Controlling Kodi on my project

Raverrevolution

Hoping someone can help me or point me into the right direction at least

So recently I've built myself a PiGRRL 2 (https://learn.adafruit.com/pigrrl-2/overview) with a Pi 3 and the newest version of Retropie. I have everything working perfectly and this handheld is awesome.

Last night I installed Kodi through Retropie and got it to boot after some configuring with video modes in the boot file.

The main problem I have now is that I have no controls whatsoever and I can't figure out how things work. I understand that I'm using proprietary controls on a proprietary screen which was a job to set up of itself, but I was under the impression that Kodi is self contained within Retropie so to speak.

The PiGRRL 2 controller pcb is directly connected to the screen using a ribbon cable to which is directly connected to the GPIO port of the Pi. Basically when I'm controlling anything in Retropie the controller acts as though it's a keyboard in that pressing buttons shoots out letters in a terminal prompt.

So with all that established one would think that booting Kodi through Retropie would work will with these controls as a keyboard is the most native control you can use, but unfortunately nothing!!

Where does Kodi in Retropie look for controls? I tried the whole joystick.xml file thing and it didn't work.

I'm sorry I'm bringing in a totally foreign project to many people here and that specific questions with the controller hardware should be directed at the Adafruit guys, but I thought I'd ask this here since you guys seem to have a better understanding at the inner works of the OS used on the project and that I'm leaning towards some overlooked small configuration I missed.

Any thoughts? Thank you.

backstander

Hey @Raverrevolution
Kodi uses it's own controller settings and you would have to make a <joystick name>.xml files for it to work. The next version of Kodi will have support for mapping controller inputs so it will be a lot easier.

I had major issues with my Xbox 360 controller working correctly. You can check out this forum to maybe point you in the right direction:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3580/wireless-xbox-360-controller-issues-in-kodi-16-1-on-retropie-4-0-1

The other option is if the Adafruit guys already have this .xml file made, I think all you would have to do is drop it into the /usr/share/kodi/system/keymaps/ folder.

Raverrevolution

Thank you for your reply. I'll see what I can do tonight.