Some people find that when playing games it can be difficult to keep a button held down. It can be beneficial to either latch a button down or be able to toggle it on and off, so that you don’t have to keep it held down for too long.
Some games allow you to toggle buttons on and off using the in-game settings. However, if you’re playing a game that doesn’t have this option, then there can be other ways to do this. It is worth looking at a game’s Options or Settings to see if there are any Toggle options; it may not be called Toggle in each game, however. We will now have look at a few games that allow you to use these options.
One game that allows you certain options that you can toggle on and off is Modern Warfare. You can hold down Left Trigger to Aim Down Sights in this game, or L2, but if you find that holding this button down is difficult then you can have it set to Toggle. This means that you would just tap L2 or Left Trigger to Aim Down Sights and tap it again when you want to stop. So if I tap the button once I’ll Aim Down Sights, and if I tap again I’ll stop. Another thing that you can toggle in this game is cooking grenades. So you can hold down either R1 or Right Bumper to start cooking your grenade and then you let go to throw it.
Or you can have it set to Toggle, so if you tap the button once then you start cooking the grenade, and then when you’re ready you tap it again to throw. Another game that has a latching option is Mario Kart 8 on Nintendo Switch. This allows you to turn on Auto Accelerate, which is essentially just holding the accelerator button down for you for the entire race. So if holding this button down becomes difficult this can be a nice way to play. So as standard, to accelerate in Mario Kart you could hold down the A button. If holding this down over a period of time becomes difficult you can just go into the menus. If we press R we’ve now turned Auto Accelerate on. If I say continue, and now the game will do the accelerating for you.
Sea of Thieves is a game that has several accessibility options including several things that you can toggle on and off. We’ll have a quick look at Radial Menus. Generally with these you would hold the button down to get the menu up, and then keep it held down whilst you cycle through to select what you’d like. But there is the option to be able to just tap the button to get the menu up, select what you’d like and then tap it again to close the menu. Another example of being able to toggle controls in Sea of Thieves is Reduce Hold to Use Item. So here to hold up the lantern I have to hold down Left Trigger and when I let go, lower the lantern. If I now go into the Settings I can Reduce Hold to Use Item. Now when I tap Left Trigger it holds the lantern up and I can tap it again to lower it. A similar option in Sea of Thieves is Reduce Hold to Interact. This means that with interacting with items such as loading the cannon or lowering the anchor generally you would have to hold the button down throughout the entire animation. But by putting this on you can just tap the button once and the action will be carried out.
We will now have a look at other ways that you can toggle. if you are playing a game that doesn’t have these options. There are a couple of different latching boxes available that you can use to set Toggle options using accessibility switches and we will have a quick look at these first. You can also use Toggle options with a standard controller by using a Titan Two Adapter and we’ll have a look at this a bit later in the video. This is the latch box available from OneSwitch. It allows you to set an accessibility switch to act as Toggle, so you can plug this into the Xbox Adaptive Controller or several other different switch interfaces. It can be powered by either AA batteries or if you’re using an Xbox Adaptive Controller then you can plug this into one of the USB slots on the side of the controller and this will get charged by that. So in Red Dead Redemption 2 there isn’t the option to toggle Aim Down Sights, so in order to Aim Down Sights I have to hold Left Trigger down and then I let go to stop, but by using the latch box I’ve set this up to act as Left Trigger, so if I press this button once I can now Aim Down Sights and when I want to stop I just press the button again.
Another type of game that can work well with latching is racing games. So for example if holding down the accelerator for a long period of time is difficult you can have it latched so that the game will accelerate by you just pressing the button once. By having the accelerator latched on this does mean that the car will accelerate up to its maximum speed which can make it quite difficult to control. So you’ll probably find that using a latching box will work best with racing games that have accessibility options to help with braking and steering, such as Forza Motorsport 7. So here I have latched Accelerate using the green buddy button and I’ve also switched on the Super Easy Assisted Controls. So all I have to do now is tap the green button and the game will drive the car. If I wanted to stop the car I could just tap the button again and the car will gradually slow down. So if I just use the brakes now to bring the car to a stop. So, the other thing I could do if I wanted to have a bit more control by just using the joystick then I could go into the Assists, go to Steering and just change that to Assisted. So all of the other Super Easy Mode Options are still on. If I now tap the green button the car will accelerate and I have now got more control by using the joystick to steer.
