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Keystroke Recorder
The Keystroke Recorder can be used to enter your characters macros by simply typing the keystrokes that you want the Control Manager to send in the exact order that you want them sent. Its operation is basically the same as the Keytest utility. The main difference is that, when you close the Keystroke Recorder it analyzes what you typed, constructs a macro to emulate that, and enters it into the Edit Box automatically. The recorder looks like this:


To access the recorder, you must be editing one of the macros for a button or hat position that's been set to operate in "Programmed Mode" (DirectX Mode box unchecked). Right-click on the Edit Box for the macro you want to enter. The right-click menu has an entry at the bottom to "Record Keystrokes". Click that and the Keystroke Recorder will open.

Entering the keystroke sequences is simply a matter of typing them on the keyboard. Once you've entered the characters that you want to be sent, click the "Exit" button. The macro will be generated and placed in the Edit Box that you right-clicked to start the process.

Depending on what you type, the recorder will determine the appropriate type of Character Macro. It will first try to create a "Regular Macro". Failing that, it will attempt to use a "HOLD" macro. If that doesn't work, it will fall back to "KEYS" macro, which can basically represent any keystroke sequence.

When entering the characters into the Keystroke Recorder, the ordering of key presses and key releases will obviously affect the type of macro that is eventually generated. The Regular Macro is the most efficient in terms of storage space, but for a Regular Macro to be generated, the keypresses must be strictly "press-release-press-release...". In other words if a key gets pressed it must be released before another key is presses. If a second key is pressed before the first is released, the Regular Macro can't handle it and it will likely end up as a KEYS Macro. There is no character speed implied by the rate at which you enter keys into the Keystroke Recorder. An "a" pressed and held for ten seconds before being released results in exactly the same output as an "a" pressed and released immediately, so it's easy to move things slowly and make sure the ordering is correct.

There is nothing special about the macros generated with the Keystroke Recorder. Once the macro has been generated and entered into the appropriate Edit Box, you're free to manually edit the contents of the Edit Box if corrections need to be made.

Note that you cannot access the recorder while the Keytest Utility is active, even if that has been minimized. You'll receive a message to that effect if you try and you'll need to close the Keytest Utility before you can record. If the Keytest Utility has been minimized, just click the Keytest button on the Toolbar and the utility will close. When the Keystroke Recorder is running, you cannot access the Keytest Utility or any button on the Toolbar as the Keystroke Recorder disables all other functions on the GUI until it is closed.

Special Characters

When using the Keystroke recorder, it is not possible to actually generate the Special Characters such as CHARDLY, LCLICK, etc. since they have no real key associated with them. In these cases, all you can do is to generate the keystrokes normally, leaving out the special characters, then manually add the special characters to the edit box after the keystrokes have been generated.

This is an excellent example of something that works very well using Command File since the KEYS macro can be entered and fixed using the CMC File Editor just one time. The Keystroke Recorder is available within the CMC editor to help you accomplish this. The command can be edited there to include the special characters and then be inserted into the map via the right-click menu for the edit boxes. See the section on Inserting Commands for more information on how this is accomplished.