628: Stream Deck Power Users

Episodes
130

FYI folks Stream Deck on sale!

Elgato Stream Deck - Live Content Creation Controller with 15 Customizable LCD Keys, Adjustable Stand, for Windows 10 and macOS 10.13 or Late (10GAA9901) Amazon.com

131

Anyone else having this StreamDeck issue in MacOS Mail and Notes? After listening to this episode l decided to ramp up my usage on my Stream Deck. I added text shortcutsā€¦just using the text function on the Stream Deck. When in an email i click the button ie my email address and it adds Aa to the first 2 letters. Only happens at the start of a newlineā€¦and only in Mac Appsā€¦like Mail and Notes. Works perfectly in chrome, word etc. I am only using shorts snippets - email - web address - home address but it happens with them all. Yes l can use TextExpander but almost quicker to use a button as some apps/sites wonā€™t accept TE, Hope someone has a suggestion. Thanks

132

You can subscribe to the Mobile/Soft version of Stream Deck. Gives you a fully functional 15 button ā€œVirtualā€ Stream Deck on your phoneiPad etc.
I do this as great for use with my MacBook while travelling.

133

Stream Deck have a mobile version that you can subscribe to. Not sure device requirements but gives you a fully functional 15 button Stream Deck.

134

Thanks Sue. I did give the mobile version a try. But it didnā€™t work for me. I tried it on my phone, but Iā€™m often using the phone for other things, and the appeal of a ā€œbunch of buttonsā€ is that they are always available.

I also looked at Metagrid and Touch Portal. And I settled on Touch Portal.

The main reason is that I have an ancient iPad Air, and while the older version of Metagrid will run on the Air, Metagrid Pro, which will not, is the one that will be getting the most development work done to it going forward. Touch Portal on the other hand has one version that works with the Air and was updated just this week.

And it also helped that Touch Portal had a free trial version, whereas Metagrid does not, and Touch Portal is cheaper.

So I am now using the old Air, which had been gathering dust, as my ā€œbunch of buttonsā€ device.

1 Like
135

OK, i know i should have backed the profiles upā€¦

I was loving getting to grips with my top spec 16ā€ M1 MacBook Pro until it started crashing, big time. Long story but ended up being a corrupted SSD that could not be repaired using disk utility.

Soā€¦. Yep, wipe and re-install. Of course i had a bang up to date time machine backup. So restore should be easy, right?

Well, try as i might, but dragging the elgato preferences from my library on the backup didnā€™t work. When i restore an old profile, i get lots of keyboard maestro icons on the stream deck but not pointing to anywhere. Strangely, my wallpaper (a nice shot from blade runner 2049) restored but nothing else!

Any suggestions, or do i have to start again from scratch?

136

@BurntNorton Iā€™m not certain, but one thing I have noticed when using the KMLink plugin to directly execute a KM macro by name is that if I change the name of the KM macro, I have to edit the associated button the StreamDeck. However the link to the KM macro is made, it seems to get lost in the process.

If your only issue is your buttons that connect to KM macros, you might be able to fix things up just by going through each button and ā€œrelinkingā€ them to the correct macro. Tedious but better than recreating the entire layouts.

I would have expected that restoring the preferences file would have restored all profiles and buttons otherwise, though. If that did not work, maybe exit and restart StreamDeck? It might have a problem with recognizing that the prefs file was replaced and not reload properly?

137

thanks @nlippman Iā€™m out of the office today, Iā€™ll give your suggestion
my problem is I spent ages creating 8 custom profiles, and only backed up the first threeā€¦ when my Stream Deck reset to the one ā€˜welcomeā€™ button on reinstall, I was worried! Thatā€™s when I copied over all the folders from ~/library/application support/elgato/streamdeck (etcā€¦) from my time machine backup. there must be some preference files somewhere else (virtual key allocation, icon associated with each button, etc) because restoring these directories and files made no difference.
Then I went back to restore the 3 profiles I backed up. and this is when I got the stream deck buttons populated but only with the KM default logo and no connection to the Stream Deck.
Iā€™m worried that Iā€™m going to have to start it all againā€¦
Anyone got any experience contacting elgato direct?

