Still looking for some help :D

I think it's worth to mention it was implemented. Those who like to update frequently may have noticed. The PR 1980 was merged, and now the "a button" means "A button".

@meleu you can adjust the codes that get sent - means customising the scripts though.

eg. line 116 of runcommand.sh

from

"$ROOTDIR/supplementary/runcommand/joy2key.py" "$JOY2KEY_DEV" kcub1 kcuf1 kcuu1 kcud1 0x0a 0x09 &

to

"$ROOTDIR/supplementary/runcommand/joy2key.py" "$JOY2KEY_DEV" kcub1 kcuf1 kcuu1 kcud1 0x0a 0x09 0x0a 0x0a 0x0a &

would assign 0x0a (enter) to buttons 2, 3 and 4 in addition to the existing mapping.

@herb_fargus

I did not know that. To bad about the input would love some bezel and shader support.

I think I found the reason: The hex values that are getting sent are terminal-specific and don't work for my terminal. I fixed it (hopefully) by using curses which uses terminfo to translate to the actual terminal values.
PR soon... :)

Fixed my problem. Figured I'd post the resolution in the event that somebody else inevitably has the same issue. gunnarh's posted solution was right. It's not an issue of the multiple joysticks. It's actually the sketch. You need to use the bounce library, like was used in gunnarh's link. Without it, the buttons don't get recognized properly within retropie. I went as far as to edit the usb_desc.h for the teensyduino libary to only have it expose the joystick, and nothing more. That worked for only having a single joystick show up, but the button issue remained. It wasn't until I utilized the Bounce library, that my button presses behaved as I expected.

@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!