Another option that some latching boxes provide is to be able to have timed latching. This means that you can have the buttons set to be pressed for a specific period of time. One latching box that allows you to do this is the Ablenet Dual Switch Latch and Timer. This takes nine volt batteries and can work with most switch interfaces, and today we’re using it with an Xbox Adaptive Controller. To get this setup working on PlayStation 4, we’re also using a Titan Two Adapter. You can set the timer to be anything from 1 to 60 seconds or 1 to 60 minutes. So here I’m going to set it to one second. This could be useful in games where you need to hold a button down for a short period of time, for example, to pick up an item or to close a door. Another example where this could be useful is in a first person shooter such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. A lot of people will try and feather the trigger to try and shoot in bursts, and if this is difficult then you could potentially map it so that the gun will only shoot for one second at a time which could be helpful with an automatic weapon if you find that sometimes you hold the button down for too long.
If you don’t need to use accessibility switches as part of your gaming setup then you might want to consider having toggle options on a standard controller and you can do this using a Titan Two Adapter. Using a Titan Two Adapter you can create a profile that will enable you to toggle on and off any button on a standard controller. Red Dead Redemption 2 uses Radial Menus similar to Sea of Thieves and you have to hold the Left Bumper down or L1 down to be able to open up the menu. If this is difficult then you can use the Titan Two to create a profile so all you would need to do is tap L1 or LB to open up the menu. I could then use Right Stick to cycle around and just tap the button again to swap to that item.
Thank you for watching this video and if there’s anything that we can do to help then please do get in touch.
Some people find that when playing games it can be difficult to keep a button held down. It can be beneficial to either latch a button down, or be able to toggle it on and off, so that you don’t have to keep it held down for too long.
Some games allow you to toggle buttons on and off using the in-game settings. However, if you’re playing a game that doesn’t have this option, then there can be other ways to do this. It is worth looking at a game’s Options or Settings to see if there are any Toggle options; it is worth noting that these options may not be called Toggle in each game, however.
Examples of Games with Toggle Options
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
One game that allows you certain options that you can toggle on and off is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
Aim Down Sights option – Using the standard controls, in order to Aim Down Sights in this game you have to hold down Left Trigger (Xbox One) or L2 (PS4), but if you find that holding this button down is difficult then you can have it set to Toggle. This means that you would just tap L2 or Left Trigger to Aim Down Sights and tap it again when you want to stop.
Equipment behaviour option – You can also toggle how you use equipment, such as throwing and cooking grenades. Using the standard controls, you hold down either R1 or Right Bumper to start cooking your grenade and then you let go to throw it. Alternatively, you can have it set to Toggle, so if you tap the button once then you start cooking the grenade, and then when you’re ready you tap it again to throw.
Mario Kart 8
Auto Accelerate option – Another game that has a latching option is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Nintendo Switch. Using the standard controls, you need to hold down the A button to accelerate. However, if this is difficult then the game does have an Auto Accelerate option.
This means that you do not need to press or hold A for the entire race, and can instead concentrate on the other controls, such as steering and throwing items, which can be especially helpful if continually holding down the A button is difficult. To switch the Auto Accelerate option on, you can pause the game at the start of the race, and press the R button.
Sea of Thieves
Sea of Thieves is a game that has several accessibility options, including a few things that you can set to toggle on and off.
Radial Menu’s – Generally with Radial Menu’s you hold the button down to get the menu up, and then keep it held down whilst you cycle through to select what you’d like, and then let go of the button once you have selected that item. But in Sea of Thieves there is the option to be able to just tap the button to get the menu up, select what you’d like, and then tap it again to close the menu. This can be especially helpful if holding down a button for an extended period of time is difficult, or if holding it down whilst using one of the analogue sticks at the same time is tricky.
Reduce Hold to Use Item – Another example of being able to toggle controls in Sea of Thieves is Reduce Hold to Use Item. As an example, to use the lantern, using the standard controls you hold down Left Trigger to hold up the lantern, and let go to lower it. If you need the lantern for a long period of time, this could be difficult, as it would involve keeping the button held down for that entire time. In the in game settings, there is the option to toggle this, by selecting Reduce Hold to Use Item. With this selected, to use the lantern you would now just need to tap Left Trigger to hold the lantern up, and tap it again to lower the lantern once you have finished using it.
