Top, man
Hi Andreas,
Will it be possible at some point for BTT to pass keystrokes back to a connected iPad, for example to manually run some steps (like trigger the Home button) or trigger Shortcuts?
thanks!
running shortcuts on the ios device will very soon be possible, passing keystrokes to the ios device will not be possible
Ah, gotcha; no I didn't have the Alpha. FYI once I updated to the Alpha it still wasn't populating, so I had to untoggle+toggle the setting in BTT in order for it to show up in the app.
I haven't tested the app much yet, but one thing I immediately noticed is that the trackpad is much less precise in this new version. It clearly favors a single axis when trying to make fine movements, which makes it hard to target items like finder close / minimize buttons. Compared it to the old app and the difference is night and day. The old app's trackpad works perfectly in this regard.
On another note, I find it very interesting that this new app allows one to set up a dashboard of buttons so that it can be used as a Stream Deck essentially. Pretty cool.
yes, I havenât enabled the âfine granularâ mode of the old trackpad Thatâll be added with one of the next builds. (the old trackpad uses the movement mode the current version uses for the âroughâ movements, and switches to a more precise movement for smaller movements. That precise mode is missing at the moment but will be there sometime next week.
Too bad about passing keystrokes--I've tried using Mac apps that simulate a bluetooth keyboard (e.g. KeyPad) but they are unreliable.
Regarding running shortcuts, do you anticipate that you will be able to do that natively (i.e. run a shortcut by name) rather than having to enable "Full Keyboard Access" and then define a keyboard hotkey for the shortcut on the iPad? I really hope you will be able to run a shortcut by name because of the problems that enabling "Full Keyboard Access" entails (e.g. "blue box", etc)
thanks!
yep that works natively!
Great, canât wait to try it out!
I hope the new build 0.21 (currently waiting for review from Apple, should be released in a few hours) fixes the connection issues. Requires at least BTT 5.301 alpha. Previous versions will not work with BTT 5.301 anymore.
Hallo Andreas,
0.21 / 5.301 fixed the (re)connection issue overhere. So far very stable/no crashes anymore..
one minor issue I noticed:
Mac has "Ableton Live" active / BTT Mobile app closed.
When I open now the BTT Mobile app, it shows 'only' the example menu, not mine.
after switching to Finder and back to "Ableton Live" my menu becomes visible...
My menus are all loading now as well, no issues, speed is very good...
Thx,
Christian
Hi Andreas, will BTT Mobile be required to be running in the foreground to trigger a shortcut on the iPad?
most likely yes, Apple doesnât allow this stuff in the background ;-(
Thatâs what I was afraid of but I appreciate your quick response!
Hallo Andreas,
I have a small test floating menu (for Ableton Live only) which works fine.
For example if I am in Safari the menu stays open on BTT Mobile but does not allow actions (buttons do not work) as expected.
But there is one exception (which I do not expected at all), the second button's action still works and brings the Ableton Live app on the Mac into focus again, (so that the other menu buttons can work again). Great feature.
Thx,
Christian
Hi Andreas,
Would it be possible to implement a kind of âTouch Screen lightâ widget within BTT Mobile (iPad).
For example to have a floating menu to display the live Mac screen and allow some kind of touch/trackpad functionality for that.
The Mac Sidecar allows similar, but only with a pen, not by touch (finger) as far as i know.
It could be used for example for a mixer app on the MacâŚlike so:
Thx,
Christian
Hallo Andreas,
connected iPad and Mac via USB-C cable to test, disconnected Wifi on both / Wifi only on iPad / Wifi only on Mac, BTT Mobile works fine (it is fast) !
Christian
actually the actions should work fine - is it maybe that they don't do anything outside of Ableton?
Could you elaborate a bit? I plan to add various widgets, maybe you can describe what exactly you'd need then I can work on it!
Great! Thanks for all the testing!
the situation was:
the app specific menu was visible on BTT Mobile, while the Mac app was not focused (but running) on the Mac side anymore (because I switched to some other app...)
Some of my test buttons had triggers which are "specific Named Triggers only for Ableton" and they do not 'run' in such a situation - fine, and that is why I got confused... (Ableton is not focused on Mac, while other triggers are actioned (while Ableton on the Mac side had no focus).
My assumption was if a menu is app specific nothing would be triggered if the app would not be focused on the Mac side...
not sure why I assumed that... but I get it now
...
is it possible to focus the Mac app (in the above situation) first before the button action is run ?
This might better indicate that the button's action is going to specific app and not to the currently Mac app on top...
Hope that makes sense...
Christian
there is no generic way to achieve that yet, but you can add the "Launch Application" action before triggering the rest of your action sequence. It doesn't really do anything if the app is already focused.
the iPad screen would function as a touch screen for the Mac.
Image there is a button in a floating menu and when pressed it would show the (live) Mac screen (or a Mac window) on the iPad (full screen) and you would be able to 'remote' control the mouse cursor (click/drag&drop etc) on the Mac with your finger(s) (on the iPad side).
The BTT Mobile action "Show trackpad view" allows "click/drag/drop" etc on the Mac, but there is no 'visual' on the iPad side. You have to look at your Mac screen to see what you are doing.
The Sidecar function is close as well, use the iPad as a second screen and operate the Mac but only if you have pencil. If that could be done with your fingers as well...