Virtual Keyboard

[mcwild77]

I'd like to thank you for getting this core up and running! Specifically the Android version as this has basically opened up Apple II games to a huge group of Android handhelds (Retroid, Odin, etc); happy to see the core's been added to the official download list (and is at the top of the list appearing under the A's, for good measure!).

For the sake of people playing on these devices I wondered if there were thoughts on adding a virtual keyboard, mostly for the sake of pecking keys required to start games (we hit a brick wall as soon as we get the a prompt for 'Keyboard/Joystick? Press K/J.') I see that Left and Right were added to the triggers, which helps navigate Total Replay, at least.

Quite a few other emulators for older computers have added this kind of thing. I'd be happy to whip up some art for one if needed.

[audetto]

It really feels something the framework should offer to all core rather than forcing 10s of buggy implementations.

If you can remap the gamepad controls, you could assign the letters you need.
I have never used it on an Android device. What is available?

[mcwild77]

Agreed; key input handling on PC cores in Retroarch has been, uhh, less than ideal for the end user. Since everything has to go through the RetroPad there's no workaround where you could, say, just bring up the Android keyboard and start typing on that. There might be a good solution on the PC, but on Android devices it's the biggest pain point, and that's why the virtual keypads exist (in their many buggy implentations, as you say).

Here's the process for how to remap a key on Android (Odin 2 Portal):
https://youtu.be/Z64JFhwWgPc

[audetto]

exactly. Is that method ok? How many keys can you map, and how many do you need?

[Jamiras]

How many keys can you map?

There's no way that I know of to map the retropad to keys. That's historically been managed internally in the core, and the best default mapping that I could come up with is detailed here. I'm not sure where the "RetroPad Mapping" functionality in the video comes from, but since it's buried under Core Options, could it have been added to core since the last time I used it?

From the video, it looks like there is 16 bindable inputs, of which I would assume the user will minimally keep 6 for the joystick inputs (U/D/L/R/B1/B2).

and how many do you need?

Any game that requires inputting text (adventure games like those from infocom and sierra come to mind) will require a full keyboard most of the time. Other games like Castle Wolfenstein only require keyboard input to switch to joystick mode. And there's probably some that fall in-between where you can mostly play with a joystick, but might occasionally need the keyboard to do things like enter your initials on the high-score table.

If you need more keys than can be mapped to the RetroPad (or just want a sane way to type text), full keyboard support is needed. That is typically done by enabling Game Focus mode and using a physical keyboard on the host machine. I would have expected physical keyboards to still function on Android, but it doesn't sound like it from the previous poster's comment. Oh, Android keyboard as in the onscreen one provided by the OS. I'm not sure how that interacts with RetroArch.

While RetroArch does provide a virtual keyboard in their menu system for inputting text, I don't think it's available when a game is running. There's some discussion about that in libretro/RetroArch#6209.

[audetto]

The video linked to the top shows exactly how to map the keys.

If it is just a few keys, I think it is the best solution.

A game that requires a lot of key inputs is probably not the right choice for a keyboard-less platform.

[mcwild77]

I think the main issue is that the platform offers quite a few games that are fully playable/enjoyed with a joystick, but will require a random keyboard input every now and then (as is the case with Amiga, Spectrum, etc, hence the presence of the soft keyboard on those cores), so the player would have to stop and remap using the Retroarch menu in these cases.

I understand why implementing such a feature would not be a top priority, though, and it is certainly not a trivial undertaking. I'm looking at it from the use case of playing random games on the go via Retroarch on Android, so I'm not sure if that's actually representative of many users. (Up until now I've been playing via the Apple II emulator on an emulated PSP, which certainly goes down a rabbit hole.)