PSX.NET.Streamdeck - V0.0.0.0.0.1

[Swiso]

Ah my bad !! 🙈🙈
You're right, and I promptly made amend.
Sorry.☺️

Discord I find it useful to get informations or help all in one place...
Even for flying online it could be useful.

And while today the Internet speed is from another world compared to that era, I agree with you about the modem.😅

Thanks again.
Cheers
Aris

[Kurt]

Any chance of an updated download link? - got a stream deck today

Thanks

[Bluestar]

I'm not sure I understand "steamdeck"?   Could someone explain it to me, especially since I'm only running two computers on a my local network.

[cavaricooper]

Bode-

This is the one I use- https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/stream-deck-xl

Check out - https://flightsim.to/profile/Guenseli to give you an idea of what it's capable of.  I didn't use one for YEARS- now I cannot imagine flying without one.

HTH- C

[brian747]

Hi Bode,

> "Could someone explain it to me..."

Well, they do say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so....   

I have customised my Stream Deck to suit my way of working (I also have a VRi EFIS/MCP/COM unit, which handles many functions, although a few are duplicated on the 'Deck simply for convenience).

The top level screen is like this:-



(The buttons in the left two columns trigger PSX Layouts). Whilst the two buttons lower right take you to:-



...and...



(The eight buttons in columns six and seven trigger MSFS 'Showcase' external views).

I have made my own icons in all cases, although many are available from Guenseli and elsewhere. The somewhat eclectic choice of options is due to the fact that I run PSX and the scenery generator on the same machine, and so have a selection of views including PSX+MSFS, MSFS only, and PSX only — and the buttons semi-automate moving between them.

I hope that helps a little,

Cheers,

Brian

[kev32b]

Brian,

That looks great could you let me if possible how you did that or how you coded it would love to set mine up similar to that

Any help be great

Thanks
Kev

[brian747]

Hi Kev!

> "...could you let me if possible how you did that or how you coded it ..."

Well,  <*cough*>  that would inevitably be a very long document — but more to the point (as I mentioned in my previous post), my SD setup is heavily customised, both to my own hardware (so that, for example, the multiplicity of functions handled by the EFIS/MCP/COM unit are mostly missing on the SD) and also to my specific sim setup. Consequently, a description of my own setup is unlikely to be of much use to anyone else. And in any case, I'm beginning to feel that these generic discussions about using the Stream Deck are now in danger of hijacking Gary's PSX.NET.Streamdeck thread to an unreasonable extent (my apologies, Gary!), so if you need any more information on the topic of the Stream Deck in general (i.e. as opposed to Gary's PSX.NET.Streamdeck), it would be helpful if you could please start a new thread for it.

But now that I'm here (so to speak), as my final post on the topic in this thread I might as well go ahead and attempt to outline some basic information that should — hopefully — help you, and perhaps others....   

The beauty of the Stream Deck is that it is *made* to be readily customised to your own needs, and to your own hardware and software. And also, it has to be said that setting it up is rather fun, once you get the hang of it. So I would seriously encourage you to give it try.

The basics of setting the Stream Deck up from scratch are covered in dozens of online articles and, of course, YouTube vids — so there's no need whatsoever for me to go into all that. And once it's installed and ready to go, for the purposes of using it with PSX and MSFS you can do most things using just two of the tools in the System group on the SD menu.

1. The "hotkey" tool



This will activate most of the controls in the PSX cockpit for you, when used in conjunction with the vast number of shortcut key combinations listed on pages 27 - 34 of Hardy's manual v10.1.7. But, in this connection, you should note also that some useful new key combinations have been added since the manual was published, thanks to Hardy's kindness:-

Update 168.01: Shortcuts added for direct gear up and down commands: CTRL+ALT+D moves the lever to the DN position, CTRL+ALT+U moves it directly to the UP position (or to OFF when locked on ground).
Update 172.02: Key combination CTRL+B added, which pulls the parking brake lever and simultaneously pushes the brake pedals.   

Then there's —

2. The innocuously-named "open" tool



This one will enable you to trigger exe files and batch files, thus opening up an additional cornucopia of fun things to start from your Stream Deck.

Then, to touch very briefly on the topic of icons: although there are many SD icons available from flightsim.to, and even from some paid sources, it's fairly trivial to make your own, using your favourite photo editor. Any size seems to be OK as long as it's square: I standardised on 150 pixels square (for no particular reason) — but YMMV.

Which more or less says it all  — except that for the sake of completeness I should briefly mention two potential things that you need to be aware of.

The first relates to getting your Stream Deck to trigger a Java 'jar' file (such as PSX, or WidePSX, for example). Some people have had success using batch files (or compiled batch files) but I didn't find that method entirely reliable so I came up with my own (somewhat wacky) way of doing it, which I describe in detail in this post. But use any method you like, as long as it works for you.   

The second (and last point in this discussion, I promise) concerns the elephant in the room — the fact that when you trigger a PSX shortcut you need to ensure that PSX has the focus! (Notably if, like me, you run PSX and MSFS on the same machine). The easiest possible way is to click on it first, obviously, but if you want to get seriously adventurous you could perhaps consider going so far as using JoyToKey to configure a button on your stick or throttle hardware (or indeed, on your Stream Deck) to trigger an AutoHotKey script that changes the focus for you (you can see a very small fragment of AHK code being quoted, here)  — but that's more advanced stuff and, as they say, beyond the scope of this simple guide.   

Good luck, and enjoy your Stream Deck with PSX! If by any chance you do encounter any seemingly-insuperable problems, start a new thread on this forum, and one of the Stream Deck enthusiasts here will no doubt leap in and do their best to assist you.     

Cheers,

Brian

[Swiso]

Hi Bode,

> "Could someone explain it to me..."

Well, they do say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so....   

I have customised my Stream Deck to suit my way of working (I also have a VRi EFIS/MCP/COM unit, which handles many functions, although a few are duplicated on the 'Deck simply for convenience).

The top level screen is like this:-



Whilst the two buttons lower right take you to:-



...and...



I have made my own icons in all cases, although many are available from Guenseli and elsewhere. The somewhat eclectic choice of options is due to the fact that I run PSX and the scenery generator on the same machine, and so have a selection of vews including PSX+MSFS, MSFS only, and PSX only — and the buttons semi-automate moving between them.

I hope that helps a little,

Cheers,

Brian

    
What a beauty !!!

[Swiso]

Hi Brian,

I have a question...
Any suggestion as which command I should use to implement these functions in a Streamdeck Plus and use it to set the speed, heading, vertical speed change and altitude, like in these two videos?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUzdZQFyRio
From min. 1:15 onward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBhEC4M7NvM

Any suggestion?
Thanks.