Latest info on linking A32x software buttons etc with joystick buttons

[Chris Whitley]

Hello all. I've just spent the last couple of hours trying to find info on how to connect some joystick buttons (Thrustmaster Warthog) to buttons in the A32X sim (as I can with every other product I've bought).

I've found a reasonable amount of info to help with rotary and toggle switches (mostly via LINDA) but nothing on the push buttons.

The first thing I was trying to assign were the 2 battery buttons. Are we still in a position where this is not possible?

Thank you.

[NilsUnger]

FSUIPC and mouse macro are the keywords. 

There is some info on this forum already. Pretty much everything is possible with this. 

[Chris Whitley]

21 hours ago, NilsUnger said:

FSUIPC and mouse macro are the keywords. 

There is some info on this forum already. Pretty much everything is possible with this. 

Thanks for the info. There is at least one decent tutorial for that on YouTube so I'll give it a go.

Must say though I was hoping for something a little more polished (and built into the product) for various reasons, not least because using keyboard assignments gets pretty old pretty fast.

Thanks again.

[Chris Whitley]

A quick update on this. I'm using FSUIPC v5 and the version I had installed did not support Mouse Macros. Just updated to the latest which does support them. I've also seen that macros can be directly assigned to buttons and switches on the joystick rather than having to assign a keypress to a macro and to the joystick button.

I have macros working for toggle switches, but not for the push buttons (such as battery, fuel pump etc). Are these supported?

Thanks.

[Gerard Beekmans]

Push buttons work in latest FSUIPIC as well but I believe you HAVE to be using Prepar3D 4.4. Older versions of P3D do not work and I assume FSX is a permanent no-go.

I have working push buttons. I have assigned joystick buttons to work buttons such as AP1, AP2, A/THR, APPR as well as buttons on the overhead panel such as APU master, APU start and a few more. The biggest "issue" I face is I ran out of joystick and throttle quadrant buttons.

To make those flat/push buttons work you also use mouse macros.

[Chris Whitley]

19 minutes ago, Gerard Beekmans said:

Push buttons work in latest FSUIPIC as well but I believe you HAVE to be using Prepar3D 4.4. Older versions of P3D do not work and I assume FSX is a permanent no-go.

I have working push buttons. I have assigned joystick buttons to work buttons such as AP1, AP2, A/THR, APPR as well as buttons on the overhead panel such as APU master, APU start and a few more. The biggest "issue" I face is I ran out of joystick and throttle quadrant buttons.

To make those flat/push buttons work you also use mouse macros.

Thanks Gerard. I am indeed using P3D 4.4. I've just tested with the APU On/Off button and that works fine with mouse macro. Only the 2 BAT buttons don't work so far.

Just for info, the button references I'm seeing (from within the .mcro file in the modules folder) are:

[Macros]
1=BAT2=RX23c0300b,3
2=BEACON=RX4000011c,3
3=BAT1=RX23c0300a,3
4=APU ON=RX23c03806,3

Beacon toggle switch and APU push button work great.

Thanks.

[Gerard Beekmans]

I've found with some buttons it depends on which panel you clicked. For example the overhead can be brought up as a popup with CTRL+3. You can also pan to the overhead using HAT switch in the Virtual Cockpit (I use ChasePlane to snap to different views within the VC).

The mouse macros will sometimes, not always it seems, record different values depending on popup panels vs Virtual Cockpit.

In some cases I just ended up binding two macros in a sequence to the same button so it tries to push both button versions so to speak. Now, I've never tried to make the battery buttons work myself and I have read in other posts that some buttons just do not work, no matter what you try. This could very well be one of them. But try that popup panel vs Virtual Cockpit trick to see if the macro values change. You might get lucky and use the other version.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Gerard Beekmans
Minor edits for grammar and clarity

[Chris Whitley]

2 hours ago, Gerard Beekmans said:

I've found with some buttons it depends on which panel you clicked. For example the overhead can be brought up as a popup with CTRL+3. You can also pan to the overhead using HAT switch in the Virtual Cockpit (I use ChasePlane to snap to different views within the VC).

The mouse macros will sometimes, not always it seems, record different values depending on popup panels vs Virtual Cockpit.

In some cases I just ended up binding two macros in a sequence to the same button so it tries to push both button versions so to speak. Now, I've never tried to make the battery buttons work myself and I have read in other posts that some buttons just do not work, no matter what you try. This could very well be one of them. But try that popup panel vs Virtual Cockpit trick to see if the macro values change. You might get lucky and use the other version.

Thanks for the tips. I tried the popup panel but still no joy for the battery switches. No worries, I'll assume for now they are on the "don't work" list.

[Frederic Nadot]

On 4/4/2019 at 6:28 PM, NilsUnger said:

FSUIPC and mouse macro are the keywords. 

There is some info on this forum already. Pretty much everything is possible with this. 

+1

[Chris Whitley]

Success, helped in part from this post:

Mouse macro fsuipc

The battery buttons need a "click" and an "unclick" to work, so code 3 and then code 13. My single macro for battery2 button now looks like:

1=BAT2
1.1=RX23c0300b,3
1.2=RX23c0300b,13

So it can be split into multiple steps, the first being just the macro name, the second (1.1) being the click and then third (1.2) being the release.

Great stuff.

[Gerard Beekmans]

Awesome, thanks for the update, Chris! I was about to go fiddle tonight after coming home.

That triggers a memory. There are other push buttons that require such a click & release whereas yet others are happy with just a click (APU for example). You will also find that there are more complex ones too that require a right click, then left click, left release and finally a right release. The engine start switches for example as well as the guarded witches on the overhead.

 

[Chris Whitley]

My pleasure. Thanks to yours and others input I was able to make the "simming" experience that much better. I used to have an almost full 737 cockpit with lots of real parts (throttle quad, yokes / columns, seats etc) but that is now 8000 miles away....