Keyboard Emulation with Gamepad outside of emulators

TheLuthier

@glennlake - I upgraded to retropie 3.7 and I see the cool new settings icons along with some additional 'start button' settings, like the audio adjustment. But when I select any retropie settings, like theme manager, my usb gamepad is no longer recognized. You're saying that yours remains recognized in the same situation?

wetriner

@TheLuthier There is definitely supposed to be joypad functionality in the retropie setup menus, and I believe it has been there for as long as I've been with RetroPie(something like 2.7 or so) It's just based on your joypad 0 button and DPAD. But it's set to work for typical setups.

glennlake

@TheLuthier I don't normally change things like the theme but it should be changeable from the UI Settings. Should be but it's not. All I see is the basic 'carbon' theme. I will need to dig into this but yes, most of the settings can be changed from my usb controller. Let me dig into this some more and I'll get back with you.

Ornitorick

I understand, is like wen you are seting up the wifi password but you need to plug a usb keyboard to write .
Hum.. i was wondering how to solve this problem, but i dont have idea.
The problem is that you can navigate on the menu, but you can only "Click" and "scroll" on menu. If you need to type something the controller dont have keyboard. :(

Type on a "Virtual Keyboard" with the controlle would be nice.

Rion

Virtual Keyboard would be so sweet!

wetriner

I definitely agree that a virtual keyboard would be nice. I believe that would be very hard to implement with those menus. Unless you were able to launch a virtual keyboard script to type an entry and then get back to the retropie menus, but even that sounds like a complete menu overhaul.

The biggest one is the wifi, since those that normally ssh in can't. And if they don't have a linux OS, they can't just transfer the wpa_supplicant.conf over. Their only options is USB keyboard or using ethernet. But for the rest of the stuff, there's a ton of options on how to edit that don't require direct keyboard control.

glennlake

@TheLuthier A quick question. Can you change themes? I can't with my gamepad or with a keyboard. Can you help?

glennlake

@glennlake said in Keyboard Emulation with Gamepad outside of emulators:

@TheLuthier A quick question. Can you change themes? I can't with my gamepad or with a keyboard. Can you help?

Update. I found that I can update my themes now. I think it has to do with the internet connection. I have been using the internal wifi on the Pi3 and I could do all I needed but not the themes. I plugged in an ethernet cable and now I can change and update themes to my hearts content. I think it may have something to do with the time on the Pi. I noticed it wasn't correct but using it for games it thought it didn't matter. But when you connect to a remote server I think it does. Anyway, I can now change themes using the UI Settings on the main menu. I hope all of this helps. I know I learned a lot. :-)

BuZz

The time will be important for validation of SSL certificates. If connected to the internet on boot, the time should be automatically set correctly (and when connecting to a wireless network).

TheLuthier

@Ornitorick said in Keyboard Emulation with Gamepad outside of emulators:

I understand, is like wen you are seting up the wifi password but you need to plug a usb keyboard to write ...

Right, that's a good example. Although I don't expect to be able to actually type characters with just my joypad. But I find a lot of those settings are toggles or selectable values, which could be accomplished with D-pad and 2 buttons on the joypad (Return + ESC). Here's a video of when it's annoying:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ve1SiX0xZ_fJhcrg8SO8aqfsbwhKHujARA/preview

Once I select one of the settings options, I get to the blue-screen and I'm stuck without a keyboard or ssh console. It sounds like @glennlake is able to control the blue screen with his gamepad, which is what I'm after.

And yes @glennlake, I'm able to change the theme with the new UI settings that are a part of retropie 3.7. It was a bad example to illustrate - should have made a video when originally posting lol

Thanks for the responses, guys!

TheLuthier

@wetriner said in Keyboard Emulation with Gamepad outside of emulators:

@TheLuthier There is definitely supposed to be joypad functionality in the retropie setup menus, and I believe it has been there for as long as I've been with RetroPie(something like 2.7 or so) It's just based on your joypad 0 button and DPAD. But it's set to work for typical setups.

UPDATE: Aahhha! You sir, are correct. I tested and indeed my joypad 0 works (R1 for my setup) and my analog stick is used for navigation (though it's a bit backwards with X axis being up and down). Essentially this solves my original question - Thanks!