2. Administrators Jabo Posted January 11, 2014 2. Administrators Share Posted January 11, 2014 In order to setup an android tablet (for the purposes of this guide, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3) as a button bay, there’s a few things you’re going to need. Firstly (and most importantly) you’ll need a tablet computer (connected to your home wifi network) and a second monitor on your rig. This might not be the deal-breaker it appears at first sight since most modern graphics cards have two outputs and you could pick up a second monitor pretty cheaply on the second-hand market. The reason you need a second monitor is because you have to display the Touchbuddy panel in order to be able to share it with the tablet. If you have both of these – read on. Now you’re going to need some software. Because I’m essentially a nice person I’ve already uploaded the necessary ones to the Vault. Look in the Utilities section for ‘Touchbuddy Files’. Download and unzip it to a folder and then unzip the files inside (except tightVNC) to their own sub- folders. Install touchbuddy, the touchbuddy toolkit and tightVNC onto your computer and install your VNC app on your tablet Launch tightVNC and access the server configuration screen by clicking the VNC Server icon in the system tray (down by the clock in the bottom right-hand corner (normally)). Now set the ‘Server’ and ‘Administration’ screens as per the screenshots below. Remember to set the Primary, View-only and Control Interface passwords – They should all be different but it’s up to you. Now set up VNC on your tablet. I’m using the Android-VNC-Viewer app so it might look a bit different if you’re using a different app. Here are the fields to fill in; (i) A nickname (ii) the password (same as the Control Interface one) (iii) the IP address of your rig (hover over the TightVNC Service icon on your computer if you need to find it) (iv) the port (5900 is the standard one for VNC – I think) (v) and a username (this needs to be the administrator account name for the computer) – I’ve blanked this out on the screenshot but it will display the account name in plain text. (vi) Set the ‘Color Format’ to 24-bit color (4 bpp) (vii) And ‘Force full-screen bitmap to ‘Auto’ If you now click ’Connect’ you should see the computer screen on your tablet. You might need to drag the screen across to see the second monitor. In order to control the mouse pointer on the computer, click the Menu button on the tablet, select ‘Input Mode’ and switch to ‘Mouse Pointer Control Mode’. You’ll also need to make that switch to use Touchbuddy. Along with the TB software in the 7z file, I’ve also included the profile posted by Snacko (masquerading as WBK) over on the TB forums. The main file is IL2-Series-wbk_2.1.zip, this includes the primary panels and all the switches, buttons and knobs used on the panels. Once extracted, the contents of the folder should be copied into the plugins folder in TB – In my case that is E:\touchbuddy\plugins. There are two further files in the zip, WBKs_Bombsight_Calculator_Plugin_1.1.2.zip and WBKs MSMP_Music_Plugin_3.0.35.zip. I haven’t yet done anything much with these, but instructions for installing them are in the readme’s in the zip files. There’s not much more I can impart at this point. Most of what I have learned had been by reverse engineering Snacko’s panel and asking him questions. My version of his panel is shown below but apart from some re-arranging and button removal I haven’t really done much although I plan to add a Nav panel which will enable me to use beacons and access maps etc. This will be going where the empty Flaps panel is at present. I also intend to start work shortly on a new panel for CloD before starting one for BoS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Friar Posted January 11, 2014 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted January 11, 2014 i for one have a growing interest in how to achieve this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum FoolTrottel Posted January 11, 2014 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted January 11, 2014 Thanks Jabo, looks good! I'd like to maybe add one thing to 'the things you need', though it might be obvious ... "you'll have to have the Tab connected to your local network / wireless router..." *** EDIT *** Addition made - Thanks Arjen! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2. Administrators Jabo Posted January 12, 2014 Author 2. Administrators Share Posted January 12, 2014 Bump - first post updated Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Painless Posted January 12, 2014 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted January 12, 2014 Just as I thought ...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2. Administrators Jabo Posted January 12, 2014 Author 2. Administrators Share Posted January 12, 2014 You might need to elaborate on that statement Michael! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crash Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 Just as I thought ...... As Milton Jones said "Its amazing to think..............." