flyco Posted January 24, 2021 Posted January 24, 2021 I use Helios for most of my DCS aircraft. I was even able to modify some of the profiles in the past to suit my way of operating. However, as I approach my dotage, and with the new Helios in use, I feel that such mods are now beyond me. Is anyone able to explain how I can use my existing Touchscreen to accept an input and thereby send a keyboard (or similar) press to DCS? With such a system I could draw a simple push button on my screen (with a suitable LARGE typeface labels), and use these to input the appropriate commands. I plan to use this to input a dozen or so inputs to the less complex sims as the Spitfire and Yak. At present, I use a pair of MFDs with suitable background cards, to achieve this. However, using my large, unused touchscreen, sitting right in front of me, on which I could put electronic titles, would be much easier. In effect I am looking for a 'poor mans' Helios Thanks for any useful input.
No1sonuk Posted January 24, 2021 Posted January 24, 2021 Sounds like you're after some kind of customizable virtual keyboard. While I can't help with specifics, maybe using that for search terms might help.
Rick50 Posted January 24, 2021 Posted January 24, 2021 hmm... I was looking into something like this, and... well, it's a deep rabbit hole. Should be easy simple... and at some point it probably will be. Just not quite yet. I think. I do remember there was some youtube videos on something sorta like this, I think. It might be simple/easy now, but I'll have to go back and find the topics on this. Basically, I shied away once I got myself a Streamdeck XL. The buttons are kinda like a keyboard, but they each have their own LCD screen, and as you switch pages the keys' displays and functions change to the new page. That said, it's pricier than some monitors, and there's a significant wait list as Streamdecks are in high demand since the covid. I think what you want to do combines "touchscreen" with "custom macros", if you want to search yourself.
flyco Posted January 25, 2021 Author Posted January 25, 2021 Rick, your response mirrors my experience - it should be easy but it doesn't seem to be! I have a Streamdeck but have not used it in earnest yet - perhaps I should give it a go. It's just that I do have 24" touchscreen right in front of me that is totally blank when I fly a non-Helios ac. I could just click on it without having to use my Track-IR or mouse - I'm not even looking for any visual feedback (Button press, toggle switch etc).
Rick50 Posted February 4, 2021 Posted February 4, 2021 yea... I was thinking along those lines, got a pair of industrial grade 42inch touchscreens for pennies on the dollar (used)... and... haven't really done anything with them. These were monitors you'd see as kiosk displays, for shopping center maps, for convention displays for tens of thousands of visitors. A local company bought a bunch for displaying their high-end offerings to other businesses, at a few conventions, and wanted the touchscreen capability to show non-technical people some very technical data. But they were bought out by the competition. And suddenly this company no longer needed convention displays as the new owners already had that. Soooo... they sold off 6 such monitors for the price of a normal decent home/gaming monitor... that just a few years before would have cost as much as a brand new car!! They were rated for very high hours of used, robust for teenagers being reckless at the mall, and offered a pretty good image. I'm not home right now so I can't tell you what brand they were, thinking mby LG ?
Rick50 Posted February 4, 2021 Posted February 4, 2021 When I was looking into this, I thought "oh, I'll just hook up the monitor to a Raspberry Pi, and then plug that into my PC. Touch the screen icon, it sends a macro signal to the PC sim". But then... then it got more complicated. I then saw the SBC would need to have HID support on the chip, with a USB output, so that got me into a tizzy trying to figure out what would and would not support that. Then I realised that while the Arduino might have HID, it probably wouldn't be able to handle the visual display or the inbound touch interface, so I might have to pair the Arduino with a Pi. And I didnt know how to do that, get the two communicating. Sure, some people had done very similar things... but it seemed each one was a young programmer testing his Leet Skillz, with no intention of making a piece of software with this function for the public, either pay or free. One guy was pushing a... actually I'm not sure if he was offering a GUI or a programming language... or if it was kinda both... it was unclear to my dumb noggin! But ultimately, at the time it looked like I'd only get this if I learned to code and do the coding myself... nah, I'm good. At that point I tought, this is over my head, way well outside of my area of knowledge, and while I could muddle through it eventually, it wasn't what I wanted to do with my free time. And then, just when I learned my StreamdeckXL was available for pickup, I saw a couple of different products that seemed to do roughly what I wanted from a touchscreen, but since the Streamdeck was waiting at the store, I didn't dive too deeply into this. I did also find a cheap used touchscreen that was originally designed for store cashiers as a "Point Of Sale" display, and it was used previously by a guy who flew... um, I think one of the civii flight sims (pr3pared maybe? I dont' remember!). I think it was about a 15inch display maybe?
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