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Control mapping


RichardG

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There is no good solution.

In 4.023 you can of course open the Controls dialog, and there "Export" (top right) into an *.hkf file. And then of course you can "Import" that *.hkf file in the new version.

 

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BUT.

Importing such an hkf file will might mess up the new key bindings of 4.1 that version 4.0 doesn't know about. So this seems to incur a minor risks isn't such a great option. The programmers told me however that they don't rate this risk very high.

 

My recommendation would be to "Save to HTML" and then open the HTML file in Excel or Word (it's basically a big table); do the same in version 4.1, then compare. If you print them out and then put the prints on to pf each other, against a lamp you will quickly spot the differences, and then you can reconstruct your changes in 4.1.

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15 minutes ago, Gibsonm said:

I too was going to say something "funny" but then I looked:

 

SS_16_49_14.thumb.png.c18ed763229666a20dc86ad3a4025b22.png

 

There don't appear to be any active choices on the right hand side.

 

Yes, because it's a published map. Save it as a delta map, and the tools will be enabled.

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A question related to controls mapping from a SB newcomer. Coming from the DCS/BoX nerdy flight sim sister community I have a Virpil CM2 Joystick and T50 Throttle etc.

 

After swearing to get a good track with the mouse I realized that the Virpil CM2 feels like it's done for this. Extreme precision and rather "long throw" so that small movements around the center are very easy. The Virpil WarBRD base having a completely smooth "non sticky" center with metal cams and ball bearings is simply awesome for tank and gunner control. 

 

But - even though the joystick has a bunch of hats and buttons now mapped to the various TIS functions I want to be able to use the T50 throttle as well that has an impressive array of switches and hats. The controller mapping does not react when I press any of the buttons on the Throttle - how to get that working?

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26 minutes ago, mazex said:

A question related to controls mapping from a SB newcomer. Coming from the DCS/BoX nerdy flight sim sister community I have a Virpil CM2 Joystick and T50 Throttle etc.

 

After swearing to get a good track with the mouse I realized that the Virpil CM2 feels like it's done for this. Extreme precision and rather "long throw" so that small movements around the center are very easy. The Virpil WarBRD base having a completely smooth "non sticky" center with metal cams and ball bearings is simply awesome for tank and gunner control. 

 

But - even though the joystick has a bunch of hats and buttons now mapped to the various TIS functions I want to be able to use the T50 throttle as well that has an impressive array of switches and hats. The controller mapping does not react when I press any of the buttons on the Throttle - how to get that working?

Problem here  is that SB can use the primary game controller only.

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Not sure if it can be done, to be honest. Steel Beasts in its many ancient code ways (which we're updating, one component at a time) can handle only one controller's input signal, the "preferred device's". Unless there is a mode where both stick and throttle can be switched into a mode that fakes a single device, you're probably limited to the stick only.

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OK - thanks.

 

There was a new version of vJoy released recently for us Windows 10 1903 users so that the open source solution "Joystick Gremlin" that many like can be used for this:

 

https://whitemagic.github.io/JoystickGremlin/overview/

 

In Joystick Gremlin you can configure and tweak a bunch of "joysick like devices" into one virtual device so that is probably a good solution to get all the weird devices out there working as one device in SB for those who like that.

Edited by mazex
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OK - so Joystick Gremlin seems to work fine by joining my two Virpil devices into one virtual. However - it seems to work for buttons with a lower button ID than or equal to 32. 

 

Is it possible that SB cant handle a device with more than 32 buttons? My Virpil joystick and throttle has a mindblowing number of buttons and switches ;) I think the joystick has 29 so I could not map many from the 96 buttons on the Throttle (that is with a shift dial included).

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I am roughly in the same boat. The 32 button limit is originally a windows limitation. I intend to use joytokey to overcome this. At the moment joystick gremlin and ucr is not supporting key kombinations and as i understand it joytokey does. 

I don't have time to test it at the moment as i have some video to edit before i can even install SB 4.1.

Hope this helps.

