Following the initial release, a small update fixing some identified issues

• Profile chaining feature broken (not saving profile chain) (Fixed)
• Performance issue with exporter replacing duplicate keys (Fixed)
• Parser unexpected exception handling causing run plugins button to stay executing (Fixed)
• C101/Moskito/F-5E parsing issues with unexpected characters causing missing device binds (Fixed)
• Missing Warthog Joystick template added back to repository

Joystick Gremlin

As of Version 2, Joystick Gremlin support is intermittent and being looked at. You may experience issues if using hat switches such as an error being reported on the UI.

Currently looking at extending the support we have for Joystick Gremlin, if you wish to be involved/have input then it will be designed in discord with current users.

Templates

I’m working to increase out of the box support, so stay tuned. I openly encourage people to improve the stock templates, and contribute to building an even better library.

Added

• Total Controls Button Box (Single Unit)
• Total Controls Apache MPD
• Thrustmaster Warthog Joystick

Updated

Box sizes adjusted to cater for larger/wrapped strings:

• CH Fighterstick/Throttle
• X52 HOTAS
• X56 Stick
• X56 Throttle
• adampridmore_Saitek Pro Flight X-56 Rhino Stick
• adampridmore_Saitek Pro Flight X-56 Rhino Throttle
• T.16000M Joysticks (Left/Right)
• T.16000M Throttle

Setup

For full installation and setup instructions go to Setup

Discord

Join the Discord for custom templates, support and development updates / test builds https://discord.gg/JHwDzD8tSy

Today we’re releasing version 2 of Joystick Diagrams with a bunch of features that hopefully make it a bit easier to use.

A big thanks to everyone who has helped test this, and special thanks to those on Discord especially omfgkarlmarx, xilacnog, toastybank3nobi, drakehinst, tsudico, basox70, dutch, stu martin and blackwell. Extended thanks to those in the DCS Refugees who’ve also helped and anyone I’ve missed.

Profiles

First some terminology Profiles - Version 2 works completely off Profiles which represent your game/tool configurations, some tools may have one Profile, others may have many (such as DCS with each profile being an aircraft)

What’s new?

• Enhanced User Interface: Experience a completely revamped UI that provides unparalleled insights into your setup, offering a clearer, more intuitive approach to managing your configurations.
• Flexible Plugin System: Plugin system for parsers, designed to support custom plugins. This feature opens the door for 3rd party game and tool authors, opening the tool to even more support!.
• Native Modifier Support: With our native support, Modifiers can now be utilized directly, subject to the game or tool plugin’s compatibility.
• Game-Specific Modifier Support: We are proud to announce that DCS World and Star Citizen now support Modifiers
• Profile Preview and Device Binding: Preview your binds directly within the application, allowing you to easily navigate through the setup for each profile and its devices. This feature ensures that your configurations are always at your fingertips.
• Profile Chaining: Combine profiles from different sources, such as Joystick Gremlin and DCS, into a single, cohesive diagram output for each device. This feature simplifies the process of managing complex setups.
• Device-Specific Template Configuration: Templates are now configured on a per-device basis, eliminating the need for manual naming of template files. This change streamlines the template management process, making it more efficient and user-friendly.
• Dynamic Template Verification: Templates are dynamically checked to ensure they include all the controls you need for your profile, eliminating the risk of missing buttons and ensuring a fully functional setup.
• Customizable Export Locations: Choose where your exports are saved, allowing for a more personalized and flexible setup process. This feature provides the flexibility to organize your files according to your preferences.
• More native template support More templates are now supported out of the box, with more available from the community.

Templates

A key part of the update has been removing the dependency to name templates correctly, which made it very hard to have a suite of templates for the same device.

With the help of WinWing - Thanks to Fog and the team we now have full product support for WinWing products. These templates are included with the download which are:

• 18-HUD Unit 1
• 18-UFC Unit 1
• MFD Unit 1
• Orion2 16(EX) Joystick Combo
• Orion2 18 Joystick Combo
• Orion2 18 Throttle Combo
• Orion2 Throttle Base+ 15E/X
• ICP
• PCR Panel
• PTO/PTO2 Panel

Setup

For full installation and setup instructions go to Setup

Discord

Join the Discord for custom templates, support and development updates / test builds https://discord.gg/JHwDzD8tSy

To those of you who have generously donated or reached out to me, thank you. Your contributions and support mean a great deal to me.

