Adafruit Retrogame Virtual GPIO keyboard

smartroad1 · 27 January 2019 14:39

Hi all,

I have been making a Raspberry Pi OSMC box for when I am away at hotels. To keep things simple I wanted to use Adafruits Retrogame GPIO virtual keyboard (GitHub - adafruit/Adafruit-Retrogame: Raspberry Pi GPIO-to-virtual-keyboard utility for classic game emulators) so I can have buttons on the box to control the player with. I have 9 buttons which are mostly copied over from the remote for OSMC that came with my Vero box (nice hardware btw) and should allow most of the basic use of the machine.

However I have installed Retrogame and have it running but it isn’t sending the key presses to OSMC/Kodi. Is this just something that won’t work or am I missing something?

I have tried to have a look online but most of the searches I came up with were about running RetroPie with OSMC/Kodi (I guess the search engine was picking up the word retro on the query).

sam_nazarko · 27 January 2019 20:16

You could check Kodi.log and evtest to see if the presses are being detected.

jb2cool · 27 January 2019 22:50

This seems to suggest that they know it doesn’t work and don’t have a fix currently

github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Retrogame

Retrogame virtual keyboard Kodi 17.3 not recognized

opened 01:21PM - 25 Jun 17 UTC

closed 06:33PM - 25 Jun 17 UTC

AssoMania

Hello there, I encounter a problem regarding the buttons in Kodi. The buttons… aren't working even tho' it's working on the "desktop" and retropie. I put a Pi Zero W into a PSP. Connected the GPIO to the controls of the PSP. I then installed a Raspbian Image. I apt-get install kodi to get kodi. And also installed Retropie manually using this [link](https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/manual-installation). I use retrogame.cfg file to make the buttons work. And copy the retrogame in /usr/local/bin/retrogame (both files has been given to me so I don't really know thing about them, sorry). ``` # Sample configuration file for retrogame. # Really minimal syntax, typically two elements per line w/space delimiter: # 1) a key name (from keyTable.h; shortened from /usr/include/linux/input.h). # 2) a GPIO pin number; when grounded, will simulate corresponding keypress. # Uses Broadcom pin numbers for GPIO. # If first element is GND, the corresponding pin (or pins, multiple can be # given) is a LOW-level output; an extra ground pin for connecting buttons. # A '#' character indicates a comment to end-of-line. # File can be edited "live," no need to restart retrogame! # Here's a pin configuration for the PSPi v2 project: UP 23 # Up DOWN 27 # Down LEFT 22 # Left RIGHT 17 # Right Q 19 # Square ENTER 16 # X Y 20 # Triangle ESC 26 # Circle LEFTCTRL 24 # Left Trigger RIGHTCTRL 21 # Right Trigger S 12 # Start D 6 # Select VOLUMEDOWN 25 # Volume Down VOLUMEUP 5 # Volume Up # For configurations with few buttons (e.g. Cupcade), a key can be followed # by multiple pin numbers. When those pins are all held for a few seconds, # this will generate the corresponding keypress (e.g. ESC to exit ROM). # Only ONE such combo is supported within the file though; later entries # will override earlier. ``` I checked several post about the subject but I can't make it work, but I could'nt find anything that is appropriate to my project... When I start the PSP I end up on the shell. From there I just use the Up button to get the last lines. I can enter kodi like that. Once there the buttons aren't working. When I start emulationstation or StartX it's working fine. It looks like the buttons are well "simulated" on those like I would use the keyboard but not in Kodi Can someone help me to figure out how to get that working in Kodi ? Thanks all **## EDIT :** I tried to configure the controller already. I didn't say it but before this I tried a Retropie Image and installed Kodi from there. Same problem, buttons works in Retropie not in Kodi. And when I try to make a new input in the controller the timer just go to 0 and I can't put any key, like the buttons are not recognize. I checked the link with the Keymap already but as I'm running the stuff on a PSP which structure should I take ? Remote ? Gamepad ? Keyboard ? Custom Joystick and I put retrogame like that ? ``` <joystick name="retrogame"> <button id="27">Down</button> </joystick> ``` A other thing. The joystick from the PSP is connected to the Gamepad so basically the input from the gamepad are the same for the joystick it's exactly the same wiring. So I tried like that, I created a new file psp.xml that I put here : ~/.kodi/userdata/keymaps I wrote this inside : ``` <keymap> <global> <joystick name="retrogame"> <button id="27">Down</button> <button id="23">Up</button> </joystick> </global> </keymap> ``` It is not working either. Is there any manipulation to do to "activate" the .xml file maybe so that Kodi recognize it ? Should I use a different structure ?

smartroad1 · 28 January 2019 10:20

Thanks to you both Shame it doesn’t seem to work. I have found another way using Python and a Kodi library that is using the JSON web commands. It isn’t as simple as just using a keyboard (virtual or otherwise) as the system have context command changes. i.e. in the menu’s pressing left and right moves the selection left and right, where as in a video it would rewind/fastforward. With the web commands telling it input.Left is literally nothing more than a left navigation input and does nothing while in a video (unless I bring up the gui).

I am currently looking to see if I can get the current status (and thus the mode it is in) and have the context change in the Python script its self.

All that said, I have it working mostly and i can get it to function like this so maybe that is enough for my needs - a player to use while in hotels lol

Again thanks for the help and for finding that issue jb2cool