BMC5 Controlify Extras

A drop-in resource pack (plus a small installer) that makes Better MC 5 [NEOFORGE] v52 properly playable on a controller, without switching your Steam controller profile to a keyboard-mapping layout.

Built and verified against the exact versions in the pack: Minecraft 1.21.1, NeoForge 21.1.234, Controlify 3.0.1+lts.

What it fixes

Problem	Fix
No buttons left for modpack actions	An 8-slot radial menu preloaded with the BMC5 essentials — map, waypoints, backpack, accessories, ender chest, ping
Extra/back buttons unbindable	Paddle bindings for controllers that expose them (8BitDo Ultimate 2, Xbox Elite, …)
Xaero's map & FTB Quests unusable with a stick	Those screens added to Controlify's virtual mouse list
Steam Deck back buttons do nothing	Explained + worked around — see docs/STEAM-DECK.md

Nothing here is a Java mod. It's a resource pack, because Controlify reads its default bindings and default profile out of the resource pack stack — so a pack can ship binds for keybinds belonging to other mods. Details and the decompiled evidence are in docs/FINDINGS.md.

Install

scripts/install.py "<instance folder>"             # desktop / 8BitDo
scripts/install.py "<instance folder>" --deck      # Steam Deck (see below)
scripts/install.py "<instance folder>" --dragons   # + Dragon Mounts add-on

Add --dry-run first if you want to see the changes without writing anything. Point it at the instance folder or its inner minecraft/ dir — either works.

Prism (Flatpak) instances live under:

~/.var/app/org.prismlauncher.PrismLauncher/data/PrismLauncher/instances/

The installer builds dist/BMC5-Controlify-Extras.zip, copies it into resourcepacks/, enables it last in options.txt (so its Controlify defaults win over every other pack), and adds the virtual-mouse screen classes to config/controlify.json. Every file it edits is backed up alongside the original as *.bak-<timestamp>.

Prefer to do it by hand? Drag dist/BMC5-Controlify-Extras.zip into resourcepacks/ and enable it in Options → Resource Packs. You'll just miss the virtual-mouse fix, which lives in the global config rather than the pack.

The radial menu

Press D-Pad Right (Controlify's default) and flick the right stick:

                     ↑   Xaero World Map
   Waypoint List ↖         ↗   Accessories Screen
    New Waypoint ←    ( ● )    →  Open Backpack
           Ping  ↙         ↘   Ender Chest
                     ↓   Quest Book

The four most-used actions sit on the cardinal directions, which are far easier to hit than the diagonals. Open Backpack is the Backpacked keybind, so it opens the pack you're wearing — no unequipping, no hotbar shuffle.

Quest Book is FTB Quests' Open Quests, which ships unbound in BMC5 — so in a quest-driven pack the quest log had no key at all, on controller or keyboard. Its screen is an ftblibrary.ui.BaseScreen, which the installer already adds to the virtual-mouse list, so it's navigable once opened.

Paddles

If your controller exposes paddles, these are bound automatically:

Paddle	Action
L4 (left_paddle_1)	Zoom — hold (JustZoom)
L5 (left_paddle_2)	Vein mining — hold
R4 (right_paddle_1)	Open backpack
R5 (right_paddle_2)	Open world map

Zoom and vein mining are holds, which a radial menu can't do — that's why they live on paddles. Map and backpack are on paddles as well as in the radial, because they're frequent enough to deserve an instant button.

Vein Mining was inert before this. Its config sets activationState = "HOLD_KEY_DOWN" while the keybind shipped unbound, so the mod could not be triggered at all — the mod's own warning string is "Vein mining key is unbound, set a key binding to enable controls." Binding a paddle fixes it. On a pad with no paddles, bind it in Controlify by hand or give it a key in Options → Controls; the radial can't host it because it's a hold.

8BitDo Ultimate 2 Wireless: SDL only ships paddle mappings for this pad on Windows/macOS — there is no Linux entry in Controlify's bundled database, only for the Ultimate 2C. On Linux the paddles may arrive as raw numbered buttons instead. If they don't respond, open Controlify's bind screen and press one; if it shows up as Button #17 or similar, bind it there by hand. Also make sure the paddles aren't set to duplicate a face button in 8BitDo's Ultimate Software — set them to their own dedicated outputs, or SDL sees the face button.

Steam Deck: the back buttons cannot reach Controlify at all in 3.0.1. See docs/STEAM-DECK.md for why, and for the Steam Input workaround that --deck sets up.

Optional: Dragon Mounts add-on

Dragon Mounts Remastered ships Descend, Dismount and Dragon Command Menu unbound, and there are no buttons left. The add-on pack exploits the fact that two Controlify bindings may share one input — the config screen only paints sharers red, it never blocks them, and at runtime both fire.

That only helps when the two actions can't both be live. Call Dragon works when you're on foot; Descend works when you're flying one. They're mutually exclusive in the mod's own logic, so they can share a paddle safely:

Input	On foot	While riding
R5 (right_paddle_2)	Call Dragon	Descend

It frees R5 by unbinding the world map there ("type": "empty") — the map is still radial slot 0, so nothing is actually lost. Install with --dragons; it loads after the main pack, so its overrides win.

Don't pair Descend with jump. Jump is ascend while mounted, so they'd fight each other — the pairing has to be foot-state against flight-state, not two flight actions. Dismount needs no binding at all: vanilla sneak already dismounts.

Customising

Everything is editable in-game: Controlify settings → your controller → Radial Menu → CONFIGURE, and the bind list right below it. Any bind you change by hand is saved to your profile and from then on overrides this pack.

To change the defaults instead, edit pack/assets/controlify/controllers/default_config/default.json (radial slots, in clockwise order from the top) or default_bind/default.json (paddles), then re-run the installer.

Binding IDs for other mods follow a fixed rule — Controlify registers every modded keybind as:

fabric-key-binding-api-v1:<the keybind's translation key>

So gui.xaero_open_map becomes fabric-key-binding-api-v1:gui.xaero_open_map. Translation keys are the key_* entries in the instance's options.txt. (The fabric- namespace is not a typo — Controlify uses it on NeoForge too.)

Modrinth

Both packs are built into dist/ ready to upload. See docs/MODRINTH.md for the project settings, listing copy and the publish script.

On a modpack without these mods nothing breaks: a radial slot naming a missing binding logs a warning and renders empty, and a default bind for an unregistered keybind is never looked up.

Uninstall

Disable the pack in Options → Resource Packs, or delete resourcepacks/BMC5-Controlify-Extras.zip. To revert the config edits, restore the .bak-<timestamp> files the installer left next to options.txt and config/controlify.json.