138

I recently moved my StreamDeck to a new computer. I copied over:

	"$HOME/Library/Preferences/com.elgato.StreamDeck.plist"

	"$HOME/Library/Application Support/com.elgato.StreamDeck/"

(The second one is a folder) and everything worked as it had on the old computer. And by everything, I mean all profiles and buttons that were linked to Keyboard Maestro macros worked fine.

5 Likes
139

Yes. I believe you need the preferences file.

140

Have you reinstalled the plugins those buttons link to?

2 Likes
141

This worked for me in the past as well

1 Like
142

thanks for all your inputā€¦ Iā€™m getting close I think.

  1. I started stream deck and reinstalled all the plugins I used in the past
  2. I quit Stream Deck then copied over the preference file (the application support folders were already transferred and had the same files and size).
  3. Then I started stream deck ā€¦ and still no joy.
    strange thing is when I checked, the preference file had reset themselves back to 4kb - when the backed up preferences were a 9k file (edit for typo)
    soā€¦ I force quit stream deck using activity monitor and tried again but the sameā€¦
    very strange!

only thing I havenā€™t tried is to reboot the Macā€¦ will try that tomorrow

thanks again everyone for your input - really helpful.

143

update

I found my old profile backup (which only has 2 of the 8 profiles I created) and it seemed to work, partially. at least some of the icons appeared back on the stream deck - no commands worked but I still havenā€™t restored my keyboard maestro macros fully yet so thatā€™s understood.

I noticed the preferences file went up from 4k to 5k - but when I quit everyone and restored the 9k preference file, it made no difference.

144

I realize this isnā€™t helpful now, but under the category of ā€œLessons I Have Learned Myselfā€ ā€” I now have a repeating Due.app reminder for Sunday evenings called ā€œSunday Night Backupsā€ where I always manually backup:

  1. All of my Keyboard Maestro macros individually (this got easier in version 10)
  2. Stream Deck Profiles
  3. All of my calendars (BusyCal makes this easy)
  4. My BBEdit preferences and Application Support folder
  5. Contacts to individual vCards

#4 is probably the least necessary, but I wrote a script that makes it easy, and I have BBEdit set up in a very precise way, so I donā€™t want to lose it.

The others are possible-but-difficult to restore from a full-system backup.

Keyboard Maestro macros are stable, but sometimes Iā€™ll start mucking with one and screw it up (which is dumb because you can easily Duplicate it and muck with the duplicate instead, but sometimes I forget to do that).

6 Likes
145

great advice!

ā€¦I need to do this for your list and a few other things I think fall into the same category.

actually, I did think, last time I migrated to my new shiny 16" top spec M1 MBP, 'Joe, you really need to write down each step of the things you install - in easy to remember ways, because for the life of me, I canā€™t remember things like Lightroom presets etcā€¦

so when I had the urgent crash that needed an overnight wipe and reinstall, I am left scratching around, trying to remember things like thatā€¦

now on my list to do once Iā€™ve got operational again!

andā€¦ I will probably just take time to rebuild my KM / SD setup, backing up all the way!!

thanks for the generous support on this forum! glad I become a member of this community.

1 Like
146

I would add the following to any backup strategy if you use them:

  • hammerspoon config files
  • shell alias files (bashed or equivalent)
  • crontab settings
  • rsa keys? E.g., for ssh. Not sure about this one
  • Raspberry pi or similar (I keep fiddling with mine and donā€™t document what Iā€™ve done terribly well for future me)
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147

I keep my zsh, gitconfig, brew bundle, and other similar files in Git, well worth doing plus it has finally got me to get all my devices in sync!

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148

For someone who has never used Git, any recommendations on how to best learn how to use it?

Thanks.

149

GitHub has a good guide on it.

Oh Sh*t, Git!?! is a good guide for if you screw something up as well (as I have done often).

And finally, Git has an official (I think) book which is also quite handy.

2 Likes