Controller:
The controller was well modded and the TACs were cleanly installed. Zippo for marks and scratches. Very clean manufacturing job. So my initial impressions of the controller are good and that the work was done very professionally. My initial thoughts were the bottom TACs were too close together. Farther apart, they could be actuated by different fingers. But I will reserve that judgement until I have more play time. I would also like to see two top TACs on each side instead of one per side. This will allow page flipping as well as programming a top TAC.
I would like to see the AA holder modded with a SPST-NC button on it. Pressing the button would interrupt the power. This would be handy for rebooting the controller during macro testing. I would also like to see some mod of the CnP cable to shut it off without unplugging it. Both of these mods would save a hell of a lot of wear and tear on the physical case of the controller during macro programming and testing. By placing a on/off switch on the CnP cable you could flip it off. Then press the power interrupt on the battery pack and test the macro in-game. Then press the power interrupt again and press start to set it to programming mode followed by flipping the CnP switch to re-connect to the PC. All done without ever having to unplug the CnP or removing a battery pack.
Software:
The software, on initial use was not overly friendly for a new user. Its clean looking but has some areas where it could use some improvement and I will address them one by one.
Initial setup was a piece of cake so that part is solid. I would like to see some VKS and VKM files installed along with the software for starter work and initial learning. Generic ones, not game specific.
The software window should be movable as well as sizeable. Right now, its just movable. There should be min, max and restore buttons. There should be frame edges to grab to size the window vertically, horizontally and diagonally.
It is very unclear that the icons in the top right change function from macro set view to timeline view.
Software should recognize standard keyboard commands such as CTL-S, CTL-O, CTL-C/V/X, as well as impliment an undo buffer.
I would like the file formats to be updated to text based XML so editing can be done in a standard text editor.
Macro Set View:
The Save icon on the wheels don't seem to do anything on the macro set view. No indication that they save nor popup asking for a filename.
The save at the top in the set view opens a save as dialog but never fills in the filename even if it has one in the filename set property box. In the timeline saving the macro DOES assume the filename from the macro properties box.
As I posted in another thread, its not clear at all that if you assign a macro to an existing standard button (such as stick or ABXY) that the macro will NOT override the initial press of that button. I assigned a macro to the left stick and expected the game NOT to receive the left stick press but it did. The ability to override the real button is one reason I bought the macro controller. I hated the layout for Left4Dead. One of the things I wanted to do was re-arrange the controls. Make the A button the X button sort of thing. This appears not to be possible, am I correct here? If I assign a macro to the X button that simulates pressing the A button, the game will still get an X depress, then the A macro followed by X release? Not good.
Timeline Editor:
There appears to be no way to simulate a release prior to a depress. For example, in the timeline, you click to create the down (A). Then you right click and drag to simulate holding and the release is at the end. You can't right click and drag backwards past the initial press to create a release prior to a press. In prior macro programming on my Thrustmaster joystick/throttle/rudders on the PC as well as my Logitech G15 and G13 keyboards you have specific depress and release functionality and allows you to program a release prior to a press. This appears to be completely absent in the Viking software.
Timeline scrolling is not comfortable at all. I was working on a macro that was going to run for 3+ seconds as a loop. I wanted the LED to light for the macro so at 0 I click then I start to right click and drag to the edge. I then had to release, go down to the horizontal scroller and slide over another screen width. Right click and drag the LED dot to the right edge of the screen and AGAIN release and scroll. Nuts. Really. The software should scroll if you are dragging either a dot or an action and hit EITHER edge. What it should have done is...click to set the initial point. Then when I right click and drag to the right and hit the edge, it should have kept scrolling right until I pull off the edge and release at the time I wanted thus combining dragging a point and scrolling of the screen at the same time.
You apparently can't hop tracks. I recorded a very timing sensitive macro of pressing the left trigger, (B) and left bumper. I wanted to duplicate this macro and move the left bumper action to the right bumper by dragging the action from the LB track to the RB track. Yea, not happening. I would really like to be able to drag from trigger to trigger, bumper to bumper, stick to stick and button to button for easily xeroxing of actions.
You can't drag actions on multiple tracks at the same time. Man what a PITA this became. As I said above, I recorded a macro of 3 actions (LB, LT and B). Since I had to start the recording and then re-position my fingers to perform the action, there was a time delay at the start of the macro. In the timeline I wanted to grab the 3 actions and drag them in unison to keep them relative to each other but found no way to do so.
There is no copy-paste. Hmm. It needs it. Bad. Need to be able to select an action, hit CTL-C to copy. Close the timeline and open another macro timeline and paste the action in.
There is no multi-action scaling. Sure you can set the playback time scale for the whole macro but this affects EVERY action in the macro. When trying to get the timing down on the 3 action macro, I would have liked to be able to select multiple actions across tracks and have left and right as well as center grips appear. Then I could drag the whole group left/right by using the center grip. I could grab the right or left grips and scale the whole group start or end. Think grabbing the left or right edge of your browser window to scale it. And think grabbing the title bar at the top to move it. This is what I was looking to do. Not for a whole macro, just a subset within the macro.
Trigger programming needs lots of love. First, the slider thing is backwards. Full press to the left and full release to right? No, thats backwards! Even better, rotate it 90 degrees and have full press at the bottom and full release at the top. This would simulate your finger pulling in on it and is more logical (to me at least). Or, better yet, don't do the silly slider in the first place. Make the track a waveform with a spline type curve trail and points with control handles so you can visually see the analog action right in the timeline. Right now, after recording a macro you get a bunch of dots and you have to click each one to see what the pressure level is. If yall don't want to go the full monty and make the spline curve, can you at least colorize the points and the line to indicate pressure level please? At least we would have a visual indicator in the timeline without a lot of point clicking.
LED color selector is missing white. It can do white, it does it when its showing the flickering USB communications indication LED set.
I would like to see collapsible groups for controls. Group the sticks, the bumpers and triggers, the buttons, LEDs and the ancillary buttons in discrete groups so they are collapsible. If I am working on a macro that never uses the sticks or ancillary buttons, let me collapse them so I only see the tracks I care about. Saves a lot of vertical scrolling
The timeline view needs a time zoom. Would be nice to be able to zoom out and map in gross actions and then zoom in and fine tune the precise begin and end points.
I would like to see macro sub-chaining. In my initial progrmaming exercise, I was working on a item duplication glitch for Minecraft. Several of the items (gold, iron, diamond and bone meal) all began with the same series of button actions. I would like to be able to save these common strokes (as they were really hard to time) and then execute them in multiple macros. The common strokes evoke the glitch and get you to a specific page in a tabbed dialog. At this point the 4 macros differ. But the initial actions are identical. Being able to store this initial sequence and then somehow insert them into other macros would really be helpful. How about a right click menu that would "Insert saved macro here" and offer an open dialog to read in a saved macro? The macro would be then read in and inserted in the timeline pushing anything existing over to the right. If the inserted file was edited, then all macros that used it would also update. This would allow you to tweak some items and have the tweak span across all macros that used it.