🥇 Development Update 🥇

Currently, I am focused on refining the new User Interface (UI). While parts of the UI are still under construction, I’m excited to announce that we now have a functional plugin system in place. Our existing plugins for DCS, Joystick Gremlin, and Star Citizen have been successfully integrated with this new system.

One of the significant updates is the addition of modifier support to the core application. This feature has been extended to DCS and Star Citizen, with an emphasis on joystick support but with potential for future expansion to include keyboard support based on user demand.

The new UI also allows for greater customization compared to the previous version. A notable enhancement is the ability to chain together profiles within the tool, enabling you to combine binds from different plugins into a single diagram.

Templates

With the introduction of modifier support, I am seeking your feedback regarding your expectations for these templates.

Users can now associate a device to a template file. No more naming your templates to match your device name (I promise) - This should make usubility far better.

The current plan is to introduce new keys that you can incorporate into your own diagrams, such as BUTTON_1_MODIFIERS.

Your input will be instrumental in shaping this feature and welcomed!

Additional game support

With the plugin system built, there is no longer any UI work required which makes writing a plugin far easier and decoupled from the horrors of version 1.

After the new version is out, my next native support will be for BMS.

For those interested in the initial development documentation, you can access it at this https://github.com/Rexeh/joystick-diagrams/blob/master/docs/setup.md.

Release date

Nothing planned yet, but an initial 2.0 Alpha release is on the horizon.

What will make this go faster? Support. Any help to adjust templates to the new standards would be greatly appreciated once we have them finalised.

I’ll also be looking for additional testers for pre-alpha builds, which will take place on the discord.

Discord

Join the Discord for custom templates, support and development updates / test builds https://discord.gg/JHwDzD8tSy

🥇 Features 🥇

Fixes

• Fixed crashing when trying to generate diagrams for DCS World F16
• Fixed crashing when trying to generate diagrams for DCS World F18

Star Citizen (Thanks to Flisher Ofatale)

• Multiple shared binds across contexts will now be written out as simpler text (i.e. mining laser / fire shared keys)
• Binding names are more user friendly by default

Other changes

• Improvements to linting/coding quality
• Introduced black linting
• Fixed setup.py and documented depedencies better for new clones

New UI

As the tool has grown and need for more support, it’s pushed me to rethink how the UI was being approached and consider how the tool can grow without continuous needs to update the UI when new tools become available.

Currently, I’m working on a number of redesigns in and around the UI that’ll fundamentally change the tool

- Automatic connected device detection, and device memory (to prevent need to have devices connected all the time to use the tool)
- Binding of windows devices to template files, removing the need to have matching template names
- Multithreaded UI to cater for future demands
- Saved settings and configs for each tool (remebered paths etc)
- Saved configurations of re-named binds from respective tools (DCS World being the key culprit for long strings right now)

Plugins & Post Hooks

I’m currently designing a plugin system which will open up the tool to others, providing 3rd party plugins.

Plugins

I see this working in the following way

• Some games/tools will be supported out of the box, and shipped with releases (DCS World, Joystick Gremlin, Star Citizen)
• 3rd party developers can choose to make their own plugins which you can download and add to the tool yourself, however these will be supported by the 3rd party developers

This is going to take a lot of work and redesign to make the interfaces easier to use, but ultimately I think it will make shipping new support/updates far easier. Because of this I’m holding off providing new features for the time being, whilst these designs take place and to prevent excessive rework.

Post Hooks

Nothing concrete on this yet, but looking to potentially provide a post-hook mechanism to slot in extra scripts/code as part of the export process. The use for this would be where fitting functionality into the main tool might not be in-line with the nature of the tools main objectives.

