X-KeyPad Reviews

I currently use the X-Touch Mini and the Streamdeck MK.2 for X-Plane. Early on in the beta releases of X-Keypad, I was configuring the X-Touch mini for many of my aircraft. I found X-Keypad to be a godsend. The interface is fairly intuitive. The best thing to do is watch a few of Mark’s youtube videos. The videos will answer close to 95% of your basic needs. Within a few days getting an aircraft configured with many encoders and switches was fairly easy. Occasionally I needed to refer to the help information. Once you get the hang of the process and mechanisms behind the scenes, configuring functions that I needed became easy.

When Mark added support for Streamdeck, that added a whole new realm of possibilities to my Streamdeck adventures. Since I had my Streamdeck MK.2 (15 button box) already mounted in my panel I was limited to configuring the device via basic keyboard mapping. Now “we” have support for actual commands and data refs!

I have numerous circuit breakers configured with flashing icons too.

I’d like to thank Mark for his dedication and support to the X-Plane community! You are certainly a top-notch developer. Thank you… thank you…. thank you…. ;-)

Mike D

This tool has been an absolute godsend, Mark thank you so much for all your time and effort.

Coding via the spreadsheet in the original versions made using the virtual, x-touch made life easier, but since the introduction

of the GUI interface and then Stream decks added, this tool is invaluable!

Anybody still considering buying or not tried the demo version, please don’t hesitate anymore, you wont regret it for one minute

This is the second plugin that I have purchased from Stick and Rudder and there is something refreshingly different about the way these plugins are designed that makes them stand out. Most plugins for XP have what I would call a “command and control” ethos that limits the user to the specific use case envisioned by the developer with no ability to get under the hood of the plugin and make it work slightly differently. Stick and Rudder’s plugins are much more of a sandbox environment where the user is free to manipulate pretty much every variable to make it work *exactly* as they would like unencumbered by the biases of the developer. It’s probably much more difficult to make a plugin like this (i am not a developer so this is speculation) since by opening up every variable to the end user it probably exponentially increases the number of failure pathways in the code. So my first main point is, thank you to Stick and Rudder for making great plugins that let us dream and implement.

Now the plugin itself seems, on the face of it, to be quite straightforward. Take an action you would like to perform in the sim and map it to a piece of hardware outside the sim. I purchased a Stream Deck+ and X-Keypad without thinking too much about what this mapping process might be. Turns out there is a fairly steep learning curve but fortunately there are a lot of excellent video tutorials provided by the plugin author to explain all this. The hardest part, for me, was finding the writeable dataref used by the aircraft so that I could reference it in X-Keypad. The Flight Factor A350, for example, is a list of unlabelled buttons and switches where you have to flip the switch 1000 times in the sim while hunting for the dataref that is changing in response. Once you get it, the process of linking the action to the button and the way the button looks and behaves in X-Keypad is really simple. And I haven’t even scratched the surface of what X-Keypad is capable of with expressions and conditional logic.

Be prepared to learn how it works. It took me a few hours to understand the workflow within X-Keypad but once I successfully mapped a couple of buttons it became nice and comfortable and repetitive. Another couple of hours later I had mapped most of the main buttons in the A350 to my Stream Deck even with the infuriatingly lazy way Flight Factor had failed to label any of the functions in the aircraft.

If you’re prepared to put in a bit of work (or you can find a pre-made configuration for your device) then this plugin is an absolute game-changer for anyone wanting to do less with the mouse and more with their hands during flights.

I use Stream Deck XL and just found this tool and it works perfect for me with X-Plane 12 and ToLiss A319, A320neo. Sould be no problem with A321neao also.

I use this pre configured SD profile: “https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/86896-stream-deck-profile-all-models-incl-plus-for-toliss-a3xx/”.

I exclusively fly in virtual reality (VR), particularly using airliners, and I have been searching for suitable solutions to enhance my experience. After some time, I discovered a solution that exceeded my expectations—X-keypad. Using this software with a X-touch mini completely transformed my VR flying experience. To further enhance functionality, I also acquired a Streamdeck plus and utilized community profiles designed for the X-keypad. With the help of the community, I was able to replicate functions such as push and pull actions in the Airbus 319 and 320 aircraft.

Currently, I am in the process of creating a profile for the Q4XP, and once again, my experience is being revolutionized in VR. I have finally achieved the immersive VR experience I’ve been longing for.

The X-keypad offers an abundance of functionality, and although I have only scratched the surface of its capabilities, I have yet to encounter any function that I am unable to implement. The developer, Mark, is highly responsive on the support forum and actively updates the software, adding new features and support for different devices.

I cannot recommend this software as well as Marks other applications enough.

Incredibly impressed with the depth, functionality and power for configuring every day HID type devices with X-Plane! Came across it when searching for a way to use a G1000 style encoder in X-plane. I found that Marc the developer had just introduced support for the Stream Deck family of devices. The Stream Deck Plus has 4 encoders built in and I picked one up. Within hours and some easily available support and recommendations from Marc, I had the whole thing working! – Inner / Outer knobs, CRSR, MENU, FPL and many more. I’ve since added support for HDG sel, ALT sel, VSI VNAV and other flight control systems including lighting, hydraulics, electronics, engine start and monitoring and so on. The beauty of the SD+ is the ability to also display Numeric Data above the encoders from searchable DataRefs from X-plane. (So I have SEL ALT value display, 2nd function on that encoder VSI, next to that HDG SEL and FMS SPEED). This morning I wanted to setup an alert for the stock 787-800 that flashed a background alert if TOD was less that 5NM and ALT SEL was not updated to below 10,000 ft – created a Logic expression based on the required DataRefs and now its working like a charm. I could go on and on about how great (and fun) this is after spending a few dozen hours setting up my most popular aircraft but you should check it out for yourself to appreciate it. Highly Recommended, Excellent Value, best support I’ve had in any sim product including a Discord with voice support and the X-plane forum. The future is looking bright for X-plane with the help of amazing tools like this.

You can keep it simple or go down the rabbit hole with this plugin: and that’s a good thing.

I’ve been using X-KeyPad with the X-Touch Mini, a Stream Deck XL and a Stream Deck Plus. It’s amazing how well this plugin helped me to create real buttons on my desk to control any aircraft in X-Plane. It just adds to the immersion. And Marc, the creator, was very helpful, adding things to the plugin almost on the fly. All of his plugins are amazing and this one is no exception.

Marc added some basic profiles to het you started, which helps a lot: you either use them or take them apart to learn to create your own profiles. And if you do, share them!