Not only Streamdeck...

[fbosman]

Describe the feature We need a more universal approach to the views. Now it is all based on the sizes of Streamdeck but if we enable more layouts the usibility will increase. The limit of 32 buttons in 4x8 rows is good for Streamdeck but not for instances where we do use the webpage frontends. Also the identification of the buttons in absolute page/number gives a lot of maintenance and possible errors in case of change of layouts.

Proposal:

1. Split the definition of buttons and their place on the board. Design and program the buttons giving them an unique identifier and map these buttons on one or more pages.

2. Losen the sole orientation to Streamdeck and enable variable rows and columns on pages.

3. Enable integrated custom design of the pages so that we can set boxes and text around groups of buttons.

Usecases We love Companion and use it to steer our camera's, Obs and streams. The use of Streamdeck is expensive and not used-friendly in the change of pages. The user loses overview. We need a single view of all out buttons in an ordered way.

[Julusian]

This is very similar to what I have been thinking about.

1. Exactly what I was thinking. Some ui work can be done to hide this separation a lot of the time to make this easier to use.
2. I see this needing more than just columns and rows. I think we should be prepared to support weirder devices too, with more than just buttons. Because of this, I am thinking that each device type will want its own set of pages (maybe exceptions can be made for basic grid devices?), with some tooling to copy pages between devices and do some layout adjustments. The web buttons view should be classed as its own device type which could have a configurable size.
3. This is a harder one, as this is very specific to the web buttons and admin views. But perhaps it can be justified

[nqeldridge]

Another use-case of this would be to allow different controllers to have different pages.

We currently use companion in multiple venues across our campus, often to manage devices all across the campus. Some of these devices only allow one connection at a time, so we use companion on a server and then connect our controller to it using companion remote and a Raspberry Pi. This solves the single connection issue, but since all devices on a companion instance have to have the same pages, it can cause problems from venue to venue. I'd love to see this be an option so that we could use different controllers in different venues or even just have different pages/buttons allocated to different controllers from one instance.

[hadphild]

Do you like the Idea of Tiles like buttons that give the Variable information out on a webpage? These Tiles can be colour coded and Backgrounds using the inbuilt feedback system.

This would be amazing for things like countdowns from Playback systems ETC to BPM in Resolume / Sounddesks.

[premultiply]

I like the concept of having a set of pages with rows and colums (matrix) in general. It's easy and fast to handle and somehow generic and scalable.

Maybe its just a question of mapping the tiles on device layouts to support many other controllers. Displays (#2271) could also be handled as ordinary page with just a huge single tile or multiple tiles as part of a page (like 2x2). Yes, it might be limited compared to full-featured Photoshop, but I think that might not be perfect, but totally acceptable for the use case. ;)

[staticlondon]

I would love to see a new version of the web buttons page where you can edit the HTML and css to style the buttons. Ideally a completely empty page with no rows or columns. You define what buttons you want and style it however you want and it takes the button text and feedback data from Companion.

<button data-id="2.10" class="button2"></button>
<button data-id="1.14" class="button3"></button>
<button data-id="5.2" class="button1"></button>

I currently use a webpage with buttons to trigger Companion actions. It works very well but there's no feedback or real time data.

[peternewman]

2. I see this needing more than just columns and rows. I think we should be prepared to support weirder devices too, with more than just buttons. Because of this, I am thinking that each device type will want its own set of pages (maybe exceptions can be made for basic grid devices?), with some tooling to copy pages between devices and do some layout adjustments.

See https://contour-design.co.uk/collections/multimedia-controller and #2430 for both weird layouts and weird input types!