Left stick radial menu using "A" button as the activation button (Xbox One controller).

[Martha Pepper]

(I posted the following on Reddit a few weeks ago, but thought I'd try here too, didn't know this forum existed!)

I have a radial menu set to the left stick of the Xbox One gamepad, 8 menu boxes corresponding to the numberpad. Is it possible to use the "A" button as the activator when I highlight a menu box? As far as I can see it only allows you to activate by clicking the stick, and you cannot substitute that for any other button.

There is only one other mention of this I could find here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamController/comments/8vdsao/manual_selection_for_radial_menu/

In that post u/CriticalComposer gives a great set of instructions how to do this, but it's for the Steam trackpad and just doesn't translate to the joystick at one point in the instructions unfortunately.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

[ugafan]

You have 4 options:
Button Click (Stick)
Button Release (Stick)
Touch Release / Modeshift End
Always On

You have to use one of these four options. But it is possible to add A Button as a secondary way of menu activation.

1. Add an action layer for the radial menu.

2. Default Set
Left Stick - Directional Pad
--Outer Ring Binding - Start Press Apply Action Layer Radial Menu
--Decrease Outer Ring Binding Radius

3. Radial Action Layer
A Button - Release Press Remove Action Layer Radial Menu
Left Stick - Radial Menu
--Menu Activation Style - Touch Release / Modeshift End

[Martha Pepper]

Thank you so much for this ugafan, it works a treat! The only caveat is that the radial menu disappears each time you press the A button (obviously, as it is set to "Release Press Remove Action Layer") and you have to press the stick in the direction again to reinitialise the menu again. Do you know if there is any way of the menu staying up so you don't have to re-centre the stick and select again?

For context, I'm using it for a top down turn based roguelike (Approaching Infinity), and just want to be able to hold the stick in a direction and press A however many times to move in that direction, without having to reselect the direction with the stick each time.

Don't worry if this is impossible (I've had a poke around and can't see any immediate way around this), and thank you again for taking the time to post your solution :)

[ugafan]

For that you can try doing a mode shift instead of using a layer.

Set up the default radial menu with activation style as button click.
Add a mode shift radial menu to always on with the mode shift button set to A.

It's not perfect as sometimes it requires a little movement from the stick to activate the always on binding, but it should work most of the time. If you want you can add a center button to indicate to you the mode shift is activated but you need to move the stick a little to shift to the ring.

[Martha Pepper]

I'll give it a blast after work. Thanks a lot for the followup and thanks for your help, I really do appreciate it :)