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Shortcuts and Macros

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AndyVillatoro edited this page Sep 6, 2026 · 1 revision

Shortcuts and macros

Two ways for a button to type: send one combination, or replay a recorded sequence.

Keyboard shortcuts inside VirtualDeck

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+K Find any button
Ctrl+Z Undo the last change
1 … 8 Go to page N
Esc Close whatever is open: search, editor, fullscreen
Ctrl+click Select several buttons
Ctrl+V With the editor open: paste an image from the clipboard as the background

Sending a combination

The Hotkey action sends a combination to whatever window is in the foreground. Write it as you read it: Ctrl+C, Alt+Tab, Ctrl+Shift+Esc, Win+D.

VirtualDeck drops focus from its own window first, so the keystroke reaches the app you were working in rather than itself.

Global OS hotkey

In any button's Configure step, the EXTERNAL TRIGGERS section lets you assign a system-wide combination such as Ctrl+Alt+1. It works whether VirtualDeck is on screen or hidden in the tray.

In that same section, show in tray menu adds the button to the tray icon's menu as a quick action.

A button fired either way does exactly what a mouse click does: it respects the toggle, the radio group, the action chain and the variables.

virtualdeck:// links

Anything that can open a URL can press a deck button: a desktop shortcut, a Windows scheduled task, a .bat file, or another application.

Link What it does
virtualdeck://press/<id> Presses the button with that id
virtualdeck://press?label=Spotify Presses the first button with that label
virtualdeck://page/2 Switches to page 2 (the first one is 1)
virtualdeck://show Brings the window to the front

Label lookup ignores case and accents: musica finds a button named "Música".

From a console or a .bat:

start "" "virtualdeck://press?label=Streaming Mode"

If VirtualDeck was not running, the link starts it and then runs the command. If it was, the second copy closes itself and hands the command to the one already running: there is never more than one VirtualDeck at a time.

A button triggered by a link does exactly the same as one pressed with the mouse.

Local server (HTTP)

For anything that already speaks HTTP — Home Assistant, a script on another machine, another panel — there is a built-in server. It ships disabled: turn it on in ⚙ → LOCAL SERVER (HTTP), which also generates the token.

Route What it does
GET /api/ping Checks it is alive. No token needed
GET /api/buttons Lists buttons that have an action: id, label, page
GET /api/press/<id> Presses that button
GET /api/press?label=<label> Presses the first one with that label
GET /api/page/<n> Switches page

The token goes in the X-VD-Token header, never in the address. Any web page you visit can cause a request to 127.0.0.1 just by embedding an image, and if the token travelled in the URL, guessing it once would be enough. A custom header forces the browser to ask permission first, and VirtualDeck does not grant it.

curl -H "X-VD-Token: YOUR_TOKEN" http://127.0.0.1:8787/api/press/0-3

The phone remote

The server also serves a page meant for a phone. With ALLOW LOCAL NETWORK turned on:

  1. In VirtualDeck, ⚙ → LOCAL SERVER → PAIR PHONE. A six-digit code and the address to type appear.
  2. On the phone, open that address (http://<ip>:8787) and type the code.
  3. The button grid shows up. Tapping one lights its border if the deck ran it, or turns it red if something failed.

Pairing never puts the token in a link: the phone types a short address and the code crosses once. A link carrying the token would have stayed in the browser history and in any screenshot. The code lasts five minutes, allows five attempts, and is spent once it works.

To unpair a phone: NEW TOKEN in settings. Any paired phone will ask for a code again next time.

Opening it to the local network

With ALLOW LOCAL NETWORK off, the server only answers this computer. On, it answers anyone on your network holding the token.

Be clear about what that means: the connection is not encrypted and a button can run scripts. Fine for a home network; not for a shared or public one.

Macros

A macro is a list of steps: keys, clicks, mouse movements, wheel and pauses.

Recording one

The editor's RECORD button captures the whole system's keyboard and mouse until you press STOP.

  • Modifiers are recorded with the key: pressing Ctrl+C leaves a single step, Ctrl+C, not two.
  • Clicks on the VirtualDeck window are not recorded. Those belong to the recorder, not to the macro. So if you only click in here, the recording comes out empty — and it says so.
  • Pauses between keystrokes are kept as you made them.

Writing or editing one by hand

Every step can be edited, reordered and deleted. The types are:

Step What it does
Key A single key: a, 5, {ENTER}, {F5}
Combination With modifiers: Ctrl+C, Alt+Tab
Text Types a whole string
Mouse click At screen coordinates, left, right or middle button
Move mouse Sends the cursor to coordinates
Scroll Wheel up or down
Pause Waits the given milliseconds

Named keys go in braces: {ENTER}, {TAB}, {ESC}, {BACKSPACE}, {DELETE}, {UP}, {DOWN}, {LEFT}, {RIGHT}, {HOME}, {END}, {PGUP}, {PGDN} and {F1} through {F24}.

Repeating

The repeat field runs the whole macro N times in a row.

Which one to use

  • A combination that already exists in another program → Hotkey.
  • A multi-step sequence, with waits or with the mouse → Macro.
  • Launching something that is not keyboard input (a program, a website, a script) → the matching action; see Actions.

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