Feature Request: Only Grab Some devices

[michaelphagen]

I'd love to be able to pick what devices are grabbed, for example I want to use my keyboard but I want my mouse to act normally. It would be great to be able to specify which device or class of device (omit joystick, in my case) should be grabbed or not grabbed.

[gethiox]

Sorry for my late response.
I'll assume you're using HIDI standalone mode under your main OS. Standalone mode preserves one keyboard as your system input, but if I understand you correctly you want to use your only keyboard as an MIDI device, so running HIDI without standalone mode should do the work.

but I want my mouse to act normally.

that's weird, pointing devices (REL events) should be not picked up by HIDI, unless it's some kind of touchpad that exposes ABS events and may be interpreted as a gamepad by HIDI.

But I don't want to guess what your setup is, I'm trying to understand underlying problem.
Could you describe more precisely how your setup looks like? Is it a laptop with one keyboard and one touchpad/mouse? Do you want to use your main keyboard as a MIDI device or do you have additional ones?
By the way, some device blacklist configuration file should be relatively easy to implement.

[michaelphagen]

I have a laptop (Framework 13, AMD Variant) that I use for music production, and since I don't take my midi keyboard with me everywhere I'd love to have a way to use my laptop keyboard as a customized midi input device.

Currently HIDI works for this, but when I use the -grab flag so that my keypresses aren't controlling ableton, it also grabs my mouse (claiming it's a joystick). I'd like to use my mouse to mess with VST parameters while playing, so a blacklist would be great!

[gethiox]

Thank you for the description, I'll assume you're aware of "caps lock" mode in ableton and it isn't sufficient for you. I think the best for such setups it would be to add another external computer keyboard and use that as a MIDI controller for ableton with HIDI.

However, blacklist capability added in 1.3.0 Release. Let me know when you will encounter any problems or there is still something missing for your usecase.

There should be a new file device blacklist.txt available under config folder after first run, all needed information how to use it is there.

Cheers!

[michaelphagen]

Are you refering to the computer midi keyboard? I don't believe that has anything to do with caps lock, but perhaps I'm mistaken. I know that you can map the caps locked keyboard to midi functions in ableton, but that's for parameter automation, not playing like a keyboard afaik. I should have mentioned that that was the goal for the midi device.

The blacklist is totally working, though ableton will only take input from the HIDI device if it's running when I start ableton. If I quit the program to use my keyboard and start it again later, input doesn't work. Not an issue with this project, it seems more like an issue using ableton through wine.

I'll keep looking, ultimately it may be better for me to look into projects that remap the whole keyboard with different layers for typing and for midi input, since that would run all the time. I'm essentially trying to replicate QMK functionality, I realize.

[gethiox]

I don't believe that has anything to do with caps lock, but perhaps I'm mistaken. I know that you can map the caps locked keyboard to midi functions in ableton, but that's for parameter automation, not playing like a keyboard afaik

Didn't know that, I thought it was working like MIDI keyboard mode just like in Bitwig, nevermind then.

Not an issue with this project, it seems more like an issue using ableton through wine.

I highly doubt it, ALSA driver implementation in HIDI is very dirty, if works when it works, but I wouldn't expect a pleasant user experience with that.

I'll keep looking, ultimately it may be better for me to look into projects that remap the whole keyboard with different layers for typing and for midi input, since that would run all the time. I'm essentially trying to replicate QMK functionality, I realize.

I hope you'll find something that suits your needs.
Technically it should be possible to map some key/shortcut to switch between computer keyboard input mode and MIDI keyboard mode (grab keyboard exclusively for that moment) in HIDI. However, it would require a bit more work, but I'm not sure if it is something that you would be interested in.
In general it sounds like a decent feature for people who just want to use one computer keyboard at the time.

[michaelphagen]

It's similar, but you can't customize the mapping like you can with HIDI. M is the toggle key for the midi keyboard in ableton instead of caps in bitwig.

Mapping a key/shortcut (caps lock was my original thought) to switch between the 2Computer keyboard input mode and MIDI keyboard mode is exactly what I was looking to do when I started looking for a solution. That would be amazing!

Also I don't see this as a reasonable request for me to ask of this project, but for clarity this is the full original idea. I'd like to be able to use my computer keyboard as a midi keyboard in either a regular keyboard mode (which is exactly like the default config for HIDI) OR as a midi grid like my novation launchpad. I included a screenshot below showing what the mapping would be in midi grid mode for a major scale

In this mode the a-z keys are mapped diatonicaly (making it easy to play chords on the diagonals) and use the F keys to switch the scale. You can shift by semitones or octaves, and pressing enter toggles between this "grid mode" and the regular keyboard mode that HIDI currently defaults to.

In terms of implementation, I think this would require both a key/shortcut to switch between keyboard input mode and midi keyboard mode, and the ability to load different configs on the fly. Again, not a reasonable request for me to ask of the project, but I wanted to make it clear what I'm trying to do.