[SteamLauncher]

I may have some more testing to do on my end. I was assuming that Steam needed to be open, but with BigBox as the focused window. Currently I'm using a Switch Pro Controller, and when I look at templates for Desktop Configuration I don't see anything listed. I'm guessing the Pro Controller has a more limited use on Steam than XBOX or PS controllers, and there just haven't been any templates built for it. I bought these controllers specifically for the little guy, because Mario is his favorite thing. Again, thanks you so much for your help, I will spend a little more time with it myself and see if I can't get it figured out a little better, and hopefully get it all working.

[SteamLauncher]

14 hours ago, Lahma said:

Hi @jlarsen1981, glad to have another SteamLauncher user onboard! Personally, I don't use BigBox much and generally I just ensure that the plugin is operational with it. Actually, I didn't even know there was hotkeys you could set to exit a game in BigBox. However, having written the plugin and therefore understanding how it works, I can make a pretty good guess at what the problem is. If the BigBox hotkey simply force exits the game/emulator process, the problem is most likely that it is exiting the wrong process. The way the plugin operates is this: 

• When you launch a game/emulator/rom in LB/BB, immediately prior to LB/BB actually launching that process, SteamLauncher very briefly (milliseconds) changes the game/emulator's exe path in LB/BB to the "SteamLauncherProxy.exe" file included with the plugin
  • Note: This means that LB/BB is actually launching "SteamLauncherProxy.exe" instead of the game/emulator exe that you would assume it is launching (the reason why this happens is long and complicated but suffice it to say that Steam has to launch the game itself in order to have the Steam overlay active.. the proxy exe exists in order to provide a "link" between the game process that Steam launches and the game process that LB/BB thinks it is launching)
• Immediately after LB/BB starts the "SteamLauncherProxy.exe" process, SteamLauncher changes the game/emulator path back to its original value in LB/BB
  • Note: The important thing to note here is that even though the game/emulator path is changed for only a matter of milliseconds in LB/BB, LB/BB will still assume the game/emu EXE is whatever it was when it launched it ("SteamLauncherProxy.exe").. this means that for the lifetime of the game/emulator process, LB/BB thinks the game process is actually "SteamLauncherProxy.exe"
• For the rest of the lifetime of the game/emulator process, SteamLauncher monitors the actual game/emulator process that Steam launched (lets call it "Retroarch.exe") and whenever that process ends, SteamLauncher will immediately force kill the SteamLauncherProxy.exe process... only when this happens will LB/BB think that the game/emulator process has actually ended

To summarize all of that (sorry, you probably weren't asking for a detailed explanation of the inner workings of the plugin), the problem is almost certainly that whenever you hit the BigBox "Close Game" hotkey, BigBox is killing the "SteamLauncherProxy.exe" process instead of the actual game process that was started by Steam. Since I was not aware of of this hotkeys existence prior to this, there was no mechanism in place to handle this situation. With that being said, there are a couple of ways that I can immediately think of to handle/fix this.

• The most obvious solution would be to read LB/BB's config for the "Close Game" hotkey combination and hook this same hotkey so that SteamLauncher can force exit the actual game/emulator process whenever this hotkey is detected.. this is likely the easiest/best option
• Another way this could possibly be handled (or in addition to the previous method) is having SteamLauncher automatically end the game/emulator process whenever the "SteamLauncherProxy.exe" process exits
  • I'm a little reluctant to handle things this way as it would obviously be a very bad thing to kill a game/emulator whenever the user didn't intend for that to happen.. and there are a few instances I could think of where "SteamLauncherProxy.exe" could be closed with a game still running (and without the user intending it to stop running)

I will add this feature to my list of "to do's" and I will try to get it implemented for the next major release but no promises. It would be helpful for other users to chime in here if they would use this feature or find it helpful so I can assign it the appropriate priority. Thanks again for the heads up on this @jlarsen1981. Hopefully I answered your question and hopefully I can get this fixed for you ASAP. In the meantime, I would suggest using the Steam controller configuration overlay to set a button/key combination to output "ALT + F4" (which will exit the currently focused app/game/emu).

That pretty well sums it up. Thank you for such a useful tool, and for sharing your talents with us. I do have one other question. When using it seems as though when Big Picture is not minimized the controller does not respond normally in BigBox, it is using the Steam Desktop Controller profile. I did manage to work around that, by turning off the profile, but this still has some drawbacks. I am far more familiar with BigBox, than Steam, how do I set up the desktop profile to respond like a regular controller to eliminate the minor niggles that I am having. (My friend's son is six, and her and him used to live with me. He fell in love with gaming during that time, but now has nothing to play on. I am trying to set up something that he can use to play his favorite games that were on my rig, while keeping it simple to navigate, for him and his mother. Who now live 80 miles away.)

Again, thank you for the thorough response, and no rush. Happy Holidays!

 

[SteamLauncher]

Hello all, I am just now getting this going. Curious though, how do I use the BigBox hotkeys to exit a game back to BigBox? It always seems to just minimize the emulator window, then open Steam.