Here is a way to select joystick for players 1-4 (global or emu specific)

meleu

Well... I made a way to let the user choose which controller to use for RetroArch players 1-4.

take a look at:
https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection

OBS.: This is for RetroArch emulators only! It means the default RetroPie emulators for Atari 2600, NES, SNES, Master System, Mega Drive, Sega CD, 32X, and many others (those which starts with lr-)...

Please, give me feedback to improve that. And if you know how to code, feel free to improve it yourself.

Some infos from the README:

The joystick selection has two methods of work:

The traditional joystick selection by its index number;
The new joystick selection by name method

The advantage of the selection by name method is that there is no need to care about the joystick connection order. You can configure your "Generic USB SNES gamepad" to be the player1 no matter what USB port you use. Or, better yet, configure your "Fancy Bluetooth joypad" to be the player1 no matter what was the order it was paired or how many USB joysticks are connected.

Installation

[08-May-2020] The installation procedure has changed (again)!

Some people were having issues with the previous installation procedure, then I changed it to simplify things.

wget -O- "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection/master/install.sh" | sudo bash

The script will automatically download the joystick-selection scriptmodule and install everything you need.

After that you are ready to use it via RetroPie menu in emulationstation (maybe you'll need to restart emulationstation).

Update

After installing, you can update it through RetroPie-Setup.

To update the joystick-selection tool, go to RetroPie-Setup and:

Manage packages >> Manage experimental packages >> joystick-selection >> Update from source

Screenshots

Main menu:

main-meu

Global configuration (with no configs):

config-all-unset

Joystick selection screen:

joy-select

Global configuration (by index method, all 4 joysticks are set):

config-all-index

Global configuration (by name method, all 4 joysticks are set):

config-all-configured

Systems menu (I have just a few of them installed):

system-menu

mediamogul

Very cool! I'm going to make sure to give this a go.

Rion

@meleu said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

Well... I made a way to let the user choose what controller to use for RetroArch Players 1-4.

take a look at:
https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-input-selection

It's the first (and beta) version and currently needs to be handled via keyboard in the command line.

Later I'll try to include it on RetroPie menu and add joystick handling capability.

Please, give me feedback to improve that. And if you know how to code, feel free to improve it yourself.

I think it would be really nice if this could be invoked through that dialog that appears just after the game selection, but I need to do some research on this topic...

This should be included in thr retropie-setup-script. Looking forward for Joystick support and included in run command before you start a game! :)

meleu

@Rion said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

This should be included in thr retropie-setup-script. Looking forward for Joystick support and included in run command before you start a game! :)

I think I need to study the retropie_setup coding style first. Maybe I need to polish my code as well...
I'll try to do it later.

meleu

I've just found the coding style guide for RetroPie shell scripts: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Shell-Style-Guide

I'll adapt my input_selection.sh as soon as possible.

mediamogul

@meleu

I followed the directions from your GitHub. However, once input_selection.sh is executed and the script asks permission to enter a line into my runcommand.sh, I get the error; "jslist" not found!.

meleu

@mediamogul
I think you mean retroarch.cfg instead of runcommand.sh, right?

did you execute the install.sh? This script is supposed to execute the following tasks [EDIT: after the 2006-06-25 update, the install.sh is simpler than that]:

create $HOME/bin directory.
compile jslist.c and put the executable in $HOME/bin directory.
put input_selection.sh in $HOME/bin directory.
certifies that $HOME/bin is in your PATH.

If jslist is in $HOME/bin, and this directory is on your PATH, the "jslist" not found!problem shouldn't happen.

mediamogul

@meleu said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

@mediamogul
I think you mean retroarch.cfg instead of runcommand.sh, right?

I did indeed.

If jslist is in $HOME/bin, and this directory is on your PATH, the "jslist" not found!problem shouldn't happen.

Gotchya. I'll try it again later this evening.

Thanks

meleu

I borrowed some code (from runcommand.sh) and added joystick support.
~~The input_selection.sh only needs some tweaks to work fine in RetroPie menu.~~

meleu

Great news! The script is ready to use in RetroPie menu!