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2. Administrators Jabo Posted January 12, 2014 Author 2. Administrators Share Posted January 12, 2014 Just as I thought ...... As Milton Jones said "Its amazing to think..............." Lol Sent from my SM-T210 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snacko Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 Can't wait to see our Clod and BoS versions Nick. Share your work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T_O_A_D Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 Interesting, don't have a tablet though. Be cool if this would work on the "outdated" android phones, thier laying around cheap now days, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Pooka Posted January 13, 2014 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted January 13, 2014 When I first saw this thread from Jabo, all I could think of is, Painless standing next to someone smiling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Painless Posted January 13, 2014 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted January 13, 2014 : ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Sid Posted January 13, 2014 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted January 13, 2014 looks like fun.....some hours will be spent on this I'm sure Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snacko Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 Yes, it works on any android device Todd. But a phone is kind of small if you ask me. Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with Tapatalk 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Friar Posted January 13, 2014 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted January 13, 2014 @Snacko - I have having trouble setting my engine start to F9 and engine selection on F5 through F8, can you advice on the format of the command please to utilize the function keys? At the moment I am just using it on a second monitor with the mouse but I think it makes a great button bay! Salute Sir Regards Friar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snacko Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 So you are just editing my IL2 profile or creating your own new profile? On my profile, if you want the Ignition switch to send the F9 button? It currently looks like this: macro_select = predef:Imacro_deselect = {} Change it to this: macro_select = predef:F9 macro_deselect = {} There are different types of buttons in TB for different effects. And their names are confusing (not my fault) because Zorlac (the TB programmer) would not listen to me, and gave some buttons confusing type names. (Ie. the 'hold' button type is not something you should ever hold! LoL) But I included a pretty good Help file with the Toolkit that describes everything. For your engine selection the macro would be predef:F5, predef:F6, predef:F7, predef:F8. The first part of the macro (ie. macro = xxxxx, or macro_select = xxxxx) depends on the type of button you are using for the effect you want (do you want it to change images? do you want it to reset back to the first image after X secs? Do you want it to continiously send that key as long as it is held? ect..) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Friar Posted January 13, 2014 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted January 13, 2014 I am keeping your profile and buttons just putting my assignments to them. I have made the mistake of thinking that the function buttons needed to go in {} i.e {F9} but I see they dont so that will probably have been the issue. Regards Friar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snacko Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 TB has a touchbuddy.cfg config file where you can customize lots of the settings. There is one that will automatically resize the profile to any size you want called Profile Scaling. So you can make a profile larger that it was originally designed to fit any screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Friar Posted January 13, 2014 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted January 13, 2014 Help! I am doing no different from what I did yesterday but this is what I get when I load my profile Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snacko Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 Check the folder where you have the profile. There should be a backup called *.bak. Looks like something went wrong when saving. When something goes wrong after you save, don't save again, or you will loose the good backup. (hope you didn't) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2. Administrators Jabo Posted January 13, 2014 Author 2. Administrators Share Posted January 13, 2014 Could be that you've changed the size of your backdrop or one of the buttons. Mine threw up a similar fault yesterday, Got around it by removing the last change and it started working again. Actually, having taken a closer look, it looks like you've got the Flight, Bombing, Radio and Info tabs all on. Not entirely sure how you've managed that but they're all showing in red. That's why you've got all those buttons on top of each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Friar Posted January 13, 2014 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted January 13, 2014 Tried to recover the back up but no good All I did was try the function key change I will have to start again but at least I have better knowledge this time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snacko Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 I rarely have this happen. But I have periodic backups just so I don't loose everything. It looks like everything lost which tab it was on. Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with Tapatalk 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T_O_A_D Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 Cool Snacko, I'm thinking for a pit you could mount the phones as needed, and set up multiple TB windows? Then set them with less switches, for the lack of size of the phones. is that possible, if not will look into tablets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snacko Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 Yes, I remember guys posting that they have used phones I think. It seems that the Android OS supports it so it doesn't matter what device... I want a screenshot of your 'redneck' cockpit, with 20 android phones dangling around you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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