Retroarch Hotkey Binding and BigBox Pause Menu Functions

[Deam]

I believe I saw this in another thread but it wasn't resolved and thought I'd see if anyone has come up with a more current solution.

I like the BigBox pause menu and having the ability to reset a game or save and load states within that menu.

However, I also like the Rewind feature in Retroarch but it appears setting any key as "Hotkey enable" in Retroarch breaks BigBox's pause menu's save, load and reset functions.  I have not changed anything in terms of the Retroarch hotkeys for saving and loading savestates.

I am using an 8Bitdo SN30 gamepad.  I had set up in Retroarch "select" as the hotkey enable and the "L" button to rewind. 

In BigBox, I had set up select+start (in the latest version) to bring up the pause menu.  That works, as does the rewind in Retroarch.  Just the save, load, exit functions in the BigBox pause menu do not work until I clear out any binding in Retroarch to "Hotkey enable".

I would really like to enable both the Big Box pause menu functions as well as Retroarchs rewind (or any other hotkey) feature at the same time.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Deam]

To answer my own question, I did not realize that once you have hotkey enable in retroarch assigned that applies to everything... (oversight on my part).  So the save and load F2 and F4 also require the hotkey to be pressed.  I thought it was limited to only a few items.

I am going to edit the script in launchbox and see if I can send the same hotkey press programmed in retroarch to see if it works.  I have noticed what retroarch recognizes as the select button is not the same number as AHK, though I will use what AHK recognizes for the script at first.

Edited October 8, 2019 by Deam

[Deam]

As a final post for the benefit of others, I did not know if AHK could "send" joystick buttons in the script.  So, in Retroarch I set up two "enable hotkeys", one being the select button on the joystick, the other being "q" which appeared to be unused.  You can set multiple binds for that function.

I then added the q button as a send key down (first) and up (last) in the pause menu scripts for the various functions that required button presses (reset, save, load), and it worked! I could also use the select key on the gamepad to rewind (with select+L), as well as save state (select + R), and the pause menu functions worked.   Just be careful...I inadvertently in the load script had send q down twice, instead of down and then up, and that caused the joypad not to work when I loaded a save state as I assume Retroarch disabled all the buttons assuming the hotkey was still pressed.  

I use Retroarch's auto save states so that it increments the slot on its own.

Hopefully this is helpful to others.

[Kefka2b]

Thanks!!! 

You have to do it for Save state, Load State, and Reset Game.

For others wondering how, this is what my Save State script looks like (I changed the default key from F2 to S and added Q as secondary "Hotkey Enable" in Retroarch):

; Retroarch saves state with F2 key by default
Send {q down}
Send {s down}
Sleep 50
Send {s up}
Send {q up}