[nicholasgower]

Clicking the touchpad on a DualShock 4 or DualSense did nothing, so a PlayStation pad could only open the menu with Home or Select and Start together. The touchpad is a button no Switch controller has, and its click is the natural menu key on those pads: it now does what F1 does.

What changed

• host/pad_sdl.c reads SDL's touchpad button (button 20 in both SDL2's SDL_CONTROLLER_BUTTON_TOUCHPAD and SDL3's SDL_GAMEPAD_BUTTON_TOUCHPAD) and sets a new HOS_PAD_TOUCHPAD bit (gpu/vk/vk_api.h). The bit is past HOS_PAD_N, so it is not one of the inputs the Controls page can bind to a Switch button.
• gpu/vk/vk_menu.cpp presses F1's slot (press[6]) on that bit: a click opens the menu while playing, and closes it again, exactly as F1 does. A click while the Controls page is listening for a new binding is ignored.
• readme.md documents it under In-game menu.

Testing

• New tests/test_touchpad_menu.py compiles the poll's button block from host/pad_sdl.c over a stand-in SDL and checks that only the touchpad click sets HOS_PAD_TOUCHPAD, that an ordinary button still sets its own bit, and that the bit is outside the bindable positions. It then checks vk_menu.cpp maps it to F1 (press[6]), not Insert/confirm/back, and masks it from the binding listener.
• python -I -B tests/run_all.py locally: the new check and the menu and pad checks pass (test_touchpad_menu, test_menu_keys, test_stick_rest, test_bound_keys, test_rumble_*, test_hd_rumble, test_input_background). The full run's 11 failures on this PC are environment-only: no clang on PATH, no privilege to create symlinks (WinError 1314), and Python 3.14's \\?\ paths. CI on Linux with the tools installed is the real check.

Build

Rebased onto main (51de681) and built a complete game folder from the user's .nup with nx2/make_game.py: the compile, the hookshot.exe and hookshot_vk.dll links, and shader preparation all succeeded.

main itself does not link right now: #1720's merge left out the vk_replay.cpp half of present ahead, so mkwvk::present_commit and mkwvk::present_defer_into are undefined. Open PR #1858 is the pending fix. I applied that one commit to the working tree for this build only; it is not part of this PR, and the red Vulkan job here is that same main breakage.

Not tested

• In the game with a real DualShock 4 or DualSense: there is no controller and no dump here. It needs a Windows or Linux run where SDL's HIDAPI driver sees the pad (the bundled SDL2.dll/sdl2-compat and SDL3 both support the button) to confirm the menu opens and closes on a click.
• No screenshots: the change shows as the existing menu opening from a new input.

No issue links: there is no open issue for it in the repository.

[barrenechea]

I wonder if it shouldn't be the "PS" button in that case, rather than the touchpad click? Would be more "natural" as the guide button I think

[nicholasgower]

I wonder if it shouldn't be the "PS" button in that case, rather than the touchpad click? Would be more "natural" as the guide button I think

One problem with this idea is that PCs often override the home button with other menus, whether it be Steam Big Picture or Xbox Game Bar. On Playstation controllers, the touchpad is the only button that isn't required for Switch inputs.

[nicholasgower]

I've tested this myself, and I can confirm that it works.