Sending media keys as custom key codes

kuilin

Hi! I can't figure out how to send the media keys as custom key codes. I'm looking to bind MEDIA_PLAY which is HID 0xe8.

I've tried having the keyboard input be written as <HIDCode 0xe8>, <HIDCode 0xE8>, <HIDCode 232>, and various other capitalizations and whatnot. I've also tried using keycode instead of HIDCode for the tag name, per https://forum.mytwiddler.com/d/35-sending-hid-codes-directly-how but the same thing happens. Hitting Apply to save the chord makes the tag completely disappear in both the formatted Actions column and the source text box after hitting edit again, and saving the config in this state does not cause the button to be hit:

Entering in <HIDCode 0xe8> asdf makes the tag appear as a zero-width box followed by the space and then asdf, which is a little more promising - but, after going back into the edit view, the tag still disappears from the source text box, which makes me think it is being removed altogether. Am I missing something about the syntax of this tag?

Tony

kuilin

In this case, don't use the HID Code, use the Consumer tag.

Add New Chord
Select Consumer>Play

kuilin

Huh, I did a quick sanity check and was very surprised at the result. Putting <LShift>a</LShift> into the box caused it to be replaced by A in the formatted view, which is okay I guess, but also in the source text box, which is very unexpected to me. This makes the chord action completely visually indistinguishable from <RShift>a</RShift> after it is set.

What's going on here? What happens if I hit Apply on this A without changing it at all - will it be saved as a different action? Or did this "flattening" happen when the chord was set in the first place? If so, is the Twiddler 4 just incapable of sending certain scan codes without some third party config generator?

Back on topic to my media key problem, this means that the deletion of the HIDCode tag from the text box in the Edit panel actually does not specifically indicate some syntactic incorrectness - it could just be semantic non-canonicity, where the bug is that the HID code is not translated back correctly. I will investigate further, maybe the key is actually being saved into the config and being sent, it's just being interpreted incorrectly?

Edit: No, it's not. Using https://w3c.github.io/uievents/tools/key-event-viewer.html to view the events, the MediaPlayPause key on my keyboard shows up correctly, but the Twiddler sends nothing for the second chord, and space-asdf only for the first chord.

kuilin

Tony Oh! I see. Why does this Consumer menu only show up if there aren't any actions on the chord? I did not discover it even though I tried very hard to click through all the menus.

I think the intent may be that only one Consumer/System action can be assigned per chord, but currently, those menus are hidden if any action is assigned. I think this should be fixed so that this is easier to discover - it should only hide those if there is already one assigned, if this is a technical limitation. Or, even better, show them but disable them, maybe with a "(max 1/1)" in the text. Or, alternatively, making the delete button appear even if there is only one action would also help towards discovering this menu - it is not good UI in my opinion that, if a keyboard action is assigned, the only way to get to this menu is to delete and recreate the chord.

Edit: Assigning Consumer -> Play works for me in the sense that it pushes Play on the media, but it does not send a HID code. My original issue is still a frustration - sending arbitrary HID keys should work, and does not.

Eric

Hi @kuilin

The Twiddler4 firmware does not currently support Consumer actions to be part of a multi-action macro, so that's why they are not offered as macro selections in Tuner. However, that capability is a feature that we intend to add support for in a future firmware update, and Tuner would be updated to reflect that.

We will look into those UI ideas as well, we certainly want it to be simple and clear, we don't intend it to be unintuitive.

The HID Codes that are sent are for Keyboard interface; we will look at adding syntax for custom/arbitrary Consumer codes as well.

Thank you for the great feedback.