1 Button Hide/Show Bezel (Overlay) & Custom Pause Screens?

[Denyou]

So I'm starting to play with overlays (to make custom bezels for games). I know how to turn on/off the overlay using the options in the RetroArch GUI, but I was wondering if there is a way to turn the overlay off using a keyboard press or hotkey combination. I tried looking through the inputs in the RetroArch GUI, but did not seem to find what I was looking for, but thought I'd ask to see if I'm missing something in the GUI before just assuming it doesn't exist.

I'm thinking of using the overlay to display controller information in some games, but I can see how it can be distracting at times and a quick button press to turn it off/on would be nice.

Which leads to my next question. I see that Retroarch supports a pause function which I'm able to assign to a hotkey, even shows a little pause symbol in the upper right corner of the screen. This reminded me that I though at some point in the last year I happened upon an article for creating a custom pause image that displays on the screen. I could see this being useful for conveying controller information as an alternative.

So does this functionality exist? If so, anyone able to point me to a guide for how to add custom images. Can I have separate images per game?

Thanks.

[sleve_mcdichael]

You can set input_overlay_next (keyboard key) or input_overlay_next_btn (joypad button) hotkeys in retroarch.cfg. This says "toggles to next overlay. Wraps around." I am not sure if this includes "no overlay" but if it doesn't, you could just include a blank/transparent overlay in the directory to cycle through as "off."

Set the overlay_directory in your global config (configs/all/retroarch.cfg) or, for individual overlays you could set the directory on a per-core or per-game basis in configs/[core]/retroarch.cfg or configs/all/retroarch/config/[Core Full Name]/[rom base name].cfg. In this directory, place image and config files for the blank/transparent overlay (if needed, probably is) and one or more overlays you'd like to cycle through.

Edit: you probably don't need an image file for the blank one, just leave the image path undefined in the config.

Necro edit: that's not how it works. You set more than one overlay in a single overlay .cfg (which is referenced from retroarch.cfg or any core/content_dir/game config override with input_overlay_enable = true and input_overlay = /path/to/overlay.cfg) and this cycles through them. One blank one does work for "off," as in:

overlays = 2

overlay0_overlay =
overlay0_full_screen = true
overlay0_descs = 0

overlay1_overlay = path/to/overlay.png
overlay1_full_screen = true
overlay1_descs = 0

This will start with no overlay ("undefined") and then cycle the other one on and off when the hotkey is used. Additional overlays may be added; make sure to update the overlays = {n} definition.

path/to/overlay is relative to the overlay .cfg file or can be /absolute/path.

[Denyou]

So just to try this out I already have two files (two images and two configs) in the overlays folder.

I went ahead and set the button as you suggested (and on the keyboard)but when I press it (in conjunction with the hotkey), nothing happens.

I can switch to either manually through the GUI, but not using the function you suggested. I’m sure it’s probably a matter of me missing something, but I’m not sure what.

[ts-x]

@denyou I just got this working with @sleve_mcdichael's help on reddit. See if there's anything in that thread that helps or drop back in and I'll try to walk you through it here. It works like a charm and is a really great feature.