Custom button mappings for game-menu options
#1
I just learned about RetroPlayer this week, and am super impressed! Really excited to see how the project will evolve. Smile

Anyway, I was wondering if it's currently possible to change the button mappings (I'm using an xbox360 controller, FWIW) that appear on the in-game menu (e.g. Pause / Resume, Exit), in the event that a given game has internal mapping for that button combo already. I've poked around in config files a bit, but haven't found anything that looks likely...

Any guidance would be appreciated!

Cheers
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#2
(2018-09-06, 22:43)sycdan Wrote: I just learned about RetroPlayer this week, and am super impressed! Really excited to see how the project will evolve. Smile

Anyway, I was wondering if it's currently possible to change the button mappings (I'm using an xbox360 controller, FWIW) that appear on the in-game menu (e.g. Pause / Resume, Exit), in the event that a given game has internal mapping for that button combo already. I've poked around in config files a bit, but haven't found anything that looks likely...

Any guidance would be appreciated!

Cheers
  
Yes, you can change these combos using joystick.xml (see: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master...k.xml#L155 ). No, once you change the combo, the label in the GUI is not updated Smile I left this as a TODO because it's a lot of work and bugs have a higher priority.

The problem is we need to know what controller the player is holding in their hand to update the labels accordingly. In the future this will be possible and automated, but will require so much work, that I've put it off for another version or two. I prioritize features like this based on your experiences, so any other feedback would be appreciated.
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#3
Great, that was exactly what I was looking for, thanks! At this time, the only change I was looking to make was to disable quitting via select + start, which worked as expected by commenting out <start hotkey="back">Stop</start>.  The thing with the labels not changing is not really a big deal, and I can see how it would be a pain to map them correctly... but what would the level of effort be for just removing the hard-coded label if there's no mapping for a given action in joystick.xml?
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#4
(2018-09-07, 02:00)sycdan Wrote: The thing with the labels not changing is not really a big deal, and I can see how it would be a pain to map them correctly... but what would the level of effort be for just removing the hard-coded label if there's no mapping for a given action in joystick.xml?

This would be less work, but still a large undertaking to get the skin to talk to the input system. I estimate I could do this in 10-20 hours. Much easier to tell you to remove this line Smile

Can you help me with a problem? Select + X brings up the OSD, which shows the hotkey, but that presents a chicken-and-the-egg problem if the user doesn't know about Select + X. What's the best way to inform beginning users of this button combo?
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#5
Ah, perfect! I agree: much easier!

For the OSD hotkey... what about an alert window that pops up the first time you launch a game, then when you click OK a config param is written (to skin/settings.xml I guess) that says not to show it again. Otherwise maybe a non-interactive balloon popup every time you enter FullscreenGame mode... though I think that'd get annoying pretty quickly.
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#6
One of the best things about the MAME arcade cabinet I built years ago, was a simple app, that when you launched a game, it would first bring up an overlay of all the keys associated with the game. You then hit any key, and the game would continue to start for the first time.

I believe the software was called CPWizard, and you can see a demo of it here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti...Nms0cZJvPQ

Very handy to have for multiple game systems, so you know what buttons do what in each game.
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#7
(2018-09-07, 14:09)sycdan Wrote: For the OSD hotkey... what about an alert window that pops up the first time you launch a game, then when you click OK a config param is written (to skin/settings.xml I guess) that says not to show it again.

I've started working on a dialog (similar to the game OSD) that is shows on first launch with the hotkey.
(2018-09-07, 17:18)Powerhouse Wrote: One of the best things about the MAME arcade cabinet I built years ago, was a simple app, that when you launched a game, it would first bring up an overlay of all the keys associated with the game. You then hit any key, and the game would continue to start for the first time.

I like this idea. Do you know what database CPWizard pulls their metadata from?
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#8
That question is beyond me, but maybe you can find the info on their webpage...
http://www.headsoft.com.au/index.php?cat...page=about

I did find this thread, maybe this will help out a little...
https://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/134...headaches/

From the first post...
"As I understand it, CPWizard accesses a database file to pull the names etc from this (via command line - haven't started trying to figure GEx integration yet). It requires mdb (the default extension in the 'database' dialogue).
Was hoping to use the GameEx emulator/platform dbs. HOwever - most of these are in .db3 format.
And that's where I hit a brick wall. Spent few hours now looking at how to convert .db3 to .mdb - but with little progress. My limited understanding is that db3 is an sqlite (sql3) file? I have opened it with SQLite Database browser, but only export options are to "SQL."
Have tried using Libre(Open) Office + some wierd routine invovling ODBC setup/plugin or something -= but still no joy.
Sur every technical - google gives loads on mdb>sql converstion, but not vice versa. Found something called "flow heater" but think it requires access to create a db in the first place!"
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#9
(2018-09-10, 00:07)garbear Wrote:
(2018-09-07, 14:09)sycdan Wrote: For the OSD hotkey... what about an alert window that pops up the first time you launch a game, then when you click OK a config param is written (to skin/settings.xml I guess) that says not to show it again.

I've started working on a dialog (similar to the game OSD) that is shows on first launch with the hotkey. 
 I think something like this would work well. But maybe it doesn't have to be a dialog, and maybe not only the first time. Steam and Uplay displays a little, not terribly distracting, notification message for a few seconds in some corner every time you start a game telling you what to press to bring up their interface.
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#10
(2018-09-11, 02:07)Lombra Wrote:
(2018-09-10, 00:07)garbear Wrote:
(2018-09-07, 14:09)sycdan Wrote: For the OSD hotkey... what about an alert window that pops up the first time you launch a game, then when you click OK a config param is written (to skin/settings.xml I guess) that says not to show it again.

I've started working on a dialog (similar to the game OSD) that is shows on first launch with the hotkey.   
 I think something like this would work well. But maybe it doesn't have to be a dialog, and maybe not only the first time. Steam and Uplay displays a little, not terribly distracting, notification message for a few seconds in some corner every time you start a game telling you what to press to bring up their interface.  
  
Here's the dialog I was thinking about showing on first gameplay. Once dismissed the normal OSD comes up.

Image
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Custom button mappings for game-menu options0