Contents

Previous

Next

Last
Variable Names
All variables used in the CMS have predefined names. The name is based on the type of the variable (Analog or Bit) and what the variable represents. The latter can be a control on a real controller, one of the CMS Controls, or one of the internal variables that the CMS provides.

General Naming Conventions

The names for analog variables all start with an "A" followed by a number indicating which analog variable is being referenced, i.e. "A4". Similarly, bit variables begin with "B", again followed by an number indicating which bit variable is being referenced. For example, "B14". This applies to all variables regardless of their source.

Variable Groups

The variables generally fall into one of several groups. In some cases the name of the variable itself is enough to place it in a particular group. In other cases, the variable name is formed by a device designator followed by a "." followed by an axis or button ID.

Real Controllers

The real controllers, the CH USB devices that you have in the map, are designated "JS1" through "JS16" (depending on how many you actually have, of course). The "JS1" controller is the one on the left-most Device Tab (excepting the "Program Settings" tab) when you view your map in the GUI. "JS2" is the next device to the right, and so on.

To designate a particular control on that controller, the controller ID is used, followed by a ".", followed by an analog or bit variable. For example, if the left-most device tab in your map is the FighterStick, you could reference the X axis on the FighterStick as:

JS1.A1

Button 7 on the same stick would be:

JS1.B7

If the device on the next tab was a Pro Throttle, you could reference the button under the micro-stick as "JS2.B1". In the case of axes and hats, it's not immediately apparent which axis or button your referencing. In these cases the GUI will append the appropriate designator to the device name in the Dialog Pane and you can look there to find it. Hat 1 Up on the CombatStick, for example, is actually Button 7. The GUI display will show "Hat 1 Up [B7]", the B7 is what you want to reference in the script. Likewise, the throttle axis will show up as "Throttle [A3]".

Recognized axis references for the JSx devices are "A1" through "A6" corresponding to the X through V axes respectively. Recognized button references are "B1" through "B40". The upper limit of "B40" is to allow for some future expansion. Actual controllers don't have buttons above B16 since they aren't physically present.

There is one exception to the above. Even though they do not show up as buttons in the test screen, you can reference the POV positions on a real devices by referencing buttons "B25" through "B32". The "B25" position corresponds to "POV Up", the numbers then go in sequence clockwise around the POV with "B32" being the "POV Up/Left" position. So, for example, you could reference the POV Up position in your CMS script as "JS1.B25", POV Up/Right, as "JS1.B26", etc. These references are active regardless of the mode that the POV is programmed to use. It can be set to act as an actual POV or programmed to send buttons or characters and the B25..B32 references will still work within the CMS script.

Note that these are the positions as they show up in the test screen when the hat is set as a POV. On the ProThrottle, this doesn't necessarily correspond to the actual physical direction. In that one case, "POV Up" is reached by physically moving the hat to the right. The other positions do follow in a clockwise direction from there.

You cannot assign a value to an axis or button on a real device. That is strictly controlled by the device itself. These values are effectively read-only. The analog values coming from the control will have a range of 0 through 255, assuming the controller has been properly calibrated in the GUI.

CMS Controls

The CMS Controls, the ones you program in the GUI, are referenced similarly to the JSx devices, but they use "CMS" rather than "JSx" for the prefix. For example:

CMS.B1
CMS.A13

Since only one set of CMS Controls can exist in the map, there is no need for a numeric identifier. The CMS includes 64 axes referenced as "A1" through "A64", and 128 buttons, referenced as "B1" through "B128". These correspond to the axes and buttons that are available for programming in the GUI when the CMS Controls tab is selected. CMS variables can be both read and set. Setting the value of a CMS variable is how you control the output of the CMS Control.

Like the JSx variables, the CMS analog values can have a range of 0 through 255. You can exceed that range, but anything outside of that range will result in the control being seen as at its minimum or maximum value by the Control Manager. When you assign a CMS Control axis in the GUI, the axis that tracks it will go from its minimum to its maximum as the value set in the CMS value goes from 0 to 255.

Internal Variables

The CMS provides internal "scratch pad" variables for use by the script. These variables cannot be programmed by the GUI directly. Only the CMS Controls have that capability. These variables are just used for working storage, etc. It's best to use these variables unless the variable actually needs to go out through the CMS controls to control a Control Manager Device button or axis or to send a character string of some sort.

There are 256 internal analog values and 1024 internal bit values. Since there isn't any "device" associated with these, they are referenced without a prefix. The valid references are "A1" through "A256" and "B1" through "B1024".

Device Variables

There are also a set of variables termed "Device Variables". These are bit values used to indicate the current state of some of the functions used in the scripting language, particularly timers. This will be covered in some detail later, for now it's enough to note their existence. There are 256 of these variables, they are referenced as "D1" through "D256" and they do not require a prefix.

Special Variables

There is one additional internal variable referenced as CURRENTMODE. This indicates the current mode of the Control Manager, that normally set via the FighterStick or ProThrottle. The CURRENTMODE variable can be assigned a value and the rest of the map will change modes just as if it were switched using one of the above devices. The script cannot affect the LED indicators on the devices, though, so if you set CURRENTMODE via the script there will be no particular correlation between the Control Manager mode and the device LEDs.

Predefined Constants

There are also a three predefined constants which can be used to set or check the CURRENTMODE variable. These values are MODE1, MODE2, MODE3 and MODE4 and have values of 0, 1, 2, and 3 respectively.