set the pull-up/down right in set(), which defaults to internal pulled up if not specified.

Constructor, not used.

Initialises the button. myPin sets the digital pin the button is connected to. myCallback is a callback function that the instance will call when an event occur. This event will be pass as buttonEvent.

...
void setup(){
	myButton.set(0, callback);
}
...
callback(byte myEvent){
...
} 

This is similar to the other set() function, but allows for a third parameter to set the pull-up/down of the button. You can use one of the following:

INT_PULL_UP Uses the internal pull-up resistor, most common use case, selected by default is this parameter is not entered.

EXT_PULL_UP You are to use your own external pull-up resistor, internal one will not be used.

EXT_PULL_DOWN You are to use your own external pull-down resistor, internal one will not be used.

Internal pull-down is not supported. It is important to select the right pull-up/down as the library will decided if the logic should be inverted.

Leave this function inside loop() so it checks on the button constantly. Returns 1 if polled successfully. Returns 0 if button debounce failed.

void loop(){
	myButton.poll();
	...
}

To debounce a button in software is to read the state of the button, wait for a while and make sure the button state remains during this time. This is to filter out mechanical bouncing in push tactile switches.

myTime sets the waiting time in milliseconds. By default 20ms is used and usually there is no need to call this function.

Turn on long press detection. You need to hold the button down for myTime in milliseconds for the event to register.

Turn off long press detection.

Turn on multi-hit detection. You need to press the button_myTarget_ number of times within myTime in milliseconds for the event to register.

Turn off multi-hit detection.

The following shows the flow chart that explains the internal workings should you be interested. Note that not all variable names in the source code correspond to the variable names in the flowchart.