In general, I’m trying to run as little software as possible to keep my machine clean - I’ve had a stream deck for a while and most of my use are keyboard shortcuts, text snippets, and run automations from BTT or the shortcuts app.
All that said - I’m thinking of controlling the Stream Deck exclusively out of BTT.
- Do people have recommendations or warnings to this approach?
- Is BTT configuration for the stream deck (mostly) stable? (I don’t care about occasionally restarting BTT)
- Optional for the developer: Do you have any, cool config examples you found or future plans for new features or anything relating to the Stream Deck?
re: controlling the Stream Deck exclusively out of BTT.
I am a big big fan. It’s been very stable and is far more functional than the native Elgato software.
If you make the switch, here are a couple of tips:
- Make a plan. I’ve got a fairly complex setup, using the XL Stream Deck. I knew I wanted some buttons present all the time and at the same location (e.g. volume control, screen lock) some buttons sometimes but also always in the same place (e.g. video control). So I dedicated groups of buttons (“zones”) to support this. The app-specific buttons are only found in the area outside of those zones.
- Don’t try to replicate your old configuration up front and all at once. Just set up a minimal config of what you really need to start. When you encounter something else you need, it doesn’t take too long to stop, set that up and continue. (It gets faster with practice and familiarity) I also found as I went along that my old configuration wasn’t optimal given the new features offered by BTT so re-implemented I differently.
Good luck!
PS: SF Symbols is your friend!
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I am also a fan of using full BTT control. It’s very stable, and if you want to do anything at all complicated it is far more capable than the Elgato software.
Arasmus’ suggestions are all good. I second these, but also suggest that when you want to add functionality, it’s a good idea to be willing to try multiple experiments as there is often more than one way to get what you want. I suggest using separate BTT presets for experiments so that you can toggle them on and off.
However, be aware that if you like the ability to have “pages” of buttons that Elgato gives you, then emulating this with BTT will be difficult. By default if you have more than 1 page of buttons, BTT will take over the paging for you and will put in forward and backward buttons on each page. This may or may not be important to you depending on which StreamDeck devices you have. If you have the 32 button XL or the 15 button original, this may be OK. For the SD+ and the Neo, both of which I have, I found this unacceptable as this takes away 2 of your 8 buttons. Both of these devices have a separate way to initiate paging, so being forced to give up button real-estate for it is wasteful.
I was able to get something very close to Elgato paging, but it took me a fair amount of Javascript to do it.
Also, be aware that the SD+ “Dialstack” function is also not supported by BTT. Again, I was eventually able to emulate this but it took a lot of scripting.
BTT only recognizes one swipe direction on the SD+.
BTT does not by default support the “Touch Points” on the Neo. I got these to work by using BTT’s Generic Devices function.
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Thanks for the advice!
I have the XL and the impetus for switching to BTT was a static top row and dynamic bottom rows.
I have the XL but didn’t know about the paging issues - shouldn’t be a problem but good to know.
