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Ion icade not working with Sidecar
Just received an ion icade controller to work with Sidecar app and it doesn't seem to work. The thing is I know the controller works, it sends keystrokes to text fields and I can even get it working with Group the Loop which has keystroke learn function, but it's not working with Sidecar at all, which is the whole reason I bought it. Anyone with experience with it know what I might be doing wrong?
Comments
Ok so it seems to be semi working, the problem is that the buttons do not correspond to what they are supposed to, the top buttons control pads 2-5 and the bottom buttons control pads 7-10 while joystick up and left both control pad 1 and joystick right and down control pad 6. It's supposed to be left and right control pads 9 and 10 and up and down switch pages. Pressing up is outputting "we" and left is outputting "aq" right is outputting "dc" and down is outputting "xz"
Yeah, @SecretBaseDesign is aware that the ION iCade buttons/joystick don't match up with the pads. My iCade matched yours in terms of the relation between the two. Given that I completely tore the iCade apart and built it into a DIY foot controller, it didn't matter much to me in the end.
If SBD is aware they don't match up why wouldn't they just fix it? Isn't it just a matter of changing which keystrokes control which pads within the program?
I plan to do the same thing as you with the foot control but if none of the icade buttons output to a page change function in sidecar how do you make full use of the app? Or are you just using one page of controls?
I can clearly see by using a regular bluetooth keyboard that the icade setting within sidecar is not set up to do page changes at all, because none of the keys are changing pages. If SBD is aware of this, why is he advertising the page change feature? If the buttons don't map correctly at least change the text within sidecar to say what the buttons do actually map to, otherwise it's looking like false advertising.
I don't use the foot controller to change pages; I only do that on screen.
I should be able to get the iCade-to-pedal mapping sorted out in the next release. I've got a couple of other things in development for it (MIDI learn, in particular), so I'm holding off on the update until I get that sorted out.
Ok cool, thanks for the quick response, Although I would recommend either changing the text in the app that says the icade can change pages or updating the app description to specify that it's coming in the next version. Didn't mean to come off negative but it's a bit misleading as it is right now. I'm not sure how simple it is with Apple to submit minor things like that though. Otherwise it's a great and very useful app!
The documentation in the app is sort of baked in -- I'll need to submit a new version to the app store to get that fixed. The documentation got out of sync with the code, and I had a brain fail before sending things off to Apple. Glad you like the app in general, and I'll try to get the update out as soon as I can!
I just bought an iCade also and was wondering about future mapping. Will it be feasible to have ON/OFF switches mapped? eg W - on, E - off; X - on, Z - off. At the moment iCade switches are all momentary (single click), if I am able to exchange to latch switches, that will give twice as many options.
Or is that the logic board of the iCade itself?
Theoretically this should be possible if the app was programmed to only accept the first keystroke a given button sends and say goes into state "on", then once in state "on" it only accepts the second keystroke the button sends and goes into state "off". So it shouldn't be that hard to implement although I have no idea if SBD has any plans for it in the coming update.
The back story on all of this is kind of funny. I wanted to use a QWERTY keyboard to trigger MIDI notes and stuff like that -- so some code got written to catch keystrokes, and then trigger things.... And with iOS, apps only get the "down" press on a key, not the release, so everything was toggling on and off, and that kind of sucked. Then oceansinspace, I think it was, clued me in about the iCade -- which sends different down keystrokes on button press and release -- so I can then use that to know when to toggle things on and off. But in some cases, you actually do want toggling, so now the code needs to get modified to turn the toggle fixing fix back off! That stuff that was broken -- yeah, it's kind of handy to have broken that way, at least some of the time.
All of the bluetooth keyboard work was on the back burner, because apps can't get keystrokes when they're not in the foreground (and everyone is going to have some other app as their main focus). I hadn't thought about slide-over at all until lukesleepwalker asked about it -- at which point my head more-or-less exploded.
Add into all of this mess -- you might touch on the screen, and sometimes want to toggle, and sometimes not. The next release will support MIDI learn, so you can use a MIDI keyboard to turn on or off one or more of the pads (on different pages). So.... if I program in MIDI note 77 to turn on pad 3 and pad 5.... with pad 3 toggling, and pad 5 not toggling.... what's the right behavior? And if note 77 turns on the pads, should the note off message turn them off (both of them?). And if I use a program change message, or CC... And suppose there's a touch on the screen, a keyboard key press, and a MIDI triggering.... what's the right behavior? If the user switches from one page to another -- should the pads on the page toggle off when you do the switch? If the pad is sending a program change message, it makes no sense for it to toggle -- but if it's sending a note or a chord, you might want it to toggle.
No matter what I wind up with, I'm willing to bet that for 70% of people, it won't always work as they expect! It's actually kind of tricky getting things to do what people want, and have it all be somewhat intuitive. But... I am working on it, and with luck, the next update will have some cool new features, and people will be able to use them too!
Goodness, I have still not gotten it to work! And I even made a vid in the past with secret base stomp watch app proving how well and easy it worked. I was rocking midi chords to animoog....
We NEED a step by step for icade, pretty please. Seems so simple yet its not and without the iPad air switching app thing I'm so confused. Help us and I do appreciate how damn hard it must be. thanks iOS masters.
8 second videohttps://youtube.com/watch?v=L8ZhKY6SbsM
Wow 7 months ago I had it going! Maybe I just try stompwatch, but then it has that foreground issue.
I was just thinking this morning it should be possible to use the ion icade with any keystroke to midi converter on a pc or mac and just send the resulting midi to your ipad over the network. That way you should be able to customize it as you like. Lacks some of the obvious benefits sidecar provides though.
So on iipad 4 iOS 9 I cannot use the slide over app feature? So side car won't work quite right for me or am i wrong?
I can't keep apps in foreground with midi going.
Slide-over is only available for the mini2 and iPad Air. Split-view is available on the mini 4, Air 2, and Pro. Yeah, very annoying -- I'm sure the other iPads could do it, but Apple is pushing people to get new hardware. Split view is where I think Sidecar really starts being useful.