[grumpygamer]

Sorry, I was thinking too abstract (stop me next time I do). I was pointing out a problem in your concept. We currently don't have a way to tell controllers from joysticks, so the thee images would be the same.

My suggestions:

• Use a default icon for all devices
  
• On windows, use the icon shown by Windows Control Panel (I think this can be done)
  
• Just display text. Here's what we know (and their caveats):
  • Name provided by the driver (sometimes missing, not localized, sometimes messy)
    
  • An alternative name could be current platform, e.g. "Windows joystick", "Linux joystick", "Android joystick"
    
  • USB VID/PID (missing on some platforms)
    
  • USB Vendor name (from this, possibly unknown)
    
  • Number of digital buttons and analog axes
    

Hmmm, I mildly disagree...
When I attach the Xbox 360 dongle and activate a controller I get a notification that an "Xbox controller" has been found.
Certainly that information exists somewhere, so that's one controller less we have to worry about.
Not sure about PS2/3 Controllers but if those are correctly recognised as I suppose, I think we have half the cake baked for us.

For the rest I would

• Figure out by cross-referencing different data what controller that is and maintain a database (online?) with that info for future lookups. A bit like driver updates... I hope you understand what I'm getting at here. We could build this up with user cooperation.
  
• For those other devices, we could just use a generic "Unkown controller" until we are able to add that particular device to the database.
  
• Absolutely NOT use the windows control panel icon since this would result in a really poor mix up of styles.
  

I am mildly savvy in mysql as well so I can set up dbs and tables if necessary.
I imagine that many DIY controllers will have a similar encoding chips so we could just end up identifying those and manually associating them to "fighting stick" OR we could just ask the user to give that device a name (So he could just put "MEGA Stick"!) and store it locally for him which seems pretty smart to me (he'd only have to do it once).

I am a designer as well (I placed third in the XBMC mascot contest - yeah let's brag about that!) so I can draw some icons for you.

For joystick detected as keyboards AND keyboards we just use a "generic keyboard controller" entry end of story.

we don't know how many are attached.

You are telling me we can attach two keyboards on the same USB port (hub) without being able to identify them?
In that case having the user tell us is the only way... man this scenario is the most SUCKY there is.
Are you completely sure there is no way to know which is which?
I mean to be able to define itself as a joystick, a keyboard would have to have a number of keys set under a "logical ID" - at the top of my head.

Can you remove the "1 Controller mapped" part?

I can certainly do so, but it pains me as I find it really useful to know when a controller is mapped.
Even now with only one controller I have doubts when I boot it and sometimes end up redoing the configuration; there are no cues for the user that the mapping operation has been done.

How about assigning a controller to a player port?
Is that also a problem?

Please be reassured I am in no way doubting your programming skills, just trying to see if digging deeper yields some results. There MUST be a way!

Also what are your thoughts about the two paths (controller oriented and platform oriented)?
If we start to steer one way or another I can start refining the sketches so they don't look so crappy.

Actually there is another thing that bugs me as a UX problem: the mapping of the controller for Kodi.
As a user I did not expect this to be necessary and completely skipped that with my eyes.
I think we have to find a way to avoid that initial configuration for Kodi (defaults?), it's really confusing IMHO.