Open Contour Shuttle

A multiplatform userland driver, configuration editor, event manager & generator for Contour ShuttleXpress & ShuttlePRO v2.

Status

Proof of concept!

Welcoming any contributions, especially:

• comments
• tests: particularly on platforms other than Microsoft Windows or versions earlier than 11
• implement currently unsupported hardware:
  • ShuttlePRO v2

Features / TODO list

• Device support

  • ShuttleXpress
  • (WIP) ShuttlePRO v2

• Platform support

  • Microsoft Windows
    • GUI
    • Tray icon shortcut to GUI
    • Run as a windows service?
    • Add configurator to control panel?
  • Apple Mac OS X
  • GNU/Linux
  • Android?
  • Apple iOS/iPadOS?

• State management engine

  • Find and open device
    • USB HID via hidapi
  • Decode raw values
    • Observer pattern Events
  • (WIP) Central broker
  • Responders plugin system

• (WIP) GUI

  • Qt6 via PySide6
  • Main window
  • Icon
  • Title
  • System tray icon
  • Display state graphically
  • Status
    • Connection
    • Events
  • Menu?
  • About window
  • Log window
    • Aggregate & display logs
    • Clear logs
    • Write logs to file
  • Configuration UI
    • Generate configurations
    • Load existing configurations
    • Write/Store configurations
  • Emulation mode when no hardware is connected
  • Separate from the engine
  • Custom graphical widgets?
    • Wheel (Rotating image with color tick)
    • Dial (Rotating image)
    • Button (Depict depressed state)

Events

State changes.

• USB:
  • connected
  • disconnected
• Buttons 1 to 5:
  • press
  • release
• Wheel:
  • centered (position 0)
  • position change (-7 to 7)
  • direction: up
  • direction: down
• Dial:
  • direction: up
  • direction: down
  • absolute position (0 to 255)

Observers

Gets notified upon events

• GUI
• (WIP) Responder plugins Broker

Broker

Maps events observation to responses depending on the current configuration and available responder plugins.

• Configuration system

  • Formats support
    • Custom?
      • Comments
    • Official driver configurations
      • Parse
      • Generate
  • macros (generate multiple events)

• Responder plugins

  • API specification
  • Sample implementation

• runtime profiles support

  • configure multiple profiles
    • default global
    • named
      • (optional) linked to one or more specific external states:
        • application in focus
        • current desktop/monitor?
        • session/user?
        • external trigger event?
  • (auto?) switch profiles dynamically
    • using buttons
    • detect running application
      • Microsoft Windows
        • win32ui
      • Mac OS X
      • GNU/Linux

Responders

Plugin based system.

Generates external events triggered by the broker.

• (POC) generate keyboard strokes and/or modifiers

  • SendKeys?
  • pywin32 shell.SendKeys?
  • (POC) pynput! (Also support mouse)
  • Frequency (Once/Hold…)

• (POC) generate mouse events

  • (POC) pynput! (Also support mouse)
  • click
  • wheel

• generate MIDI

  • Arbitrary (User defined)
  • MCU compatible
  • HUI compatible

• generate OSC

• call APIs?

• launch applications

  • ?

Contour format settings

May be used as samples for interoperability.

Contour

• Microsoft Windows
• Mac OS X

GitHub

• ShuttleProSettings
  • Camtasia Studio 8 Microsoft Windows
  • Reaper Apple Mac OS X
• camtasia-shuttlepro-settings
  • Camtasia Studio 9 Microsoft Windows

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Development log

Finding the right library for Microsoft Windows

Attempt 1

Using pyUSB

Can’t access device without a kernel driver.

Kernel driver has been generated using libusb-win32, but you need to disable driver signature enforcement before installing.

The easier way is to use Zadig.

Attempt 2

Using pyWinUSB

Can get HID without driver installation on Microsoft Windows!

Let’s continue…

Success!

But...

Attempt 3

Using cython-hidapi

Crossplatform (Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux)

Success on Microsoft Windows without prior driver installation! Hope it’s the same on other platforms.

Building a GUI

PySide6 (QT6)

Prototype UI done

Exploring patterns

Settled for an observer pattern with a central broker and separate plugin based responders.

Legal notice

License

Copyright 2021 Raphaël Doursenaud

This software is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 3.0 or later (GPL-3.0-or-later).

See LICENSE.

Dependencies & License Acknowledgment

• Python v3.10
  Used under the terms of the PSF License Agreement.
• libusb hidapi
  Copyright Alan Ott, Signal 11 Software.
  Used under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 3.0 (GPL-3.0).
• via Trezor cython-hidapi
  Copyright Pavol Rusnak, SatoshiLabs.
  Used under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 3.0 (GPL-3.0).
• Qt PySide6
  Used under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 (LGPL-3.0).
• UN-GCPDS Qt-Material
  Used under the BSD-2-Clause License.
• Material Design Icons
  Used under the Pictogrammers Free License.

Trademarks

Contour, ShuttleXpress and ShuttlePro are trademarks of Contour Innovations LLC in the United States of America.

These are not registered or active trademarks in the European Union and France where I reside.

Other

Other trademarks are property of their respective owners and used fairly for descriptive and nominative purposes only.