Installation

It's pretty simple to install. Perform these commands on your RetroPie bash prompt:

git clone https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection
cd RetroPie-joystick-selection
bash install.sh

After that you are ready to use it via RetroPie menu in emulationstation.

opensourcefan

@meleu

Curious if this can be used with the kid-friendly version of ES?

meleu

@opensourcefan said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

@meleu

Curious if this can be used with the kid-friendly version of ES?

Oh, sorry. I have never used this ES version.

I know that the "Parse Gamelists Only" option must be off to let the input_selection be shown in RetroPie menu.

Please, try it and let me know if it works.

Rion

@meleu said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

@opensourcefan said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

@meleu

Curious if this can be used with the kid-friendly version of ES?

Oh, sorry. I have never used this ES version.

I know that the "Parse Gamelists Only" option must be off to let the input_selection be shown in RetroPie menu.

Please, try it and let me know if it works.

Is there anyway around this?

Also when launching a game and pressing the "a" button using the run command so I can choose what controller is P1 & P2 and so on for that particular game/system?

meleu

@Rion said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

Is there anyway around this?

"This" what? The "Parse Gamelists Only" option?
Start button on emulationstation -> Other Settings -> Parse Gamelists Only. And turn it off (this is the default, so if you didn't change it, don't worry).

Also when launching a game and pressing the "a" button using the run command so I can choose what controller is P1 & P2 and so on for that particular game/system?

I think it requires some coding in runcommand.sh. I'm not feeling so confident to play with RetroPie official code for now... But I'll try it later. ;)

Rion

@meleu said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

@Rion said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

Is there anyway around this?

"This" what? The "Parse Gamelists Only" option?
Start button on emulationstation -> Other Settings -> Parse Gamelists Only. And turn it off (this is the default, so if you didn't change it, don't worry).

Also when launching a game and pressing the "a" button using the run command so I can choose what controller is P1 & P2 and so on for that particular game/system?

I think it requires some coding in runcommand.sh. I'm not feeling so confident to play with RetroPie official code for now... But I'll try it later. ;)

Looking forward to see what you can accomplish. Great work so far! :)

meleu

Today another step was taken. I added a dialog to show the current config before start the configuration. So the user can decide to change the config or not.

And after the configuration process, it'll show the changes that will be made. Again the user can decide to accept it or not.

Please, update your scripts:

git clone https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection
cd RetroPie-joystick-selection
bash install.sh

meleu

I forgot to mention: in the dialog that shows the configs, there are alerts for Players with no joysticks.

meleu

I posted an issue at RetroArch github talking about the problem of the current input configuration method using RGUI. If they implement some simple enhancements, my script will become unecessary (and I hope that! :D ).

Please, take a look there and post some comments if you think it deserves.

meleu

Today I've made some improvements:

rename the project/script to joystick selection (I think "joystick" is more specific than "input", and the script deals with joysticks only).
added an initial menu.
during the configuration, let the user decide if he/she wants to keep the current config for each player (usefull when the system has less then 4 joysticks available).
an option to restore the defaul settings (input_player1_joypad_index = 0, input_player2_joypad_index = 1, input_player3_joypad_index = 2, input_player4_joypad_index = 3)
the jslist is now placed in /opt/retropie/supplementary/. I choose this way cause if the user decides to uninstall RetroPie someday, the jslist will go together.
the joystick_selection.sh (former input_selection.sh) is now placed directly in $HOME/RetroPie/retropiemenu/ and is invoked via RetroPie menu only.
the install.shwill delete the old input_selection.sh scheme, if it exists (delete the jslist and input_selection.sh, in $HOME/bin; delete the $HOME/bin if it's empty; delete the input_selection.sh entry in RetroPie menu), and of course, install the current scheme.

Please, update your scripts:

git clone https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection
cd RetroPie-joystick-selection
bash install.sh

meleu

And now the install.sh creates a gamelist.xml entry for joystick_selection.sh. So there is no problem when the "PARSE GAMELISTS ONLY" is set to "ON".