Stream Deck — built in

Exaplay drives Elgato Stream Decks itself. Plug a deck into the master and set up its keys in Control → Stream Deck. You do not need Companion or any other software.

The keys run your show: play, pause and stop a composition, go to a cue, press a command button, or switch Blank, Show mode, Audio mute and Identify. Every key shows Exaplay's live state. A Play key lights while its composition plays, a cue key while that cue is the current one, and Blank lights while the wall is dark. A key's label can also show the remaining time, the current cue or the time until the next cue.

Built in, or Companion?

Both work, side by side. Use the built-in Stream Deck when the deck hangs on the Exaplay master and drives Exaplay only. Use Companion when one panel also controls lights, cameras or other systems, or when the deck is on another PC. A deck belongs to one of them at a time: close the Elgato Stream Deck app and Companion on the master for a deck that Exaplay drives.

What works

Deck	Keys	Extras
Stream Deck MK.2 (and the 15-key modules)	15
Stream Deck XL (and the 32-key module)	32
Stream Deck Mini (and the 6-key module)	6
Stream Deck +	8	4 dials and the touch strip: volume, opacity or cue stepping per dial
Stream Deck Neo	8	the two touch keys turn the page, and the strip shows the page
Stream Deck Pedal	3 pedals
Stream Deck (2017 model)	15

A deck works on the master (or on a single machine). A client opens no deck. Its keys reach the clients through the master's ordinary sync, like any other command.

1. Plug it in

Plug the deck into the master by USB and close the Elgato Stream Deck app if it runs. Open Control → Stream Deck. A notice says "Stream Deck XL is plugged into the master … and not set up yet". Press Set it up.

You can also prepare a deck before it arrives: Add deck and pick the model.

2. Put jobs on the keys

The deck is drawn as the device. Beside it, the panel Drag onto a key lists what your show has:

• Compositions: Play, Pause, Play / pause, Stop.
• Cues: one entry per cue of every Timeline, one per item of every Playlist.
• Properties: a composition's volume and opacity as starting points, and Any property… — see A key for any value below.
• Command buttons from Control → Custom Controls.
• Show: Blank, Show mode, Audio mute, Identify, Play all, Stop all.
• Deck: next, previous and first page.

Drag an entry onto a key. The key gets the job, a label and a look that fits it. A click on an entry puts it on the selected key, or on the first free one. Drag a key onto another key to swap the two.

3. Fine-tune a key in the Inspector

Click a key. The Inspector shows three cards.

Action

• On press: what the key does. Besides the jobs above it can set a composition's volume or opacity to a value, open a page of this deck, or run one command line. Command lines use the same commands as the TCP API.
• On release (optional): something more when the key is let go. Example: Blank on when pressed and Blank off on release gives a key that keeps the wall dark only while it is held.

A key whose action is not complete yet shows a warning triangle on the drawing and does nothing on the deck. Below the action, Runs shows the command line the engine runs for it.

A key for any value — the Property action sets any inspector property, addressed the way the TCP API spells it:

• Object: what the value belongs to — a composition (comp_main), a clip inside it (comp_main.media3), or system. The list offers the show's compositions; anything else is typed.
• Property: the value's path, for example audio.volume, alpha, mapping.w, mapping.orientation.angle, text.content, realtime.params.u_speed. The list offers the common ones; any property the Inspector shows can be typed.
• Value: as you would type it on a command line — 80, 50%, on, Now boarding. A unit stays, a switch takes on / off.

The key runs object.set:property=value. Example: Object comp_main.media3, Property mapping.w, Value 50% runs comp_main.media3.set:mapping.w=50% and halves the clip's width.

Look

• Label: one or two short lines. The text size fits the key unless you pick a size.

• Placeholders for live text:

  Placeholder	Shows
  {name}	the composition's name
  {state}	Playing, Paused or Stopped
  {time}	the elapsed time (a Playlist: of the current item)
  {remaining}	the time left (a Timeline: to its end; a Playlist: of the item)
  {cue}	the current cue
  {next}	the time until the next cue
  {page}	the name of the page the deck shows

  The composition is the one the key's action names. Exaplay shows "–" until it knows the value, never a made-up 0:00.

• Background and Text colour.

• Icon: one of the built-in symbols, or a picture of your own. With a label, the icon sits above it. Without a label it fills the key.

Lights up

• Automatic (the default): the key lights when its action is in effect. A Play key lights while the composition plays, Pause while it is paused, a cue key while that cue is current, a switch while it is on, and a command button while its sequence runs.
• You can pick another state or Never.
• Lit look: an amber frame (the default), or a colour and label of its own. Blank is set up red with BLANK this way.

Copy, Paste and Clear sit under the cards.

Key style

Click the deck's chip above the drawing. Key style in the Inspector decides how a key looks when you put a job on it:

• Colours (the default): a coloured key with the job written on it, for example a green Play Main Show.
• Exaplay: Exaplay's own dark look. The job is an icon in Exaplay's colours: green Play, amber Pause, red Blank, a blue marker for a cue. The composition's or cue's name is under it. While a key is lit, it is filled with its icon's colour.

When you switch the style, Exaplay offers to restyle the keys already on the deck. Their colours, icons and lit look change. Every job and every label you typed stay. Choose Cancel to keep them as they are; new keys take the style either way.

Pages

A deck can have up to 32 pages. They are the tabs above the drawing, and + adds one. Put a Next page key on each page, or use a Neo's touch keys or a swipe on the Stream Deck +, to page through them. A dot on a tab shows which page the deck shows right now. Name, move, duplicate and remove pages in the Inspector with nothing selected.

The page the deck shows is not saved in the show. After a restart every deck starts on its first page.

The Stream Deck +

Click a dial or its part of the touch strip. Each dial has:

• a Label shown on the strip,
• Turning: change a composition's volume or opacity (choose how much per click), step through its cues, or change any property — the same Object and Property as a Property key, a step per click and the range the value stays in (a rotation: step 5, range 0 to 360). The engine reads the value before the first turn, so the dial continues from where the value is,
• Pressing: any action a key can have, for example Audio mute or Play / pause.

The strip shows each dial's label and its current value.

Several decks

Add as many decks as you need, up to 8. Which deck in the Inspector ties a setup to one physical deck by its serial number. Any free deck takes the first deck that no other setup has claimed. Use it when the show moves between machines with different decks.

Find a key by pressing it

Switch on Pick a key by pressing it on the deck under the drawing. Press a key on the real deck and the Inspector opens that key. Keys you press are also drawn pressed while you hold them.

Good to know

• Brightness and In use (Exaplay drives this deck, or leaves it alone) are in the Inspector with nothing selected.
• Removing a deck from the show, switching it off, or closing Exaplay sets the deck back to the Elgato logo.
• A key does nothing while a project loads.
• What a key did appears in Control → Monitor as Stream Deck.
• If Exaplay cannot open a deck, its chip turns red and the Inspector says why. Usually another program holds it: close the Elgato app or Companion on the master.