Introducing Gamepad and Keyboard Support for the Desktop App

[spakesh]

Hi Creators,

Today, we’re introducing the ability for users to navigate the desktop app using a keyboard or connected gamepad to improve accessibility and offer more UI/UX options for all Roblox users.

How Do Users Enable It?

Users can enable this simply by pressing the arrow keys / WASD on a keyboard or using directional input on a gamepad.

Once one of these inputs is received, they should see a selection cursor appear on their screen, just like the one on our console app. They will be able to activate UI using the Enter / Return key and navigate back using Escape. A shortcut bar will also appear at the bottom of the screen showing other actions and the keys they can use to trigger them.

To exit keyboard / gamepad input mode, simply interact with the app using mouse or touch.

How It Was Made

To build this feature, we used Focus Navigation, a Lua library we originally developed for our release onto the Playstation platform. Focus Navigation supplies helpers for your Luau code to manage UI selection, as well as useful React wrappers and APIs. Keep an eye out in coming weeks for our release of the source code.

What’s Next?

We hope you enjoy this feature and that it makes the app easier for both you and your users to use! There are more improvements on the way for the keyboard navigation UX, especially in the app’s Avatar editor and in bringing this feature to mobile + VR. When we release the Focus Navigation library, we hope that it makes your work easier when optimizing UI for gamepad users and those who prefer not to use pointer-based UI.

Thanks!
spakesh

[0Tenth (Lychee)]

I hope the release of the libraries and source code for these wrappers removes a lot of the barriers and increases gamepad ergonomics when playing experiences!

[JuanGamerPlayz_RBLX (Juan)]

This is a nice update! I found it interesting and gives good accessibility!

One thing that I discovered is that clicking PgUp and PgDown doesn’t work, despite having NumLock enabled…

[TimeFrenzied (of Xyaery)]

One step closer to the support of more keys that are unusable and navigation across the platform

…Hopefully

[cardboardthethird]

very cool! keep up the good work with optimizing studio and the platform!

[IncredibleTeamAidan]

Since you’ve been working on gamepad related things, have you identified the cause of this bug yet?

Controller Cursor not showing on PC Player App

Hello support team, I set up an xbox controller to my Windows 11 PC today and everything seems to be running smoothly except for one thing… there’s no cursor (the white dot) I have tried playing numerous “experiences” using it and all is working fine except for the cursor is not showing including when using click detectors, however, the regular arrow cursor does show when I use the mouse. The last post I could find relating to to this is here, although that says it was resolved. I have tried …

[karlos_800 (karlos)]

Huh, never expected something like this but this still doesn’t feel like the definitive console experience i wanted when it was ported to Playstation, but overall, Cool

[Fifkee (Noire)]

Pretty neat to be getting “how it was made” sections now. Good stuff, guys.

[gizzygazzy360 (Smile4)]

have you guys thought about supporting gyro controls?

[HotFloofyChocolate (Floofy)]

This is great! Now all we need is to be able to control Roblox from a keyboard on mobile in game and also like this

[TheTrex9000]

Awesome! Could you guys add this to the website as well?

[Withoutruless (Ghost)]

This is good but what about gamepad and landscape support on the mobile app and more importantly the lack of proper mouse support on mobile for which people have been asking for years?

[kavi_conner (Kavi)]

@spakesh

Focus Navigation supplies helpers for your Luau code to manage UI selection, as well as useful React wrappers and APIs. Keep an eye out in coming weeks for our release of the source code.

I would honestly really love to read though the source code y’all used! I never used Lua React and to be honest, I probably should look into using it.

Anyways, this is really useful feature and it’s nice seeing it added to the Roblox Client. Thank you!

[ReIoadScript]

Les go i wanted this exact update for 4 years

[RobIoxArenaEvents]

This is very convenient timing! Just one day before this update came out, I was using one of my Xbox controllers to play Roblox games and I wondered why the controller didn’t work in the Desktop universal app. Thanks for this update

Also excited to see more internal libraries become open-source!

[spakesh]

Hi all. Great to see the positive reception Unfortunately we’ve bumped into a couple bugs and we’re going to temporarily roll back the feature while we fix them. Thanks for the feedback everyone! We’ll get this back into your hands ASAP.

In the meantime we’ll also be working to get the library ready for y’all!

[TheNexusAvenger (Nexus)]

@spakesh

There are more improvements on the way for the keyboard navigation UX, especially in the app’s Avatar editor and in bringing this feature to mobile + VR.

I’m excited for this part in particular. This update (once re-enabled) drastically helps the UX of handheld consoles running Windows. Linux is in a weird spot of relying on the Android version, or just running Android itself (ex: Logitech G Cloud). Gamepad navigation is much easier to use than relying on the touch screen, touchpad (ASUS ROG Ally and MSI Claw don’t include this), or joystick as a mouse.

[NemusCraft (Nemusy)]

Pretty W feature, it helps accessibilty without mouse.

[Nuclearsu]

quite an adequate and NEEDED update… i’m always in disgust when an application FORCES a mouse onto me… when that happens, I always have to ask someone to lend me a mouse… navigation shouldn’t require a mouse…

but this is much more needed for studio, not the roblox app…