Optimal key layout for multiple emulators?

[Hitek]

Greetings all,
I've finally got my cabinet mostly together, and I'm taking a break from woodworking and focusing on getting my emu's set up properly. I've run into a *minor* problem with my button layout.
I'm using Mala as a frontend, and I have an iPac4 with 10 buttons for p1 and p2 (coin, start and 8 play buttons) and 6 buttons for p3 and p4 (coin, start and 4 play buttons). I'm using the default key/button layout that comes with the iPac4, and that works fine for Mame, but it causes problems with other emus. When I go into, say SNES 9X and try to configure the controllers, some of the buttons are reserved internals (like 1-5? toggling background and sprite layers), and Fusion not letting me use P1B3 because it's the alt key and just toggles the menu when I press it.

Does anyone have a good general key/button layout that will work with different multiple emulators without conflicting with reserved buttons?

Also, does anyone know if the default shift button can be changed on the iPac4? Currently it uses P1Start+P2Start as escape, and that has caused problems recently when both players die and they're frantically hitting start to get back in the game and inadvertently exit.

[secretagentwd40]

I just left the actual keys setup to the MAME defaults and work the other emulators around to those controls.  I'm not sure about SNES9X as I haven't used it in a while, but what I did to solve my problem in ZSNES about buttons 1-5 controlling background layers was going into the game keys options and it allows you to set any key for those functions and other stuff like exiting and savestates.  I just disabled those functions since I wont be using them in my cab like I might on my regular PC.

I'm using the 7 button SFII/Neo Geo hybrid layout on my control panel and for SNES im using this layout YXL
                                                                                                                                           BAR
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Genesis is pretty straightforward since the 6 button Sega pad was the Street Fighter layout.  For stuff that uses less buttons like NES, Master System and Turbografx,   I just kinda figure out which buttons make the most sense for ease of use and comfort wise as well as integrity to the original controller's layout

[Hitek]

The problem with the 1-? keys is that some emus (not sure which right now) use those as reserved and at least 1 of the those emus do not let you change them.
I think I got it figured out, though. I printed out a simple keyboard, went through the docs for all my emus and masked out the reserved keys, then mapped the mame buttons to the remaining keys.

I also found out that the iPac4 shift functions only work on p1 and p2. You can map shifted functions to p3 or p4, but they just don't do anything, even though winIpac shows them mapped. I switched the escape key from p2Start to p1Coin, so at least if someone exits the game, there's only 1 person to blame it on

I also switched from SNES 9X to ZSNES.

[acevedor2]

I am having a problem mapping the buttons for Fusion.  I have my buttons assigned for MAME already and have a 6 button layout.  The layout is:

123
456

The problem is that button 3 is assigned to the space bar as it should, but when you go to configure in Fusion and walk through the setup - when I get to button 3 and push the space bar, it goes to an options window for that window (similar to how pushing alt normally does that in windows).  The end result is that i can't assign the space key to button 3.  Any ideas on a work around, I really think it makes more sense to make it the same as MAME, I amjust not sure how to do it in Fusion.

Thanks!

[Hitek]

I actually remapped the whole keyboard, taking care to not use keys that are reserved or special in any of the emulators I use. The attached image should explain it pretty well.