HOTAS and the 32 button limit and/or disappearing bindings solution

[CMDR Harada]

I got a new HOTAS, and in ironing out the wrinkles, found a common problem is the ED '32 button limit' for a joystick. Some of my buttons are over that and appear as button 39, or even 45.. above the threshold for ED to recognize. It's not that ED CAN'T see the button press, it's just that it can't map buttons that high.

Then I found this little add-on : https://joytokey.net/en/

Converts joystick commands to keyboard input. I tested it out, and it works great. You can map a joystick button to emulate a keyboard key. ED doesn't see "Button45", instead it see's "Keyboard Z".

It's also great for custom mappings. ED can use it's default keyboard mappings, and joytokey will convert your joystick inputs to those. No more nuked bindings !

 

[CMDR GRAEME COWELL]

I assign a function set to a button like 1 for targeting one for ships systems etc the use the top hat to select within that menu 4 way tophat with 3 buttons to choose function gives me 16 options (4 for vanilla hat + 12 from 3 buttons and hat combos) for only 7 unique keys as far as ED mapping is concerned. group them either by menu or by when / how you use them. At least that works for me

 

[Lyvan Kitaen]

I've been using joytokey ever since I got my Virpil throttle. It works great and makes programming the extra buttons simple.

 

[Loophole]

I recently found another great solution to this problem:
"ControlMyJoystick"

ControlMyJoystick – Home – Tetherscript

www.tetherscript.com

Its like the older VJoy program - creates a virtual joystick to which you can bind all sorts of things - but is really professionally done and I've been very impressed with it.

Initially I bought it to make use of some old 3DConnexion CAD controllers I had, but I found I could also bind the "excess" buttons on my X65 HOTAS to the "virtual" joystick - so I can use all 52 buttons as DirectX buttons - just split across two 32-button joysticks; one real, one "virtual".