The gamepad interface¶
RomMBat opens full screen from EmulationStation's menu and is built for a controller. Everything it does day to day works from the couch with a controller, and a keyboard and mouse work too. When you leave it, you are back in EmulationStation. It looks like EmulationStation's own menus, using the fonts and button icons from your RetroBat install.
Buttons¶
RomMBat reads the controller layout you set up in EmulationStation, so the buttons do the same jobs there as here. The help bar at the bottom of each screen shows what each button does on that screen. It draws buttons by their position on the controller rather than by a letter, because the bottom face button is A on an Xbox pad, Cross on a PlayStation pad and B on a Switch Pro. After you press a key on the keyboard, the help bar shows keys instead, until you touch the controller again.
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| D-pad or left stick | Move. Left and Right also step through choices, such as a disk limit |
| Accept | Open or choose what the cursor is on, answer yes, save, or move on. Your confirm button in RetroBat |
| Back | Leave this screen or cancel, or on the main menu go back to EmulationStation |
| Start | Open the screen's menu, which lists everything that screen can do |
| Left face button | A shortcut to the screen's most common action, such as Sync now |
| Top face button | A shortcut to the next most common, such as Check for changes |
| L1 and R1 | Move up or down one screen of a list at a time, stopping at the top and the bottom |
They follow EmulationStation's own: Start opens a menu there too, and Accept picks from it.
Keyboard and mouse¶
The keyboard uses the keys EmulationStation uses, read from the same configuration, so a key you remapped there is remapped here. By default X is Accept, Z is Back, Enter is Start, S and Q are the left and top face buttons, and the arrow keys, Page Up and Page Down move and page. Escape also goes Back. On a screen where you type, letters are typed, Enter confirms, Escape cancels and Backspace deletes.
With a mouse, moving over a row selects it, a click chooses it, the wheel moves the selection, and a right click goes Back, as does a click outside a pop-up. The help bar's entries can be clicked too.
Accept opens a list to choose from rather than stepping through one. To step through choices in place, use Left and Right.
Back never saves, deletes or stops anything without asking. Leaving a screen with unsaved changes asks whether to discard them, and stopping a sync or a check for changes asks first.
Every question looks the same: a box over the screen it is about, with its answers in a row. Left and Right choose an answer, Accept gives it, and Back always gives the answer that changes nothing. That answer is selected when the box opens, so pressing Accept or Back straight away is safe. When there is something to read first, such as which games a delete would take off, it is in the box above the answers, and Up and Down scroll it. Once you answer, the box says what happened, and Done closes it.
When a screen has finished its work, its footer says Done, and Accept or Back leaves it. While it is still removing a set, settling a conflict or forgetting files, Back says Stop and asks first, with Keep going selected.
The main menu¶
Each row says what it is for, and the ones that need attention carry a count.
| Row | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Sync sets | What this device keeps. See Sync sets |
| Conflicts | Saves that changed here and on another device. See Conflicts |
| Platforms | Where each RomM platform's games land in RetroBat. See Sync sets |
| Waiting to upload | Saves, states and play sessions not yet sent to RomM, and any the server refused. Drop them here |
| Disk space | How much room RomMBat may use. See Disk space |
| Pair with RomM | Sign in to your server, or sign in again. See Pairing |
| This device | Your RetroBat version, the server, what is waiting to be sent or for you to quit EmulationStation, and the controller |
Every row works without the server except the ones that have to ask RomM something. Those say so when it cannot be reached.
Typing¶
One thing asks you to type: your server's address when you pair. For that, RomMBat opens an on-screen keyboard in your EmulationStation language's layout. On it, L1 deletes a letter and R1 types a space. Everything else, such as a disk limit, is chosen with the d-pad.
When the controller is not seen¶
Open This device on the main menu. Its Controller section names the controller RomMBat found and whether it is ready. If it says Not configured, set the controller up in EmulationStation's own controller settings, then open RomMBat again.