Keyboard and mouse

Keyboard & mouse (Home + Y) and the Wayfinder Keyboard

Wayfinder has two ways to type and click:

1. Keyboard & mouse — a deck of keys, a trackpad and handy pads, on the other screen, for the game you're playing. Open it with Home + Y.
2. Wayfinder Keyboard — a real Android keyboard you can type with using the controller. It opens when you tap a text box.

Keyboard & mouse (the deck)

Open and close it

• Press Home + Y (default combo), or use the Keyboard & mouse tile in the Quick panel.
• Press Home + Y again, or the ✕ tab, to close it.

The deck opens on the screen without the game (the other screen from the one that has the controller). The controller stays with the game: you use the deck by touch. What you press is sent to the game.

With only one screen, it can't open: "Keyboard & mouse needs the second screen".

If you turned Keyboard & mouse off in More → Features, its combo and its Quick panel tile are off until you turn it back on (see Features & simple setup).

At the bottom of the deck:

• Sending to: app — where the keys go.
• Clipboard (the clipboard icon) — your last copied texts, to type into the game (see below).
• Give the controller to the game — sends the controller back to the game's screen.

When the deck closes, every key, modifier and mouse button it was holding is released.

The pads

Tabs at the top switch pads (only the open one shows its name):

Pad	What's on it
PC keys	A full PC keyboard: Esc, F1–F12, numbers, letters, arrows, Ctrl / Win / Alt, Space, Page Up / Down… A button at the bottom switches to Simpler keys (bigger keys, only what typing needs) and back to All keys.
Trackpad	A mouse (see below).
Numpad	A number pad.
Emulator	RetroArch's default hotkeys, nothing to set up: Menu (F1), Save (F2), Load (F4), Slot − / +, Fast ⏩, Hold ⏩, Rewind ⏪, Slow, Pause, Frame ▸, Reset, Screenshot, Shader ◂ / ▸, Mute, Fullscreen, Game focus, Quit.
Media	Previous, play / pause, next, stop; volume − / mute / +; brightness − / + for the top screen and the bottom screen.
Video	Back / forward, play / pause, 10 s jumps (J / L), Fullscreen (F), Subtitles (C), Speed − / +, volume.
My pad	Your own buttons (see below).
Guide	The game's guide page and your notes (see Guide & notes).
Gyro on / Gyro off	Only when the game has gyro set up in Game controls: pauses the gyro for this game, or turns it back on.

How keys work: a key stays pressed while your finger is on it (so movement keys work in games). Shift, Ctrl, Alt and Win are sticky: one tap = for the next key only, two quick taps = locked on, one more tap = off.

The trackpad

The trackpad has three modes. The mode button under the pad (on the left) shows the one you're in; each press moves to the next: Mouse → Touch → Direct → Mouse.

Mouse mode — a real mouse pointer for the game:

• Tap = left click.
• Two fingers: tap = right click, drag = scroll.
• Hold, then move = drag.
• Buttons: Left, Middle, Right.
• Stick mouse: on / off — AYN's own mouse mode: once on, click L3 or R3 and that stick moves a pointer. If the deck turned it on, closing the deck turns it off again.

Touch mode — for games that ignore a mouse (the mouse buttons are hidden):

• A pointer appears on the game's screen. Move your finger on the trackpad to move it.
• Tap = a finger tap where the pointer is.
• Hold, then move = a finger drag there.
• Two fingers = a swipe.

Direct mode — the trackpad is the game's screen: "Where you touch here = where the finger lands there". Touch, drag and swipe with one finger, and the same happens at the same place on the game's screen. Handy for swipes: menus, pages, videos like YouTube Shorts.

Wayfinder remembers which mode you used.

The Clipboard button

Press the clipboard icon at the bottom of the deck: a row opens with your last 5 copied texts (newest first). Tap one to send it to the game's screen — Wayfinder types it there, key by key (this works in games that ignore paste). If the text has characters a keyboard can't type (some accents, emoji), Wayfinder pastes it instead, then puts your own clipboard back. Press the icon again to close the row.

• The list is kept by the Wayfinder Keyboard, so it must be your keyboard (see Turn it on). If it isn't, the row says "The clipboard list needs Wayfinder Keyboard as your keyboard (Wayfinder → Keyboard)."
• Nothing copied yet? The row says "Nothing copied yet — copy some text and it shows here."
• Only text is kept, and nothing is saved or sent — see The clipboard key below.

The right pad for each app

In Wayfinder → Keyboard → More options, under Keyboard & mouse for games:

Pick the pad for each app (on by default) — "RetroArch gets the emulator keys, video apps the video pad, streaming apps the trackpad… Your own choice in an app is remembered". If you turn it off, the deck always opens on the last pad you used.