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Looks like you have things under control/a good lead what to try out. :)

It's awesome that after two decades of us slacking off with the game controller code ;) other programmers were so kind to support our laziness by creating device virtualization programs.

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1 hour ago, DanTDBV said:

I am roughly in the same boat. The 32 button limit is originally a windows limitation. I intend to use joytokey to overcome this. At the moment joystick gremlin and ucr is not supporting key kombinations and as i understand it joytokey does. 

I don't have time to test it at the moment as i have some video to edit before i can even install SB 4.1.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, then I know it's that way at least, even though it must be an old Windows XP restriction - have not found a flight sim where I can't use my Hotas gear with many buttons the last decade at least. I am running Joystick Gremlin version 13.3 and I just tried mapping some of my "above id 32" buttons on my T50 throttle to keys and that seems to work great! And it should work for combinations by adding a "macro" that seems very powerful. Will test that tomorrow!

 

Coming from the DCS VR world it is a sacred ritual to map EVERYTHING to you hotas so that you dont have to use the keyboard for anything. As it is right now I am getting an awesome setup with my gear for the M1A2 at first... Really like it. Have the flip down trigger on the CM2 for "master blaster" mode that feels really nice. Almost feels like a cheat to map continous "arrow left" sequences to a hat when held if the turret drive is down though ;)

Edited by mazex
Added text in bold regarding macros.
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6 minutes ago, mazex said:

Almost feels like a cheat to map continous "arrow left" sequences to a hat when held if the turret drive is down though ;)

Well, short of ordering hand cranks from AFV Sim (yes, they exist!), mashing the arrow keys is probably one of the most immersive things in our software, as far as physical activity from the user is concerned. It's a poor substitute for actual hand cranks, I grant you that, but if you're mapping this to the coolie hat, well, you're just hurting yourself. ;) 

It's not a cheat, or an exploit, as far as I am concerned.

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Sorry to provide conflicting info here, but after some discussion and experimenting, it seems that you can import key/control mappings from 4.0 very easily into 4.1.

 

This is what you do:

 

1. Open 4.0 and open the Controls Dialog (ALT+C).

 

2. Export the controls file using the "Export..." button, it will then save it as a .hkf file.  But maybe you already did this back in 4.0, then you can skip this step.

 

3. In 4.1 open the Controls Dialog (ALT+C), and now press "Import..." button and select the file you saved in 4.0.

 

-----------------

 

The technical behavior as to what happens at this point is that it will duplicate the default 4.1 hotkey/controls file, and then it will compare it with the one you are loading, then it will change only the keys that are different from the default, thereby retaining all the hotkeys that are new to 4.1.

 

I just tested it, loading a hotkey file I had all the way back from 3.624 and it worked, but obviously you never know if there is some issue there until you try it and see (what have you got to lose though, as either way it would save you hours of rebinding anyway, right?).

 

Now the confusion here on why we thought it wasn't possible is because for years we were working on 4.1 and changing hotkeys in it was not backwards compatible with 4.0 (obviously), which caused our controls list to get corrupted and go "blank", requiring us to reload the defaults all the time. Naturally this has caused quite a bit of paranoia.

 

Anyway, try out the process described above and it should work, or at least it will save you time.

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On 7/30/2019 at 11:14 PM, DanTDBV said:

I am roughly in the same boat. The 32 button limit is originally a windows limitation. I intend to use joytokey to overcome this. At the moment joystick gremlin and ucr is not supporting key kombinations and as i understand it joytokey does. 

I don't have time to test it at the moment as i have some video to edit before i can even install SB 4.1.

Hope this helps.

I have now mapped combinations using Joystick Gremlin to my T50 throttle with the regular "button to keyboard" modifier. Worked great for mapping a button to "SHIFT + INS" for reloading sabot ammo for example...

 

I actually did the same for a bunch of other things as some of the keys are used for different things so it's easier to map "P, N" etc to buttons instead of changing the places in the configuration where it is used.

 

So now I have all commands mapped to my Hotas setup. Works really nice, will post mapping cards for inspiration.

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