SimHub - How to assign a specific rotary encoder position to a specific dashboard screen?

[JohnEdom]

Hello everyone,

I need help with SimHub (I'm using it to play F1 23).

Does anybody know if it's possible to assign a specific postion of a rotary encoder (or a button) of the steering wheel to a specific screen of the dashboard?

In my dashboard I made a specific screen for every tyre compund and I'd like to have the possibility to manually select the correct screen every time I change tyre compund during a race by positioning the rotary encoder on the related position (encoder position 1 ---> C1 tyre screen / encoder position 2 ---> C2 tyre screen / etc...).

My dashboard now automatically show the correct screen , but I'd prefer to select it manually.

Thanks.

 

[JohnEdom]

I found an amazing plugin on GitHub (SwitchableProperties by MorGuux) that does exactly what I was looking for. Should you be interested, download it here:

Release v1.8 · MorGuux/SwitchableProperties

Bugfix for SimHub 9.2.0

github.com

A nice little guide:

 

[Botmeister]

Make a widget and just assign your rotary encoder to the ActionA and ActionB buttons to scroll through the widget's pages. Basically it's the only thing you need to manually switch. Regular screens (non widget) can also be scrolled through with ActionA/B, and also C/D are available.

For specific positions, a rotary encoder either goes left or right. And sometimes it can be pressed. There is no exact position, just 'a' position. Perhaps there is hardware available that does have exact positions, but most button boxes have simple left/right rotaries. (this sentence was a bit confusing for the situation - I meant to say Simhub sees your rotary as left/right.)

 

[JohnEdom]

Make a widget and just assign your rotary encoder to the ActionA and ActionB buttons to scroll through the widget's pages. Basically it's the only thing you need to manually switch. Regular screens (non widget) can also be scrolled through with ActionA/B, and also C/D are available.

For specific positions, a rotary encoder either goes left or right. And sometimes it can be pressed. There is no exact position, just 'a' position. Perhaps there is hardware available that does have exact positions, but most button boxes have simple left/right rotaries.

Maybe I should have said "rotary switch" instead of "rotary encoder", I don't know if it makes any difference in english, anyway I was talking about those switches with a fixed number of poisitions (from 1 to 8 or from 1 to 12 etc).

With the plugin I linked above you can actually make any single position of a rotary switch work as a single independant button, like front rotary switches of real life F1 steering wheel do. I've already tested it and it perfectly works!

I mean... it doesn't change my life and of course it doesn't make me a faster driver, but it makes my sim racing experience a bit more immersive, so it's totally worth it!

 

[Botmeister]

Thanks for pointing out the switch vs rotary, indeed some differences there. But button wise, both just do left or right. Only difference is that one has 12 positions to stay in, the other has 2. For simhub, I hope I do understand you correctly. So correct me if I'm wrong

- Let's say your Simhub dashboards has 5 screens
- You want to switch manually between the screens with one rotary switch

- Scenario: the rotary is in position 2.
- You want to go to position 5.
- With a rotary switch you always need to go past positions 3 and 4 to get to 5.

- The plugin is nice when you have a separate button for each of the 5 screens. But your rotary.... rotates
- In the example video he uses 6 mappings for 6 positions. Your rotary only goes left and right.

Therefore I think that Simhub's default mappings NextScreen/PreviousScreen and ActionA/B/C/D should be sufficient in your case. Plus, it saves running a plugin which improves overall performance.

 

[Neilski]

Thanks for pointing out the switch vs rotary, indeed some differences there. But button wise, both just do left or right. Only difference is that one has 12 positions to stay in, the other has 2.

I don't think this is the case. My understanding was that a rotary encoder has no concept of a position at all and so it simply can't report an absolute position, but simply the changes (CW, CCW). In contrast, a rotary switch not only has a finite set of positions it can be in, it actually KNOWS which position it's in and can report that. Maybe I've misunderstood though. If @JohnEdom can confirm the switch type (or wheel type if not personally built?) that would probably put it beyond doubt.

 

[Botmeister]

Good point. Love to hear from OP.

So to continue, could this result in: you left the rotary on position 3 yesterday and today it automatically goes to position 3? If so, only Simhub knows about position 3, but the game doesn't. You would always need to reposition the rotary when you start a fresh game (and based on the tires you're using this new session).

Maybe you can share you .simhubdash file? I develop them myself so perhaps taking a look makes it a bit more clear what you want to accomplish.

 

[JohnEdom]

I don't think this is the case. My understanding was that a rotary encoder has no concept of a position at all and so it simply can't report an absolute position, but simply the changes (CW, CCW). In contrast, a rotary switch not only has a finite set of positions it can be in, it actually KNOWS which position it's in and can report that. Maybe I've misunderstood though. If @JohnEdom can confirm the switch type (or wheel type if not personally built?) that would probably put it beyond doubt.

The kind of rotary switch with finite set of positions you described is exactly what I was talking about. I'm going to purchase a steering wheel (Esportsim or VPG Sim) with this kind of switches because they are perfect to work together with the SimHub plugin I linked in the second post. Every single position of those rotary switches is like a single keyboard key that can be used to activate the desired dashboard element (page, widget or whatever). I actually used my PC keyboard to verify that the plugin was really working.
I enclose the detail of the rotary switch taken from a picture of an Esportsim steering wheel.

 

[JohnEdom]

Good point. Love to hear from OP.

So to continue, could this result in: you left the rotary on position 3 yesterday and today it automatically goes to position 3? If so, only Simhub knows about position 3, but the game doesn't. You would always need to reposition the rotary when you start a fresh game (and based on the tires you're using this new session).

Maybe you can share you .simhubdash file? I develop them myself so perhaps taking a look makes it a bit more clear what you want to accomplish.

Yes, that's right, you have to reposition the switch everytime, but that's not going to be a problem in game as you are not sending any input, it's just about viewing a different page (or widget) on your steering wheel display.

I made a different scheme of dynamic colors for every tyre compound, that shows different colors depending on the specific operating tyre temperature windows of each compund, so for example:
- tyre color is green if compund is C5 and inner temp is between 90 and 100 °C
- tyre color is red if compund is C5 and inner temp is higher than 110 °C
- tyre color is blue if compound is C1 and inner temp is lower than 80 °C
- etc...

No problem in sharing the dashboard, but I'm not allowed to attach the simhubdash file to this post, when I try I receive the message "The uploaded file does not have an allowed extension". How can I do? For now I just enclose two screenshots.

 

[Botmeister]

It's ok, no need for me to check. You made a choice to reposition the rotary manually, so I'd say case closed


"but that's not going to be a problem in game as you are not sending any input, it's just about viewing a different page (or widget) on your steering wheel display."

Drop a line how this worked out! I'm leaning towards something that I can only guess now. Simracing is session based, once the session is active you edit your setup / choose tires. I have the feeling you would need to reposition the rotary before the session starts otherwise rotary and game can never be the same. I have no clue how F1 game session are build, so maybe you should just forget what I just said ;-)

 

[blekenbleu]

"The uploaded file does not have an allowed extension". How can I do?

Folks typically append `.txt` to filenames, e.g. `your.simhubdash.txt`