Possible to change USB controller axis to buttons?

jsteel · 2019-06-08 08:07:03

jstest shows my USB controller has the following axes and buttons:

Axes: 0: 0 1: 0 Buttons: 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off 7:off

I would like to change the axes to buttons, is it possible to do this? Via Xorg conf or udev? I need to be able to press left and right at the same time but on an axis you can only press one direction at a time. I'd appreciate any pointers as web searches have failed me. I see some workarounds as userspace utilities but hoping I can do this at a lower level.

Wild Penguin · 2019-06-10 10:57:31

As the controller reports axis, I'm not sure you can use any software solution to enable pressing left+right at the same time (even if possible physically on the said controller). It might be that the controller is electrically wired so that those buttons actually are on the same axis - or the controller inside the game controller might advertise as having axises, (despite they are separate buttons in the gamepad). You probably already know this: Axis are originally meant for analog axis (i.e. the controller can be in any position between extremes and that value is read), but some gamepads might use axis even though the buttons are not analog. This design decision might have been made because of compatibility reasons with software / games...

However, I've seen some utilities which can fake or bind any joystick key to any input device, such as use the joystick as a mouse, or bind a button to a key etc; however, the names escape my mind currently. You might want to search for one via Google (I will post here if I remember/find them). But as I said, they can not separate an axis, if that is what the computer sees (the gamepad is at fault here!).

Last edited by Wild Penguin (2019-06-10 10:58:32)

Arch Linux

#1 2019-06-08 08:07:03

Possible to change USB controller axis to buttons?

#2 2019-06-10 10:57:31

Re: Possible to change USB controller axis to buttons?

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