Jog wheels either won't stop, or don't work | Intech Studio
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Jog wheels either won't stop, or don't work

mayaohmy
mayaohmy · · 8 replies

Hi all! I've long been passionate about expanding creative workflow with hardware. While brand new to MIDI controllers, I'm a longtime Monogram user and got Grid as a Monogram replacement.
I've just gotten my TEK2 and am excited to start incorporating it into my workflow in PSD, Lightroom, 3ds Max, etc. However, I seem to struggle with programming my encoders / jog wheels. After following your mapping tutorial on youtube, I got my jog wheel to turn, but the turning action doesn't stop - at all. For example, I programmed keyboard presses "[" and "]" for changing brush size on Photoshop, but once I turn the wheel slightly to the right, it starts sending the "]" signal without stopping, making my brush infinitely large. What am I doing wrong?
I've then attempted installing the PSD plugin and added Tool parameter for size. However, the only thing it can do is change my brush size to 1. What could be the issue here?
Thanks in advance!

Replies (8)

Hybrid Hybrid ·

Hi @user, welcome aboard! 😃

It sounds like the problem with your wheel action to change brush sizes is that you're sending "keydown" messages without sending the "keyup" message (in other words, it's like you're holding down the [ and ] keys and never letting go, so they keep repeating). Make sure you have the "keydownup" set like in the attached screenshot.

For your problem with the Photoshop Package, can you share some screenshots of your current setup in the grid editor? It's hard to diagnose what is happening without a bit more information...

It can be a bit tricky figuring out the Grid Editor in the beginning but with some patience, you'll get the hang of it!

image.png
mayaohmy mayaohmy ·

Hey hey, thanks for your quick response! Yeah attaching an image of what my setup looks like (no photoshop profile).
I've taken a look at the community configs already, but is there a preset to facilitate logging these commands?

Screenshot_2025-10-04_at_11.18.07_PM.png
mayaohmy mayaohmy ·

ack sorry! here's the photoshop setup. Previously I didn't save the value correctly oops.
But basically I can now get the jog wheel to up the brush size, but when turning left, the brush size is still getting bigger.

image.png
Hybrid Hybrid ·

Thanks for the screenshots, that helps a lot!

is there a preset to facilitate logging these commands?

Presets for logging don't really make sense because it's normally something very specific/unique that you want to log. Instead, it's easy to do by adding a simple code block and then putting a print() command. See the annotated screenshot below for details:

image.png
Hybrid Hybrid ·

I can't see all the code in your if statements but the first thing I'd suggest is that you add an Else block instead of having two If blocks – this is neater because it's always one action or the other and you don't need to recheck the value because if it's not greater than 64, logic tells us it can only be less than or equal to 64. Anyway, aside from that, your code should work to make the brush bigger and smaller. I tested the same thing on my side and it works when you send a relative +5 or -5...

Hybrid Hybrid ·

Normally it's best to use the Photoshop API (ie. the special action blocks from the Photoshop Package) to change things but in this case, I think you might be better using the keyboard shortcuts ([ and ]). The reason is that when you use the keyboard shortcuts to change brush size, the changes are not linear, they're scaled relative to the brush size: when the brush is really small (1-10), it moves 1px at a time. Above 10, it moves 5px at a time, above 50 it's 10px, above 100 it's 25px and so on until it's moving 100px at a time for the large brushes.

If you're used to the way Photoshop behaves when using the shortcuts, it makes sense to get the wheel on the TEK2 to behave the same way. However, you might prefer it to be smooth and constant but then it becomes slower to make big changes. There's no right or wrong answer, just personal preference... Attached is one way to get the keyboard shortcuts to work with the wheel. You might notice that I set the delay to 10ms to make it a bit faster to change. This is a setting that needs to be tweaked and you can read an explanation about that here.

image.png
Hybrid Hybrid ·

PS: In my examples, I have the wheel action inverted so that left/anti-clockwise makes it larger and right/clockwise makes it smaller. This just makes more sense to me because it's like loosening or tightening something in real life but if it's weird for you, just swap the direction of the < to > – ie. change self:endless_value() < 64 to self:endless_value() > 64

kkerti kkerti ·

To add to this, if you turn the jog wheel fast or do a large amount of turning, it may trigger too many times for your preference. To reduce the number of triggers, adjust and experiment with the endless mode's sensitivity option.

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