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A year with the Elgato Stream Deck

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Re: A year with the Elgato Stream Deck

#81

Post by busterarm »

filoleg wrote: post #58
busterarm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm doing similar with a Novation Launchpad X that I already had. I'm primarily using it with OBS but also use it with Zoom and a few other applications.

Any resources that you could recommend on this? Was thinking of trying to put mine up to a similar use.

A lot of apps that I use support midi input. The Launchpad has a webapp that lets you configure the outputs of each pad to send different types of MIDI outputs.

The only hitch is that the Launchpad doesn't send NoteOff messages, it sends NoteOn twice with the second time being volume 0.

For apps that don't support MIDI input, there's a tool called Midikey2key which lets you map MIDI messages to keyboard inputs/shortcuts.

Re: A year with the Elgato Stream Deck

#82

Post by marvin »

Twirrim wrote: post #61

I never thought I'd have a use for extra buttons all that much. There's always keyboard combinations to spare. Yet about 18 months ago, I remembered I'd got these 5 custom buttons on my keyboard that in something like a decade and a half of using this keyboard model, I'd never once used. A little bit of searching later, I figured out how to write a bash script that would (for Linux) find the zoom window for whatever…

This is a bit of an aside, but I play a lot of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds with a regular team of friends. That game has a fiendish amount of keyboard commands, even related to regular movement. Many of them can be accessed through sub-menus, but that puts you at a competitive disadvantage when things happen fast.

I've figured out that I just don't have the hand-eye coordination to move in four directions, activate the scope, zoom the scope, lean left and right, aim the gun and fire it during the exact right milliseconds.

So I unloaded the "lean left and right" actions from my right hand to my feet, using a set of rudder pedals intended for a flight simulator. I then unloaded some of the esoteric menu options from keyboard shortcuts to a Stream Deck with user-friendly (works even for six-year olds) picture interface right in front of me. Improved my performance considerably.

Re: A year with the Elgato Stream Deck

#83

Post by nickjj »

For those that have one, besides being able to set custom icons what advantages are there over remapping your numpad?

A standard numpad comes with 17 keys (including the num lock key) to remap to whatever you want and you can combo them with shift + ctrl + alt.

Re: A year with the Elgato Stream Deck

#84

Post by Cthulhu_ »

helloguillecl wrote: post #70

I wonder if the Touch Bar was actually a poorly executed good idea. I've always used a full external keyboard (with numeric pad) but I'd love to have the F16-F19" keys graphically mapping to something depending on the context. For example, in VS code, I currently have F13 for start debugging and resume. F14 for stepping over, and F15 for stepping into. I would wish to have a physical F key with a configurable charact…

I think the idea was interesting, but the execution and adoption, ehhh. It sacrificed buttons for the touch bar, while it could have both. And it's a very expensive feature for very little. I wonder if a touch bar with physical buttons would've worked better.

There's also a Windows laptop out there with the equivalent of a touch bar, but much bigger and iirc it tilts up when the laptop is opened up. More usable screen real estate there.

Re: A year with the Elgato Stream Deck

#85

Post by tomstuart »

nickjj wrote: post #83

For those that have one, besides being able to set custom icons what advantages are there over remapping your numpad? A standard numpad comes with 17 keys (including the num lock key) to remap to whatever you want and you can combo them with shift + ctrl + alt.

One advantage is that you can map a button to a folder, allowing you to drill down into a whole different set of items. This isn’t functionally different from what you can achieve with a numpad + modifiers, or even just a regular keyboard, but it’s clearly nicer and requires less memorisation.

It’s also not just “custom icons”, it’s a live display — e.g. in the top image of the linked post, you can see a display on one of the buttons showing (presumably) an upcoming calendar event.

Re: A year with the Elgato Stream Deck

#87

Post by zippergz »

nickjj wrote: post #83

For those that have one, besides being able to set custom icons what advantages are there over remapping your numpad? A standard numpad comes with 17 keys (including the num lock key) to remap to whatever you want and you can combo them with shift + ctrl + alt.

For me the biggest advantage is that it doesn’t make my mouse have to live so far off to the right like a keyboard with a numpad would.

Re: A year with the Elgato Stream Deck

#88

Post by nickjj »

tomstuart wrote: post #85
nickjj wrote: post #83

For those that have one, besides being able to set custom icons what advantages are there over remapping your numpad? A standard numpad comes with 17 keys (including the num lock key) to remap to whatever you want and you can combo them with shift + ctrl + alt.

One advantage is that you can map a button to a folder, allowing you to drill down into a whole different set of items. This isn’t functionally different from what you can achieve with a numpad + modifiers, or even just a regular keyboard, but it’s clearly nicer and requires less memorisation. It’s also not just “custom icons”, it’s a live display — e.g. in the top image of the linked post, you can see a display on o…

> One advantage is that you can map a button to a folder, allowing you to drill down into a whole different set of items.

You can do this with custom key mappings on all major operating systems. Basically you can open a program, open a folder, run a script or do anything you can run from the command line (including running multi-step operations).

On Windows there's AutoHotkey. It sounds like it might be complicated but it's not. For example this single line of code `#+w::Run chrome.exe -incognito` lets me press Win + shift + w to open an incognito Chrome window and `#n::Run, explorer.exe \\wsl$\Ubuntu-20.04\home\nick\src\sites\nickjanetakis` opens my personal blog's directory inside of an Explorer window (default folder viewing app) with Win + n. I wrote a blog post[0] about using the basics of AutoHotkey and there's similar tools for Linux and macOS at least in the sense of being able to assign any action to a hotkey.

[0]: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/remap-and-set-global-hotkeys-...

Re: A year with the Elgato Stream Deck

#89

Post by juliendorra »

helloguillecl wrote: post #70

I wonder if the Touch Bar was actually a poorly executed good idea. I've always used a full external keyboard (with numeric pad) but I'd love to have the F16-F19" keys graphically mapping to something depending on the context. For example, in VS code, I currently have F13 for start debugging and resume. F14 for stepping over, and F15 for stepping into. I would wish to have a physical F key with a configurable charact…

The Touch Bar can be what the Stream Deck is, a small keyboard of live macro keys, if you customize it using Better Touch Tool. I did that and now have useful contextual custom keys and shortcuts.

I know I will miss it a lot when (it seems inevitable now) I have to change for a non-touch bar MacBook Pro . I would not miss the standard Touch Bar

Re: A year with the Elgato Stream Deck

#90

Post by tomstuart »

nickjj wrote: post #88
tomstuart wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One advantage is that you can map a button to a folder, allowing you to drill down into a whole different set of items. This isn’t functionally different from what you can achieve with a numpad + modifiers, or even just a regular keyboard, but it’s clearly nicer and requires less memorisation. It’s also not just “custom icons”, it’s a live display — e.g. in the top image of the linked post, you can see a display on o…

> One advantage is that you can map a button to a folder, allowing you to drill down into a whole different set of items. You can do this with custom key mappings on all major operating systems. Basically you can open a program, open a folder, run a script or do anything you can run from the command line (including running multi-step operations). On Windows there's AutoHotkey. It sounds like it might be complicated b…

Given that the entire premise of this product is “dynamically programmable buttons whose labels show what they’re currently mapped to”, I completely agree it’s uninteresting if you have no need for dynamically programmable buttons whose labels show what they’re currently mapped to.
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