Keyboard shortcuts and the Stream Deck

A hotkey is something you press that does something: a key on your keyboard, a button on the web remote or in Bitfocus Companion, or a Stream Deck key. Hotkeys are set up in one list, and a keyboard key is learned by pressing it. Stream Deck keys are set up on the keys themselves, in the Stream Deck app, from the plug-in’s seventeen actions, one of which presses any of your hotkeys.

Add one

In Show Settings, Controls, press Add Button, then Learn…. Press the key you want to use, and InterDirector remembers it as “⌘⇧F2”. A hotkey needs no key at all to be pressed from the web remote, Companion or a Stream Deck key. Choose what it should do from 75 actions, every one a rule can run and Stop the show: Cut, Fade, mute a source, start or stop streaming, mark a cut in the recording, capture or play replay clips, step a playlist to its next or previous item, move through a data source’s rows, switch an input’s Video FX on and off, send an NDI camera to a preset, zoom or position, zoom an iPhone over a glide time, recall a framing preset onto a source or a Composite layer, switch the Auto Director or the external output on and off, turn one stream destination on or off, and more.

A mapping that does nothing yet — no key learned, a source removed, or an action its source’s new type cannot take — shows an orange mark, and says why.

You can name a mapping, and switch it off without deleting it, which is useful for a button set up for one kind of show that you do not want firing during another.

The actions are listed under headings: Switching, Overlays, Media, Replay, Sound, Picture (Video FX, a Composite’s layers, framing presets and a camera’s presets), Data, Output and Show. Type in the list to narrow it, by an action’s name or a heading’s: “replay” shows every replay action. The list of sources can be typed into the same way.

To make one like another, press the Duplicate button on its row, or right-click it and choose Duplicate. The copy appears just below, open, with the same actions, waits and colour, and no key: learn it one of its own.

Several actions on one key

A mapping can run more than one action. Press Add Action under its first one, and each action after it has a Wait: how long after the action before it to run, in seconds, up to 60. For example: cut to Cam 2, wait 2 seconds, put the lower third on, wait 5 seconds, take it off. Actions with no wait run together, at once. Move an action up or down with its arrows; its wait moves with it.

Pressing the key again while some of its actions are still waiting cancels them and starts again from the first.
Changing the mapping, switching it off or deleting it cancels what is still waiting.
If any of its actions would ask first, such as stopping the stream, it asks once, when you press it, for all of them together. Say no and nothing runs; say yes and every action runs without asking again, the later ones included.
On the web remote, Companion and a Stream Deck key, it lights as its first action would, so put the one you want to see first. A mapping with no name of its own is named after its first action, “and 2 more”.

One key, one mapping

A key belongs to one mapping. Learning one that another mapping already has says which mapping runs it, and offers Move Here: the key moves to the mapping you are learning, and the other is left with no key until you learn it a new one. Cancel leaves both as they were. This counts mappings that are switched off too, so switching one back on never makes two share a key.

A Show saved by an earlier version with one key on two mappings keeps it on the mapping that ran it, and the report shown as the Show opens names the others, which are left with no key.

Putting them in order

Drag a mapping by its row onto another to put it in that one’s place; a line shows where it will land. Right-clicking a row also offers Move Up, Move Down, Move to Top and Move to Bottom. The order is also the order the web remote and Bitfocus Companion list your hotkeys in.

Give it a colour

Open a mapping and pick a Colour from nineteen, reds through blues and greens to greys, or none. The colour shows on the web remote’s button, in Companion, and on a Stream Deck key that presses it, so the same action looks the same everywhere. Every colour is dark enough for white text to read on it.

A coloured button that turns something on and off is shown dimmed while it is off and in full colour while it is on; one that does something once, such as capturing a replay, is always in full colour. On a Stream Deck key, the mapping’s colour is used instead of the key’s own colours; a mapping with no colour leaves the key’s colours as they are.

Finding a mapping again

Type in Search to narrow the list to the mappings that have every word you type somewhere in their name, their key, what they do, or the source, data source, bucket or destination they name. “cam 2 cut” finds a Cut to Program of Cam 2, whatever it is called. You can drag while searching, too, onto any row the search shows.

Find by Pressing… does the opposite of Learn: press a key, and InterDirector shows you what, if anything, it is already set to.