My pad: your own buttons

Make buttons that type a text or press a key combo (for example Ctrl+Z, F5 for a quick save, Alt+Enter).

1. Go to Wayfinder → Keyboard → More options → Your own buttons (the "My pad" page of Keyboard & mouse).
2. Choose Types text or Presses keys.
3. Fill in the Button name, and the text or the keys (like "Ctrl+S" or "F5").
4. Press Add.

No buttons yet? Start from an example: Undo, Quick save, Full screen or a text snippet.

If Wayfinder doesn't understand the keys, it says so: "Didn't recognise … — try Ctrl+S, Alt+Enter, F5, Esc".

Wayfinder Keyboard

A keyboard you can use by touch or with the controller. When you type in a text box on the top screen, it opens on the bottom screen (by default), so the game keeps its whole screen.

Turn it on

Go to Wayfinder → Keyboard. The page shows the main settings first: this button, Where it opens, The D-pad picks the keys and your languages. The controller help and the Keyboard & mouse settings (your own buttons, the pad for each app) are behind More options.

The big button at the top shows what to do:

• Turn on Wayfinder Keyboard — one press; your old keyboard stays available.
• Use Wayfinder Keyboard — one press to make it the keyboard in use.
• Wayfinder Keyboard is on — press it to switch keyboards.

The welcome tour can also set it up for you.

Where it opens

Where it opens:

• Bottom screen (default) — with a text box on the top screen, the keyboard fills the bottom screen, so the game keeps the whole top one. A strip shows the text around the cursor.
• Same screen — always at the bottom of the screen you're typing on, like a phone.

The thin strip on the top screen: while you type on the bottom screen, a thin strip stays at the bottom of the top screen. It says "⌨ Typing on the bottom screen — ↵ or B when done". Some games (for example Tomodachi Life in the Eden emulator) check whether a keyboard is open: the strip keeps them waiting while you type.

↵ (Enter) works as usual: it sends Enter, or the text box's own action. In this mode, after an action key — Done, Go, Search or Send — the keyboard also closes by itself. After Next, or a new line, it stays open. B closes it at any time.

Type with the controller

Button	What it does
Left stick	Pick a key (click it: show this help)
A	Type the key · hold for accents
D-pad	Move the text cursor
B (or Back)	Close the keyboard
X	Delete
Y	Space
L2	Shift (twice: caps lock)
R2	Symbols ↔ letters
L1 / R1	Jump a word left / right
Start	Enter
Select	Next language

The D-pad picks the keys (off by default): turn it on if you prefer the D-pad to move between keys. Then the left stick moves the text cursor.

The same help is on the keyboard itself: the ? key, or click the left stick. It's also on the Keyboard page, under More options.

The first time the keyboard opens on the other screen, a short tip shows these buttons.

Touch tips

• Hold Space and slide left or right to move the text cursor.
• Hold a letter for its accents.

Emoji

Press the 🙂 key in the bottom row. The emoji page opens with three rows of emoji, in five groups: faces; hands and signs; hearts, animals and nature; games, gadgets and things; food and drink.

• The group key (it shows the next group's emoji and ›) steps to the next group.
• ABC goes back to the letters (with the controller, R2 does too).
• Space, delete and Enter are on the emoji page's bottom row too.

The clipboard key

The clipboard key (the clipboard icon in the bottom row) shows your last 5 copied texts in a strip above the keys, newest first. Tap one to type it (with the controller: push left or right to pick one — the same way you pick keys — then press A). ✕ closes the strip. When nothing has been copied yet, the key is greyed out and does nothing.

The same list is on the Clipboard button of Keyboard & mouse.

How the list is kept:

• Only while Wayfinder Keyboard is your keyboard. Android only lets the keyboard in use read the clipboard.
• In memory only — never saved, never sent anywhere.
• Only text, up to 20,000 characters per copy. Text that an app marks as sensitive (for example a password copied from a password manager) is skipped.
• It's forgotten after an hour, when Android clears its clipboard, or when you choose another keyboard.

Languages

17 languages: English (US), Français (Canada), Français (AZERTY), Español, Português, Deutsch (QWERTZ), Italiano, Svenska / Suomi, Norsk, Dansk, Polski, Türkçe, Русский, Українська, Ελληνικά, العربية, עברית.

Wayfinder → Keyboard shows your languages (the ones that are on). Press one to turn it off. To add one, press Add a language: the other languages appear — press one to turn it on. The globe key (or Select) switches between the ones that are on.

Passwords

In a password field, the text preview is hidden with dots, and the keyboard on the other screen is kept out of screenshots and recordings.

Good to know

While Wayfinder's keyboard is open, the controller types: the app's Game controls pause until it closes.

See also

• Game controls — turn buttons into keys or mouse clicks.
• Guide & notes — the deck's Guide tab.