VKB-SIM

Ive gone from default setting to changing the F buttons atop my left handed gladiator nxt premium. these are the only changes i have made but this has resulted in odd results when written into the device. I remapped the F keys as ButAlts so that they could be used to hold open like a toggle the airbrakes and what not that have on/off states. when I write this into the device I end up with the left hat button (the one with ridges on the left and right side) acting like i want the F keys to. 12 and 14 seem to hold their states rather than having a momentary input as they do in the default state. However I never interacted with 12 and 14 . Only the F keys. That is all that I have touched. Aside from calibrating it after each default reset. In addition the second mode of the pov hat seems to became disabled with no interactions other than that listed above. the red indicator led does not illuminate when the pov is pressed. When using the button wizard I also notice than when typing 28 to go to the settings for that button, it took me to 81 instead and i had to used the arrows to cycle through all the buttons to get to 28.
There is some auto assign box that is checked when i change button types, but i dont have a clue what this does. and then there is this:
I get this error when I try to edit buttons. I have been taking the number that can be typed in to reflect the control panel is being used to change that button like 12 and 14 for the left hat... but then you get off on this 15 business and 143? All ive done is change button types. But, doing so seems to also map new relationships that I am not providing input on. I've read the manual but im going to go back to it and attack it tomorrow.

In order to achieve your goals there are a few more steps to take before even beginning: 1. update your firmware to match the software (visit the downloads page) and 2. be aware of game capabilities to recognize bindings - I understand you want to set up an alternative button, which holds control active until the second press, but are you sure the game would recognize this kind of control?

Well, I got the firmware and software sorted. I went through the physical and logic layers of the buttons and hovered over them... only then did I find out that F1-3 are not buttons 27-29 but are instead 5-7 but registered as 28 etc when you pressed them. the actual button 28 etc are for physical button A4 or the left hat.... so when I used the hat I was affecting the change that wanted to assign to the 3F keys. not entirely sure why it was set up that way as default. Now i feel like I have to look at each button like a mob boss looks at his close associates... are they secretly working to put me in the ground? in an aircraft this a ongoing concern anyway. So far as the actual program that this is being used with, I think its situational as to if they can interpret the commands. on the p-51s, the parking brake is set using two commands using two controls so you might have to map a string of commands to a single button... but the community A4E has air brakes that are on or off. So in the p51 mapping one of the F keys to the parking brakes only operates one part of a two part equation, but on the A4E with air brakes and spoilers it works perfectly.
I have noticed that the button editor does not seem to display the red button at top as shown in the manual. All I see are the shifts and sub shifts up at the top. This might have led to my initial confusion because the missing information relates to the physical layer. This entire time i thought the number box to the left of the green arrows displayed the physical button being addressed.

It is not immediately clear to be why F1-3 are associated with the central hat... but it doesn't matter because the DCS program doesn't see the physical buttons per se but the outputs of presses of them. There is snowball effect where if I reprogram the F keys I am in fact also reprogramming some of the central hat A3 keys. Since I already have that hat assigned to trim control, any attempt to program the F keys results in stripping the hat of its assignments. The keys 5-6 have f-3 in parenthesis... but it doesn't look like the F keys exist as their own buttons on the physical layer. Seems like every single physical button has logic button number that different than its physical button. At this point I am not even sure if the software can see the F buttons as separate from the linked hat buttons. its like a substitution cypher. I started to go through and manually assigning the same number from the physical layer to the logic layer, but then I remembered that different types of buttons take up different numbers of cells... but i'm not sure if those cells would all have the same number or different ones. I work with MS access on a pretty regular basis and..... i'm completely lost. I'm not getting anything out of this that merits the level of stress it is causing. Going to box it, walk away for a bit. means giving up on flight sims for a bit and I've read the manual several times.. but the hat and F keys are connected in some way that I cannot decipher just by looking at the layers. In the test tab they light up different buttons entirely from the profile/physical tab where they respond only on the physical layer. I can use the time to try to understand the relationships between the layers and buttons better when I don't have as much going on.

Hey man, sorry to hear about the struggle. The software is definitely not easy to crack, but it's very rewarding when you get to understand how it works.
I told you in another post about the logical and physical layers of the buttons; I know it's hard to work with both layers, but you could try this: write down which button does what (for example the 2 encoders, the way they're programmed by default, also the ministick). Then start from the first cell on the Physical layer: click on it, program it as a Button (if it's not a Button already), then click on the button which is the logical representation (the window will extend), then check the Automapping box. Close that window and move on to button 2, then 3, until you'll finish them all on the chart. While the Poll box is checked click on the encoders and ministick center button and re-program them as they were by default. Now you'll have both physical and logical layer representing the same number and hopefully this would make it easier for you to track the changes you make.
I know it's frustrating to have this magic software which could do practically everything that one would need in a flight sim and not knowing how to handle it, but don't forget that, if it gets too stressful, you could always press the default button and play with it as it is. You could always come back and start all over, but don't forget to have fun