The Stream Deck

InterDirector’s Stream Deck plug-in installs with the app itself, and needs Stream Deck software 6.9 or later on the same Mac. In the Stream Deck app, drag one of its actions onto a key, then choose in the key’s settings what it does, from what your Show has:

Transition: Cut, Fade 1, Fade 2 or Dip what is in Preview to Program. Lit while a transition runs.
Input: put an input in Preview, or take it straight to Program with a cut or a fade, or reload it. Red while the input is on Program, green while it is in Preview.
Overlay: put an overlay up, take it down, or either; put it in Preview; or put Preview up as an overlay, as the Overlay button does. Lit while it is on air, and green while it is in Preview.
Sound: mute or unmute an input, solo it, turn its Follow Program on or off, or set its level; set Master’s or a bus’s level, or mute or unmute one, the bus named as your Show names it; or clear every solo. Lit while muted, soloed or following. A split source’s strips are offered after it for mute, solo and level, each on its own.
Output: start or stop streaming, recording Program, recording inputs, NDI output or the external display; turn one stream destination on or off; or mark a cut in the recording. Lit while it is running, or on.
Replay: capture a clip, play, stop, step through or delete clips, play a bucket or every bucket, and select, step through or clear buckets. Lit while replay plays, and a bucket key while its bucket is selected.
Media: play, pause, restart, step through, go to an item of, or reshuffle a media playlist or image carousel. Red while its input is on Program, green while it is in Preview.
Data: move a data source to its next, previous or a numbered row, or read it now. The key shows the row it is on.
Show: Fade to Black, the Auto Director, and the zoom and position animations. Lit while faded, running or on; an input’s animation key is lit while its animation is on, and shows that input’s tally otherwise.
Layer: show, hide, or show-or-hide one of a Composite’s layers, chosen from every Composite’s layers by name (“Stage · Cam 1”). Lit while the layer is visible, and resting in its Composite’s label colour. Hiding a layer leaves its sound as it is.
Video FX: switch one of an input’s Video FX, or Program’s own, on, off, or on or off. Lit while the effect is on, and idle while it is off; the key’s title is the input, or Program, over the effect.
Framing Preset: frame a source, or one of a Composite’s layers, with one of your Show’s framing presets, gliding there over the time you choose, or jumping. Lit while it is framed exactly so, and titled with the source over the preset.
Camera Preset: send an NDI camera to one of its presets, 1 to 9, at the key’s speed. The key is titled with the camera over the preset, and shows the camera’s tally, so red warns you it is on air.
Camera Move: one press sets an NDI camera’s zoom, sends it to a position or home, or nudges it for a moment.
Phone Camera: one press sets InterDirector Cam’s zoom, over a glide time if you give one, steps it in or out, or chooses a lens.
PTZ: pan or tilt an NDI camera (eight ways), zoom it in or out, or send it home. The camera moves while the key is held, at the key’s own speed, and stops when you let go. Titled with the camera over an arrow, and lit by its tally.
Hotkey: press one of your hotkeys, exactly as if its key were pressed. It is drawn in the hotkey’s colour.

Each key has an idle colour and a lit one (an input key has one for Program and one for Preview), which you can change, or put back to the default with Reset. A key for an input that has a label colour rests in that colour, dimmed, unless you have chosen its idle colour yourself. Its title is the name in InterDirector of what it acts on, or, if you choose, the title you type in the Stream Deck app. A name too long for one line is wrapped onto the next, and one too long for the key is cut short with “…”. What a key does is kept on the key, by the identity of the input, hotkey or bucket it names, so renaming an input keeps its keys working and a profile taken to another Mac does the same there.

A key whose action would make the Mac ask first, such as stopping the stream or deleting a replay clip, has Without asking, for a setup where nobody sits at the Mac. Without InterDirector open, the keys say so.

From an earlier version. Before InterDirector 2.0 a Stream Deck key was learned to a hotkey in Show Settings. Those keys are replaced by these actions: set them up again with the action that does what they did, or with Hotkey to press the same hotkey. A Show that had hotkeys on Stream Deck keys opens with those keys taken off, and the report shown as it opens names each one.

Automation rules, for the same actions, all but Stop the show, run automatically instead of by hand.