Reduce Hold to Interact – A similar option in Sea of Thieves is Reduce Hold to Interact. As standard, to interact with items, such as lowering the anchor or loading the canon, you need to hold the required button down for the entire length of the animation. With Reduce Hold to Interact switched on, you can just tap the button and the action will be carried out.
Latching boxes
If you are playing games that don’t have the toggle options that you need, then there are ways to emulate these options by using hardware, such as a latching box. There are a couple of different latching boxes available that you can use to set Toggle options when using accessibility switches.
One option is the Latchbox, available from OneSwitch (www.oneswitch.org.uk). It allows you to set an accessibility switch to act as Toggle, and works with a variety of switch interfaces, including the Xbox Adaptive Controller. It can be powered by either AA batteries or, if you’re using an Xbox Adaptive Controller, then it can be plugged into one of the USB slots to be powered by the controller. An example of when this might be useful would be when playing Red Dead Redemption 2, which does not have the option to toggle Aim Down Sights. In order to Aim Down Sights when using the standard controls, you need to press and hold the Left Trigger or L2, and keep it held down for the required duration. By plugging the Latchbox into Left Trigger, and plugging an accessibility switch into the Latchbox, you can now set the Left Trigger to act as a toggle option. By tapping the switch once you will begin to aim down sights, and tap it again to stop aiming.
Racing games with accessibility options – Not all racing games have the Auto Accelerate option that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has, but there are ways to emulate this by using hardware such as the Latchbox. If holding down the accelerator for a long period of time is difficult, then you can have it latched so that the car will accelerate, and keep accelerating, with the tap of a button. By having the accelerator latched on this does mean that the car will accelerate up to its maximum speed, which can make it quite difficult to control. Due to this, it can be best to use this option when playing games that have accessibility options to help with steering and braking, such as in Forza Motorsport 7.
By plugging the Latchbox into the Right Trigger switch port on the Xbox Adaptive Controller, and then plugging an accessibility switch into the Latchbox, it is possible to keep the car accelerating constantly. Forza Motorsport 7 has Super Easy Assisted controls, and with these switched on, the car will do all of the steering and braking, meaning that with with Latchbox, you can complete the race by pressing the button once. In order to add more control, by going into the menu you can alter the level of steering assist. By changing the steering assist from Super Easy to Assisted, you now also need to use the left analogue stick to steer.
Timed Latching – Another option that some latching boxes provide is to be able to have Timed Latching, which means that you can have the buttons set to be pressed for a specific period of time. One latching box that allows you to do this is the Ablenet Dual Switch Latch and Timer.
This takes nine volt batteries and can work with most switch interfaces, including the Xbox Adaptive Controller. You can set the timer to be anything from 1 to 60 seconds or 1 to 60 minutes, which means that when you press the button, the control will be latched on for the specific period of time. This type of latching can be helpful for games that require you to pick up items or open doors, by holding the button for a short period of time. Another example of a game that this could be useful would be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, where many people feather the Right Trigger or R2 in order to shoot an automatic weapon in controlled bursts. If this is difficult, and you find holding the button for a specific length of time is tricky, you could consider using a latching box and an accessibility switch, with the timer set to 1 second (the shortest possible time). By tapping the switch, you will now shoot for exactly 1 second.
Titan Two
If you don’t need to use accessibility switches as part of your gaming setup then you might want to consider having toggle options on a standard controller, and you can do this using a Titan Two adapter. Using a Titan Two you can create a profile that will enable you to toggle on and off any button on a standard controller.
If you have any questions, please visit the contact us page: https://www.specialeffect.org.uk/contact
Equipment:
Buddy button http://www.inclusive.co.uk/buddy-button-p2606
Xbox Adaptive Controller https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-adaptive-controller/8nsdbhz1n3d8?activetab=pivot%3aoverviewtab
Latchbox http://oneswitch.org.uk/page/latchbox
Dual Switch Latch and Timer https://www.ablenetinc.com/dual-switch-latch-timer
Titan Two https://www.consoletuner.com/products/titan-two/
Video by Cara Jessop
Music: Energizing by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song… License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b… Screen Saver by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song… License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…
