Gamepad & TV

Knovis works fully with a gamepad. Connect a controller, sit back on the couch, and navigate your environments, browse items, run routes and playlists, all without touching a mouse or keyboard.

Connecting a controller

Connect a controller and Knovis detects it automatically: Xbox controllers, PlayStation controllers and most other modern gamepads work without extra drivers or configuration.

Multiple controllers and passing control

Connect as many controllers as you like. One controller drives Knovis at a time, and control is passed with a single gesture: hold both stick clicks (L3 + R3) for two seconds on any other controller. That controller rumbles briefly to confirm, Knovis shows on screen who has control, and the previous controller goes idle. Anyone can take a turn picking the next item without handing hardware around the room.

The same gesture summons Knovis back from a game or app you launched from it: hold L3 + R3 for two seconds on any controller and Knovis returns to the foreground with that controller in charge. If the controlling pad disconnects or runs out of battery, Knovis switches to another connected controller automatically.

Button map

The Knovis menu

Pressing Start (or Escape on the keyboard in view mode) opens the Knovis menu, a controller-friendly overlay designed for use from a distance. From here you can:

• Pick a route with Waypoint Route and fly to its first waypoint
• Pick a playlist, which cues its first entry (press Y to play it)
• Toggle Fullscreen, hide the side panels or show the Navigation Panel, the Mini-Map, and the arrow-keys mode
• Open Environment…, Go Back or Close Environment
• Quit Knovis (press A twice to confirm)

Navigate the menu with the D-pad and confirm with A (Start also selects while the menu is open). B or View goes back a page, and closes the menu from the main page. Everything is reachable without a mouse.

Navigating the canvas with a gamepad

D-pad focus moves between items; the currently focused item is highlighted with a selection ring. Press A to activate it. This works well in environments where items are clearly laid out in sections, since the focus jumps to the nearest item in the direction you press.

For open exploration, use the left stick to pan freely around the canvas. The triggers control zoom: hold LT to pull back and see the full environment, hold RT to zoom into detail.

Shoulder buttons step through waypoints in the active route, so you can drive a presentation or guided tour entirely from the controller.

Playlists and auto-advance

Playlists run without any controller input once started; the canvas advances automatically on the timer you set. Pick a playlist in the Knovis menu, press Y to play it, then set the controller down. Knovis handles the rest, including triggering inline media at each step.

Press Y to pause a running playlist, and Y again to resume. LB and RB step to the previous or next entry.

In the viewers and players

When an item opens in a Knovis viewer, the controller drives that viewer until you close it. Two buttons mean the same thing everywhere: Y (Triangle) switches fullscreen on and off, and B (Circle) closes the viewer. Close a viewer while it is fullscreen and the next one opens fullscreen; leaving fullscreen brings back the size the window had. On the keyboard, F11 does the same as Y in the PDF viewer, the Reader and the 3D viewer (Ctrl+Cmd+F on a Mac), and Esc leaves fullscreen.

A 3D model or a video playing inside an item on the canvas takes Y too: it fills the screen, and Y or Esc puts it back on its item.