would solve this:
https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?p=429136#p429136

I have a branch with virtual button controls here: https://github.com/grorp/minetest/tree/the-good-stuff

@grorp how to make it into an apk? i cannot find apk-s

https://github.com/grorp/minetest/actions/runs/6318026396

What exactly does "virtual controls" mean? Is this the ability to customise the touchscreen GUI? Or do you want more onscreen buttons to emulate key presses

actually all makes a mixture of whats needed, like we need more buttons and ability to use most of them at once,(like aux+sneak etc) but minimal customization surely needed. virtual controls mean you place and drag the buttons or sliders anywhere. all can be placed by player anywhere they wants!
sorry for bad english

This looks really nice, hope it gets into Minetest 5.8.0. The mobile controls have always been difficult for me

I have a branch with virtual button controls here: https://github.com/grorp/minetest/tree/the-good-stuff

Using this build when flying below the island of the end in creative mode in mineclone2 the flights controls stop working and I fall into the abyss

@tetsuo55 what the frick? can you make a video about that?

Ok I will do it as soon as I am able to.

Also this is the only build where (cross)bow and arrow works on mineclone2

@tetsuo55 i tried that thing and does not happen for me. i flew below end islands and everything is ok. Please mind that sneak button is not a button! its a switch/toogle! if thats the problem, just press it again!

You're right , sneak being a toggle it forces you down while in flight mode until you press it again.

However shields still can't be used because the button for it appears under the directional controls

Edit: shield working fine

theres so much similarity between @grorp 's fork and Minecrap new controls...

also, Minecrap got Virtual Controls!!

(offtopic part:when i played mc a minute ago, after years of only mt play, i got so much nostalgia!)

still in development?

I'm moving the "allow customizing the button layout" part of this issue to #14456, since the other issue is more clear.

This one can stay open for the "add more on-screen buttons" part.

one more annoying thing is, there no attack/interact switch button (most touchscreen device need) or attack/switch button (this only for using crosshair, still hard to imagine) in Android. since pc can press physical keyboard.

The control buttons + analog joysticks in the op video seem to be from the project https://github.com/strato-emu/strato

Now that an editor has been implemented thanks to grorp this will probably be easier!

I'm not experienced with the formspec, but I imagine it would be possible to give the player the ability to add any keybinding with something like a new "other buttons" button in the "Add button" menu of #14933. This could open up a clickable list of the Luanti keybindings, taken directly from the internal keybindings if possible (to reduce maintenance need and make any binding possible).

I agree with @AdityaMH, I think the option to have separate attack/interact buttons would be useful for many, which is why I think the best solution would be for the customizer to be rounded out with the option to add any internal keybinding. Allowing any keybinding to be added would broadly make it easier for people to customize things to their need, like with #14388, by making a DPAD with the arrow buttons. Displaying them could be as simple as just showing the first few letters of the binding name, since they would be nonstandard bindings, like is done for Aux1, textures can be filled in later.

Edit:
I don't have the time to look more into it right now, but if anyone else does; I think getting a list of real keybindings (I'm thinking the ones used for player movement, not the formspec, so in KeyCache) is doable by looping over inputhandler.cpp's key member after its populated with populate(), and then getting their names by referring to their m_name member.

Regardless of if inputhandler is used as a singleton it seems like it shouldn't be a problem to create a new inputhandler object just to populate it and use its key list to get its KeyPress objects. It can be looped over with for (size_t i=0; i < KeyType::INTERNAL_ENUM_COUNT; i++)