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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 w

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.

nickjj 4y ago
> 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-on-windows-10-with-auto-hotkey https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/remap-and-set-global-hotkeys-...
- tomstuart 4y ago
  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.
- danadannecy 4y ago
  I think you may have misunderstood, by open a folder, they meant open a folder of buttons on the stream deck, allowing you to press a button to completely change which buttons are displayed on the screen.
  - nickjj 4y ago
    Is the goal to be able to have multiple sets of key mappings depending on which "folder" is open, sort of how you might describe "profiles"? If so you can do that with numpad re-mappings too. You could have 17 specific key mappings depending on which app is in focus or you can arbitrarily activate a different specific set of mappings. It's not going to be as intuitive since there's no visual icon to display but the functionality is there. AutoHotKey could also make it easy to show which "folder" is active by showing a little tooltip when you switch folders. It sounds like the real appeal to it is the visual icons but the trade off is needing more desk space and reaching for buttons that are not on your main keyboard (+$125 to buy it).

nickjj 4y ago

> 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-on-windows-10-with-auto-hotkey https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/remap-and-set-global-hotkeys-...

tomstuart 4y ago
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.
danadannecy 4y ago
I think you may have misunderstood, by open a folder, they meant open a folder of buttons on the stream deck, allowing you to press a button to completely change which buttons are displayed on the screen.
- nickjj 4y ago
  Is the goal to be able to have multiple sets of key mappings depending on which "folder" is open, sort of how you might describe "profiles"? If so you can do that with numpad re-mappings too. You could have 17 specific key mappings depending on which app is in focus or you can arbitrarily activate a different specific set of mappings. It's not going to be as intuitive since there's no visual icon to display but the functionality is there. AutoHotKey could also make it easy to show which "folder" is active by showing a little tooltip when you switch folders. It sounds like the real appeal to it is the visual icons but the trade off is needing more desk space and reaching for buttons that are not on your main keyboard (+$125 to buy it).