Can you naviguate in retropie shell menus with a joystick ?

[Lonelik]

Hi,

I was wondering if you can naviguate in shell menus with a joystick, or if you have to plug a keyboard everytime you want to access theses shells ? (I want to make a NON-keyboard system for my bartop arcade machine)

By shell menus, I mean these ones for example :

It may sound like a stupid question, but I have no idea if it's possible.

I have a raspberry pi zero with a pre made image of Retropie 4.3, and a joystick with a "CY-822B" Generic USB control card.

Thanks.

[quicksilver]

@lonelik yes you can navigate these menus with a controller, so I would assume a joystick would work as well.

[Lonelik]

@quicksilver but mine doesn’t work, that’s why I answer

[mediamogul]

@lonelik

Do you have multiple controllers attached. I believe the only controller that is capable of navigating the menus is the one assigned by the system as js0 (controller one).

[Lonelik]

@mediamogul No, I have only one controller directly plugged in the pi zero usb port. I remember that the first time i booted up retropie, I have set my keyboard as a controller. Maybe the keyboard is my js0... I will search how to reset that. Thank you !!

[edmaul69]

@lonelik setting a keyboard as a controller doesnt make it player one. However if you have a keyboard that also is recognized as a controller/keyboard like a lot of the mini keyboards do just unplug it or put it in usb port 1,2 or 3 and put your controller in usb0

[Clyde]

@lonelik said in Can you naviguate in retropie shell menus with a joystick ?:

Maybe the keyboard is my js0...

You can check which device is mapped to js0 with this command in Retropies text console that you land in after pressing F4 in Emulation Station:

jstest /dev/input/js0

Ctrl + c aborts jstest.

Alternatively, this should list all input devices of the system:

(I say "should", because I am not at home at the moment and can't test the command on my own Retropie. It works on my Laptop's Kubuntu Linux, though.)

less /proc/bus/input/devices 

You can browse the list with your cursor keys or PgUp/PgDown. Exit the browser with Ctrl + c.

You get back to Emulation Station with the command exit.