Keyboards & Joysticks

Macula Monitor offers a set of keyboard shortcuts for most interface controls and operations, and also gives you the option to re-program every single key combination, allowing you to assign your own key combinations to every available operation (action). This is true not only for the standard computer keyboards, but also for PTZ keyboards and joystick controllers.

The controller device should be DirectShow compatible in order to be recognized in Macula Monitor.

All keyboards connected to the Macula Monitor station are automatically detected and listed as available for shortcut configuration; the list of default shortcut mappings is also attached automatically, if it is available for the target controller. For PTZ keyboards, joystick functionality is not listed but it is implied that all joysticks have the same behavior, which includes pan and tilt on X and Y axes and zoom on Z axis. If you wish to calibrate your joystick before using it in Macula Monitor, please go to the Windows Control Panel and find your device under Devices (Devices and Printers section).

In order to view and edit the shortcuts, go to the Macula Monitor main menu -> Edit -> Command mapping.

From the Devices drop-down list, choose the keyboard you wish to configure the shortcuts for; if your device is not in the list, make sure that it is connected to the server and that its driver has been installed correctly. Some devices, such as standard keyboards, have an extended pre-configured (default) set of command shortcuts covering almost all the available actions; generic ones have either no default configuration or shortcuts for calling first ten presets of a PTZ-capable camera.

In order to change shortcut mapping and replace it with your own key or key combination, simply double-click the target command and enter your desired key combination from the keyboard. A minimum of one and a maximum of four keys is expected for the standard keyboard, and a maximum of two keys - for PTZ keyboards or joysticks. If the entered key or key combination is already used somewhere else, you will be prompted to either confirm the new mapping or discard the changes and pick another shortcut.

Use the Load Defaults button in the bottom-left-hand corner if you wish to discard all changes for the currently selected controller and load default configuration instead.

When you have finished with the shortcut configuration, click Save to confirm all changes and close the dialog box.

Quick Access Items

As it is not possible to enter letters from the CCTV keyboard, you cannot search channels and other resources by names. Instead, Macula provides an option to assign numeric values to the server resources, thus enabling pure numeric search in Macula Monitor. Please contact your administrator to setup an option in %console%.

Quick Search

After configuring the quick access items, you can use the CCTV keyboard to put them on the workstation screens. For this, press the Cam (Set) button on the keyboard: a dialog window will pop up, allowing you to enter [partial] names, and search for and filter channels and other resources.

To simplify quick search, you can use filters:

• Quick access: search via Quick Access ID

• Title: search by resource or item name

• Id: search by global system ID

The popup logic is as follows:

• the viewport with the selection (yellow frame) is filled by the selected channel when the quick popup command is activated

• if there is no selection, the first empty viewport on the primary screen is filled (including playback)

• to control where the next channel goes, move the selection (yellow frame) with the next/previous screen/window buttons, then call the quick popup window, search for the channel by entering its quick access ID and then confirming it

If necessary, use the filters in the top right corner to limit the search scope. These can be set with a mouse (define the filters and then run the search once for the filter state to be saved).

Command Mapping

Many commands are already pre-bound for the keyboard buttons, and they can be re-assigned, if desired. The joystick is used for PTZ.

To change the hotkey functions, go to the Macula Monitor main menu Edit > Command mapping. Choose a command, then press the button on the keyboard.

Consider that the Numpad is reserved for entering Unicode characters, so you can't map the hotkey combinations to it.