Longer term

Once a system is in place for more support of games/tools, I’ll be looking into Modifier support

Supporting Modifiers will be a fundamentally complex change, which is why I’ve put it off. It’ll require a design of the mapping formats for the parsers, extension of all current parsers, full re-write of tests and re-write of templates.

The potential designs of this are ongoing, and it’s really important to me that the templates are “user friendly” and “accessible” to non-developers - Striking that balance is why I want to spend the time thinking about ways this could go.

🥇 Features 🥇

The main feature is the introduction of Star Citizen support

Star Citizen

• Added Star Citizen tab
• Added ability to specify XML file (You’ll have to export your config file first, like show here)

Known Issues

• Multiple sticks is supported, but some users with sticks that don’t uniquely identify will run into issues. T16000M I have seen this on from testing. Sticks that identify as “VKB RIGHT” and “VKB LEFT” will work correctly.
• The output bind names are just straight from the file right now, the next step is specifying more human readable names

:boom: Other features/fixes :boom:

• Some minor fixes to build process, EXE is now correctly versioned
• Updates to the website to introduce changelog

:smoking: Future developments & feedback :smoking:

• Currently working on better solution for mapping devices to templates. This should remove the need of renaming template files to suit your device.
• Customised binds is really important, and something to bring in next. I hope this will let you specify custom binds for DCS, Joystick Gremlin (albeit redundant) and Star Citizen

Glad to be fired up to push out some more content.

:spider_web:New website :spider_web:

I’ve put together a better (hopefully) website, which will hopefully help with any documentation over time as GitHub isn’t the most friendly for most people!

Check it out at - http://joystick-diagram.com

🥇 4/8 Way POV and AXIS Support 🥇

The tool now supports POV and AXIS support, so if you have any custom templates you’ll need to modify them to make this work. The format for templates is

POV_NUMBER_DIRECTION (E.g. POV_1_D)

Supported POV template directions

_U _UR _R _DR _D _DL _L _UL

DCS World

• Fully supports AXIS and POV hats

Joystick Gremlin

• Only supports POV hats
• AXIS support will come with later versions once tool can read local devices

:joystick: Template Changes :joystick:

• Changes to the T16000M template based on feedback
• Added X52 template

:boom: Other features/fixes :boom:

• Hardware device names containing white space (VKB) will now work and find templates correctly
• You can now customise your “No Bind” text in the Config.cfg file
• When selecting your DCS directory, it should now auto navigate to the directory (if installed in default location)
• Added Discord link to application
• Added Donate link (Thanks to everyone who has donated)
• Some logging changes to capture fatals

:smoking: Future developments & feedback :smoking:

• The majority of issues are around linking up “template” and “device” names, I have a rough plan of how I might tackle this now
• I would like to get an idea of how many people are using the app (to help me dedicate time), so looking at transparent ways to do this

🥇 🥇 New Templates 🥇 🥇

All of these now work out of the box, and have been added in 1.2 on top of the existing templates.

• Virpil Control Box 1
• Virpil VFX Stick
• Virpil WarBRD
• Saitek X56
• CH Fighterstick (Special thanks to Alexjager for button maps)
• CH Throttle (Special thanks to Alexjager for button maps)
• TWCS Throttle
• VKB Gladiator Left & Right (Special thanks to JusticeMKIII)

Template Changes

• Replaced Warthog Stick template with custom one
• Added button 33 to MT-50 CM2 Throttle (Temporary fix while I do new custom templates for CM/CM-2 throttle range)

Community templates

New folder added in /templates for User Submitted templates. Any merged into the repository will live here, while I come up with a better solution for having multiple device -> template maps available in the app.

Thanks to Adampridmore for first submission 👍

Other features/fixes

• UTF8 characters now work in SVG (Viggen bug gone)
• Unused assignments are now cleaned up on the diagrams (I.e. Button_56 not just left there if it’s not bound)
• Refactor of dirty functions file, Export is now class to allow for future expansion and possibly other export options (I.e. DCS Kneeboards/Browser opening and Customisable Export paths)
• Removed requirement to have /temp folder for writing diagrams, should reduce IO and increase speed slightly
• Test coverage on exporting added (previously a gap)