Hi,
I have dabbled in pico-8 a little on Windows, but recently got an android tablet with an attached physical keyboard. I am trying to use pico-8-edu edition, which I know requires a physical keyboard, but I'm having trouble because my physical keyboard does not have an "escape" button. In place of escape it has the backwards arrow button. It functions similarly but does not register as escape in pico-8-edu. As you already know, the escape key is pretty essential. All other keys work fine, but I can't get to the code editor!

I know the solution is just to bluetooth in another physical keyboard or to use pico-8 on Windows, but I'd really love to be able to just use the keyboard that attaches to my android tablet. I looked into remapping keys or other solutions on the android end, but can't find anything that fits my device or use case (or non-existent android coding skill level).

I'm posting here in case anyone else has encountered this problem and/or is aware of a solution. I know it's a long shot, but I thought I would ask. Thanks in advance!

Q. Any idea how to toggle edit mode without pressing the escape key in pico-8-edu?

I don't believe it's possible to change that binding in PICO-8, but there are a couple of Android apps on the Play store that claim to be able to remap the key in Android. Button Mapper is one, though I can't vouch for it or any others.

I have CAPSLOCK bound as my esc key on my iPad. It works as a normal esc key in the Pico8 edu version. It's the ctrl-r that gets me every time. It reloads the page... #sigh

Welp, I tried Button Mapper along with 2 others, and it still doesn't work. Thanks for the suggestion though, 2bitchuck. I wish rebinding physical keys worked better on Android like it does on an ipad. I'm guessing an update to pico-8-edu to help it play nicely with these types of keyboards is an extremely low probability. :(

If there are any more ideas, I will continually be open to trying them. Thanks lexaloffle for having a great community.

That's funny. I installed the demos and was dinking around in one when I hit the keybinding I made for escape. It brought up the command line. Apparently remapping with the Key Mapper app allows me to exit a game to the command line, but unfortunately it does nothing when I am in the command line, refusing to pull up the editor. No idea why.

Just an updated to anyone who finds this: I wasn't able to get pico-8-edu working right with my keyboard that doesn't have an escape key, but I WAS able to get something working using Winlator!

I followed this guide to set everything up: https://retrogamecorps.com/2024/06/21/native-pico-8-on-android-guide/

The problem of having no escape key remained, and the buttom mapper app didn't work in Winlator. BUT I found a simple workaround.

You can enable an input overlay in Winlator that has an escape key (the RTS option). This let's me toggle in and out of editor mode.

Looks like Winlator is working, at least for now!