by umail54 » Mon May 19, 2014 3:09 am
Hey. I'm an electronics engineer and I was just researching my options how to bind one of my foot pedals to the PokerTracker Software so I could quick mark hands (not only at the tables - mainly after play when going through my session history and marking hands as good or bad).
As a hardware engineer this is a common problem I face when dealing with software and software programmers. They usually dont think of hardware binding options.
I mean, it would be great if every menu option and action has an associated hotkey. But instead of hardcoding the hotkeys, by default the value should be blank and each user should be able to set their own (easy hotkey button or obscure ASCII hotkey combination).
I am imagining it kind of like with the new MS Office Word program where you can press a series of key combinations to navigate through the menu and access even elements of the formula editor. It almost feels like you are keying in a series of command line commands.
So what I am proposing is basically a blank slate functionality that every user could then customize for themselves.
So, when I press my foot pedal it would be basically sending the key command ALT+H+Q+I+P or even maybe \0b3FFF22.
It doesnt have to be your responsibility to break your head about what the right hotkeys would be and how they best not interfere with table action, etc.
I think that is a burden you can dump on the user.
I wished this was standard in all software. It's kind of obvious for me when I program, but I guess it's because I'm the hardware guy and I usually interface with software using hardware controls.
Furthermore, in light of the recent surge and success of introductory hardware development platforms such as the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi beyond the school or university classroom into the average joe's life: making electronics/hardware more accessible to the general public without even knowing anything about electronics itself - just needing to learn a handicapped version of Java called "Processing" (extremely simple to learn) - I would hope that support for such hardware interface via simple or obfuscated key commands would become a consideration in further development of PT.
Just a simple access point, totally customization (you dont have to break your head about the right hotkeys or anything) and a settings file (preferably .txt/.yml style) that people can share with each other just in case someone has the GOLDEN NUGGET key shortcut settings and wants to share it.
I really hope you guys would consider implementing this. It would be great if PT supports Arduino and other Hardware Tools I see more and more people now starting to use.
Cheers to your awesome Software and Thx for the hard work.
Glad to pay for it. Totally worth it.