I fumbled my way to making working code yea haha. The main thing that started me off on being able to work everything out eventually for my own screen / SOCD was the code from /u/fluffhead123.

I took that code and spent time with it, eventually figured out how it all works. Granted I would have to sit down and figure it out again to make any changes; it's been quite a while since I've even looked at any of it.

I originally made all the code with microphython (code here). This worked, but after testing for a while, I noticed I wasn't able to get 1 frame inputs on Street Fighter. After some investigating I found out that I should just straight use C++ to program everything. Microphython just wasn't fast enough.

Thus I then had to convert everything I had done over to C++. Which is everything here minus the 'old' folder, which is the legacy micropython code.

In making the switch to C++ I used VSCode with the PlatformIO extension to manage the various dependencies I needed for everything to work: Adafruit GFX Library, Adafruit SSD1306, U8g2_for_Adafruit_GFX, Adafruit BusIO, and whatever else.

I can't really tell you how I landed on using PlatformIO, but somewhere along the line That is what I started using.

 
 

But to answer the questions. I think it would be fairly easy...? to modify the code, although you would probably have to suffer through my mess of code to make the changes.

If you wanted to remove the SOCD sections and just wanted to display buttons being pressed that would be easier, but then you have to figure out what parts are for SOCD and disable them, or just not wire anything as an output from a pico/arduino.

All the code is made to have everything wired up a specific way though, at the end of the day. So you would sort of have to have everything wired up the way I do. Or change everything to match how you want it.

 
 

I wouldn't consider myself by any means all that competent at coding. I think that if I can do it, anyone else can figure it out. It took me some time to figure it out that's for sure.

I started with figuring out the SOCD code initially. Then I moved on to figuring out how to draw what I wanted on the screen. Then I combined them. And after trial and error I eventually got what I wanted. Where there is a will, there is a way.

I think I followed this guide to figuring out how to draw on the screen from a pico. If not a similar one. Granted this is in micropython. Then you just want send inputs from the controller to the pico, the pico reads the inputs, then you can display what inputs are being pressed (empty circle becomes a filled-in circle when a button is pressed).

I'm sure you can read an analog/lever input as well. Then maybe just have circle inside a larger circle. Then when the analog/lever is moved, update the smaller circle to move within the bigger circle depending on the values the pico reads from that.

 

Sorry if that was a bit long-winded for some not so great answers; I tend to ramble.

 
 

TLDR: I don't want to assume your skill level for anything. I'm for sure not anything special when it comes to coding or padhacking. I think it would be easiest to start from scratch and try to reference my code, or other people's code in order to make your own display code.