Hello everyone!

Today I bought a mouse and keyboard for the couch to play some games which are not made for controllers. Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to access the Steam menu once I am in-game. The desktop overlay combination does not seem to work (shift + tab) and I don’t know what else to try as I don’t have anything resembling the PlayStation or Xbox buttons like on my controllers.

Desktop mode itself is unfortunately unusable as Steam ignores the scaling configuration and text is unreadable small on the TV. I just bring this up, because I suspect the overlay combination would work here.

Does anyone know what keys to press in normal big picture esque mode to open any of the Steam menus while in-game?

Thank you!

2 points

In gaming mode, you can use Ctrl-1 and Ctrl-2 to access the menus, but for reasons unknown, these don’t work in-game.

In desktop mode, if you dock the Deck, you can try changing the display settings manually if it doesn’t auto-adjust. This is under the System Settings app.

permalink
report
reply
0 points

You should consider trying setting the control scheme to “trackpad as mouse”. Using the trackpad as a mouse feels very natural and similar to using a mouse and is much easier than using external devices imo. Just a thought in case you didn’t know about that!

permalink
report
reply
5 points

What are you talking about? This is about using a mouse and keyboard with a docked Steam Deck.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Oh I didn’t see the part about it being docked. I was just trying to help because I think a lot of people are scared to use the new features and the trackpads are actually amazing for games that require the precision of a mouse.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

ctrl+1 and ctrl+2. Buuuut it doesn’t work when a game is running :(

I’ve considered learning python to try and write a plugin that could help with this… but I don’t imagine I’ll be ready with that any time soon as I basically have no programming knowledge.

permalink
report
reply
2 points

I think I could help you with that, if you don’t mind me taking away the novelty of you coding your own solution, which is where I get my kick

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Sure, if you know a way to do it!

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

This is one of those weird SteamOS issues that I can’t figure out why it hasn’t been addressed yet. It seems like such an obvious issue.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Omitted because of possible conflict with common game inputs? If someone uses a m+kb input, sets hold to crouch and then changes weapons it would open the keyboard.

That’s the only “reason” I can think of, other than plain just forgot

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

I mean… the default keys work just fine which is why it’s so odd. I know what the issue is, I just don’t know why they can’t fix it. The issue is that currently games have priority over inputs. That’s especially true with keyboard and mouse and I know this because other things also break when loading games.

I had a problem with pillars of eternity for instance. Keyboard and mouse work fine in overlay. Boot up the game and they break. But switch from the dongle mode to Bluetooth mode on the mouse and it works. So something is very wrong with the input for that stuff when inside of games. It’s almost like they’re switching drivers?

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Weird. I was just expecting some odd key combination not that it isn’t implemented at all.

I guess I have to keep a controller near to access the menu then as a workaround.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Steam Deck

!steamdeck@sopuli.xyz

Create post

A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.

Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.

As Lemmy doesn’t have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title

The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.

Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.

These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.

Rules:

  • Follow the rules of Sopuli
  • Posts must be related to the Steam Deck in an obvious way.
  • No piracy, there are other communities for that.
  • Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
  • This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
  • Have fun.

Link to our Matrix Space

Community stats

  • 2.9K

    Monthly active users

  • 1.1K

    Posts

  • 20K

    Comments