Though Touch Portal has its own backup mechanism and you can use that to share settings it does take a few clicks and a bit of attention. When you quickly want to share stuff that's not what you want.
I created a few batch files and two buttons to speed things up. Here's my approach.
Well, nothing's ever completely done but WallX now runs smoothly and hasn't crashed on me yet. I've worked on importing files / exporting graphics, faster response to user action, and added some fail safe handling when writing files. Either Windows or some virus scanner was blocking my write access now and again. Also removed a bunch of smaller and larger bugs.
But... what has that to do with Touch Portal?
I like Touch Portal but found the conversion of .ico to something Touch Portal can understand a pain, so I modified WallX a bit to make the process easier.
Touch Portal and OBS Studio are the (low cost) alternative to Elgato's Stream Deck and other Elgato solutions.
This page offers a quick overview of how to install and migrate both apps.
Datatalk + Touch Portal + OBS
Lots of overly long explanations on YouTube. Here's my approach to backup / migrate OBS and TouchPortal settings.
Why doesn't Windows have a, per application, setting to allow that specific application to be brought to the front by other apps and itself? It would save a lot of headaches.
Of course you can buy a Stream Deck. They're actually quite nice and are great to use. Or you could use some software package and turn your tablet or phone into a stream deck. But what if your desk is already full, or you're out of cash? The Shuttle it is then.
Sometimes you want to launch another application from within TouchPortal, and it simply won't work, or behave oddly. I had a lot of troubles launching good old PhotoImpact X3 from TouchPortal, but thank heavens someone in the TouchPortal Discord suggested to use compatibility mode... Pfew!
Here are some things to try...
Touch Portal 3.1 now supports OBS 28. You no longer need to download and install the websocket, but you need to enable it inside OBS 28, and make sure the port is set properly in both Touch Portal and OBS 28 (default 4455)
Upfront: this is a bit of a kludge, and I'll be looking for a better option, as soon as I can find one. But it taught me things...
Anyway, with the ever-increasing price of electricity, I was wondering if I could not simply switch off my home server upon command. In the past, I used a timed-out, which worked fine, but there are other users in my household, and they're not always computer-savvy.
OBS is a nice tool, but it's more focused on streamers (seriously? 😁) than other types of users. I like OBS. I use it to record some presentations, make instruction videos with one or more screens, etc.
Combine OBS with a stream deck (an old tablet with Touch Portal will do) and it's gadget nirvana. Unfortunately OBS wasn't designed for non-streamers, and there isn't a way to force a single instance. Time for some tricks...
Touch Portal is a low-cost alternative to the Stream Deck.
Here's a little example on how to cycle through different pictos when pressing a button.
I've updated immprep.exe, fixing two small bugs, and adding Word (.docx) support. Note that the command line parameters have changed, to allow for more flexibility, and support for other TTS applications (not yet implemented, but it's easier to do now). When working on Word support I ran into a few issues (for the full story and latest version of ImmPrep read on).
Google Chrome has profile support, allowing you to use different 'identities' when browsing the web.
A practical example is to use one account to write a blog, and a second account to test the functionality of that blog with a user name.
To show what this little tool does I decided to create a little video. Which was a little more complicated than expected, and I got distracted along the way 😁
So I learned OBS (to grab the screen), Magic Window (tracking the mouse pointer in OBS), looked at Stream Decks but opted for Touch Portal, added some features to WallX to simplify the handling and creation of icons, then had to learn how to edit videos in HitFilm Express.
I know nothing! Indeed I don't! You are absolutely right!
So, here's a collection of links that are way better than anything I can ever come up with...
(Of course, I added all these links in my Touch Portal setup, so they're only a tap away, but you could just as well store them as links on your desktop. I keep a somewhat curated selection here as well.)
Datatalk + OBS + Virtual Webcam.
WhatsApp doesn't support virtual cams, so to get OBS to work with WhatsApp on your PC takes a few extra steps.
More information here: https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/droidcam-virtual-output.1580/
Step by step instructions in this post.
You can launch Chrome with a specific user profile, but, unfortunately, there's no easy way AFAIK to discern which profile number matches a specific profile name. Here's a. how to figure out the profile number, and b. how to share batch files and scripts over different machines with different profile names.
Why? Because you might use the same website with different profiles, ie. settings, and you don't want to manually log out and in again.
