Desktop mode: for shortcuts, what keys are mapped to what buttons?

[stebobibo]

In desktop mode, you can go to settings>shortcuts and look at the shortcuts for various things. I'm most interested in a shortcut to return to steam mode. "Log out" seems to be another name for "return to steam mode". The shortcut for log out (in session management section) is ctrl+alt+del. My problem is I don't know what button delete is. I found out what ctrl and alt are by trial and error (the triggers). Do you know what button delete is?

It would be great if there is a map for all the keys. If there is, please let me know where to find it! Thanks a bunch!

[Ben Bernanke]

you map them yourself.

open client on desktop
steam
settings
controller
desktop config

steam is far upper left in client where file an edit are in word.

[stebobibo]

Thank you, Ben! I'm having problems, however. I can't actually change my configuration/action set. I've made some new ones, cause I don't want to edit the two already there ("desktop" and "gampad"). But I can't actually select my new ones. I press A when on them, nothing happens (when I'm out of the settings, I'm still on desktop configuration). Pressing "B" is the only way I know how to get out of that "steam controller configurator" screen. Maybe that's cancelling my selection??? You're help with this would be greatly appreciated!

[Ben Bernanke]

Look at my first reply. Go there.

At the very bottom of the screen should be a menu* with 4 options:
browse configs, export config, done, manage action set

To make a new profile, you want to "export config"

To load a profile you made before, you want to "manage configs."
I think what OP was asking was that when they click "manage configs" and browse to their config and selecting it, they enter a "preview" mode for the config.

If they hit the "a" button, the config won't load. The deck will just make a bumping sound. Instead of hitting the "a" button, hit the "x" button and the selected config will load.

The "a" button is designed to let you see the button settings in the different actions sets. It's not supposed to load the profile.

If you look, though, at the very bottom of the screen, under the 4 rectangles, where the menu I mentioned above was, you'll see "apply configuration" and "back" (Actually you might not see it because of how buggy the menus are). You want "apply configuration" which I think is "x".


======================================================================
*Sometimes this menu gets hidden. Here is how to find it. When you look at the screen, towards the bottom are 4 boxes arranged in a row. The boxes let you map the following buttons:

box1: dpad
box2: left joystick
box3: right joystick
box4: xy&ab buttons

ignore that and look under it, there's a line. Sometimes you have to move your selection back up to the top to get the menu to appear

[Ben Bernanke]

**** BETTER OPTION: ADD YOUR DESKTOP APPS AS NON-STEAM GAMES *****

Here is how to add a desktop app to gamermode:

open client
in the top left, there's the menu: steam, view, friends, games, help
games > "Add a non-steam game to my library"
(alternatively)
open client
library
in the bottom left corner, there's a plus sign with "add game" and you have options.


You can add any application, not just games. If you installed an application via a flatpak it will show an icon in the menu.
But if you want to browse for them, you can install any app you want.
For example, hit "browse" and then select "Kate" from the menu.
Return to Gaming Mode
Library
Scroll right (R1 button) until you get to the "non-steam" heading
and then you'll see a grey box with "kate" written in it and you can just run that like a game.
your text editor appears.


The only things I would use the deck for without a keyboard are:
(1) gaming
(2) video (like youtube)
(3) stored video (like I downloaded some MIT CS lectures onto my HD. could watch them while I'm walking)
(4) web browsing

This is about all I want to try and do without a keyboard.

You can pick some apps that are good for this and then store a custom controller config for each app (because a web browser and video player probably don't have the same shortcut keys anyway).

Adding apps to gamer mode is better than making desktop configs to navigate apps because:
(1) desktop configs are honestly bugged, Not all the options seem to show on the menus. It seems like the expected buttons don't work properly to navigate, edit, or load profiles. Valve provides a picture of a deck to help you map the buttons, but the button locations don't seem to match the picture (for example you map the track pads by selecting images above the joysticks in the picture but on the actual deck and the image, the track pads are below the joysticks.)

(2) you probably don't want to navigate the desktop, you just want to find an app and this prevents you from having to make a desktop nav config, and

(3) you ultimately will probably want a different controller config for each app and for that config to automatically load when you load the app and that's what gamer mode does anyway.

[Ben Bernanke]

I was going to make a guide on how to do this so I could upload screenshots.

Valve has guides locked for some reason (you can't make a steam deck guide right now idk why)

[Ben Bernanke]

forgot to mention there's ways to get lutris to export an .exe so you can add that to gamer mode as non-steam game.

Actually I think you just close the Steam client and then right click the game in lutris and export steam shortcut.

Like it would be good to learn to do this because you can keep all your games in gamer mode under the appropriate library headings.

And so you might as well keep your apps there too.

Desktop mode is great for mouse/keyboard. Kinda sucks with controller. I'd stick to gamer mode for controller.