Any control apps?

johnny5126

Using a Pi3 and RetroPie, is there any apps that allow you to press a button on the cabinet and will return what the actual keyboard key is? Mine are attatched to a gamePadBlock.

mediamogul

@johnny5126

You can run evtest on the keyboard event .

johnny5126

@mediamogul Is that downloadable?

mediamogul

@johnny5126

Better yet, it's already installed.

johnny5126

@mediamogul
How would I find and run it?

mediamogul

@johnny5126

If you run:

cat /proc/bus/input/devices

You should be able to find the keyboard listing. look for the event number. Using 'event2' as an example, you'd then run.

evtest /dev/input/event2

From there, you'll be presented with the testing interface and as you press a button, the corresponding keyboard key will be noted on screen.

johnny5126

@mediamogul

Great. Thanks!

johnny5126

@mediamogul
I'm at a loss here. I'm using a gamepadblock, and it uses a number 1,2,3 etc depending what terminal the button is connected to. I'm trying to reconfigure the buttons on bluemsx and to assign button 1, 2, 3, left and right joystick button, etc to start the game to certain buttons on my cabinet, but I can't seem to find a way to do this. Am I able to?

mediamogul

@johnny5126 said in Any control apps?:

I'm using a gamepadblock

I'm not very familiar with the gamepadblock, but I just had a look and I don't believe it reports as a keyboard at all, but rather a USB HID-compliant controller. This being the case, you'll probably have more success getting the button codes by using jstest, which is also already installed on RetroPie. Instead of event numbers, you'll be looking for js numbers, so executing jstest would look something like

jstest /dev/input/js2

You'll then be presented with another testing interface that responds to button presses. As far as lr-msxblue is concerned, it's actually a libretro, or RetroArch core, so if certain games need to be started using a keyboard key, you're only option is going to be enabling keyboard support, as detailed here. Of course, this would mean that you'd have to use a keyboard to start them, but if you wanted to put some extra effort in, it's also possible to key-map your controller, as detailed here.

johnny5126

@mediamogul

I guess using an Ipac2 would be a lot easier since it emulates a keyboard.

mediamogul

@johnny5126

Both have their advantages and disadvantages. If I were faced with only having one, I'd probably choose a USB HID-compliant controller interface, as it could still be key-mapped later if need be.