Binding and output reference

A preset is a list of bindings, and every binding has three parts. The input is the control you touch: a gamepad button, a stick, a key, a knob, a region of the screen. The output is what the Mac receives. A row can hold more than one output, which is how a single button sends Cmd and C together as a real combination. The options underneath decide whether a press is a tap, a hold, a double tap, a latch, a repeat, or something that only fires while another button is held.

You do not need to know what a control is called. Press Scan on the row and then touch the control, and InputConfig fills the row in with whatever it detected the instant you touch it. Scan reads a gamepad button or axis, a key on your Mac's keyboard, a click or a scroll, and a note or a knob on a MIDI device. Version 1.4 added the cases it used to miss: a modifier key pressed on its own, including Shift, Control, Option, Command and the fn / Globe key, plus the right Command key and F16 through F19.

Rows stay in the order you put them in. Drag the handle at the left of a row to move it, which also arrived in 1.4.

Keyboard, mouse, and trackpad input all arrive through the Accessibility permission alone. InputConfig does not use Input Monitoring and asks for no second prompt.

A preset built only from the trackpad, a cursor region, or a Mac tap runs with no controller connected at all, which was fixed in 1.4.

All five MIDI outputs leave the Mac through a virtual port named InputConfig, which any DAW sees as an input with no extra setup. The details are on the MIDI page.

App actions

Set a row's output type to App Action and pick one of seven: Activate Preset, Next Preset, Previous Preset, Deactivate, Pause / Resume Outputs, Pause Motion While Held, and Emergency Stop (release everything). The last two arrived in 1.4.

Pause Motion While Held stops motion aim while a button is down, so you can swing the controller back to a comfortable angle without dragging the pointer, the way you lift a mouse off the desk.

Emergency Stop halts the mapping engine, releases every key, mouse button, and MIDI note it is holding, and gives the pointer back. It only ever stops, never starts. It is also a system-wide keyboard shortcut, a button in the menu bar, and a two-second hold on Home, PS, or Guide. That hold works no matter what the active preset maps that button to, and it is watched on every connected controller, so a preset that has taken over the keyboard and mouse can always be escaped from the controller in your hands.

Three more things a press can do

These are not output types. They are switches inside a row's Options, and they fire alongside whatever the row already sends.

• Macro sequence. A list of steps, each with its own delay before it and its own hold time. A Hold down step keeps its key held while the following steps run, which is how a macro produces a real chord, and a Release step lets it go. Turn on Stop on release to interrupt the sequence when you let go of the control. While a row has macro steps, the macro takes over: it fires instead of the row's normal outputs.
• Spoken phrase. The binding speaks a phrase when it fires. Leave the phrase blank and it speaks the input's name instead. Speech plays through whatever audio output your Mac is currently using. If you want it in a controller speaker, choose that controller as the output in System Settings, Sound.
• Haptic feedback. Vibration on press, with a strength slider. Controllers with full Core Haptics support vibrate, and controllers with only basic rumble motors are skipped.

System functions fire on press and have no release half, so they suit a tap rather than a hold. That also makes them a good match for a MIDI knob set to Turn mode, which the MIDI page covers.

For volume there is a second option that is not a system function. System Volume (follows input) is its own output type, and it makes the Mac's level track a trigger, a stick, or a MIDI control one to one. It does not grab the volume the moment a preset activates. Instead it records where the control is resting at that moment and stays quiet until the control has moved about 2 percent of its travel from that baseline. Moving the control is the consent.

The dictation key is the other one people hunt for, and it does not need a key output at all. Use the System Function output and pick Start Dictation from the Accessibility group.