NetworkFixIT · Macropod guide
Set up the cockpit
Cloak physical sticks, name your devices, whitelist a game exe, wire HID shift states.
Cockpit is where Macropod meets the hardware on your desk. Each connected stick needs a friendly name before Macropod can bind it or HidHide can cloak it; that is the one thing you cannot skip. The State card shows what HidHide and vJoy are doing right now. Whitelisting an exe gives a specific app permission to see the real sticks even with cloaking on. The HID Shift States Translator wires one stick's modifier output to other sticks for VKB and virpil-style rigs. Walk through the steps once on first launch, again whenever new hardware joins the rig.
Read the State card
Open Cockpit. The State card at the top tells you what Macropod is working with: HidHide install status and version, vJoy detection (device id + how many HID interfaces it exposes), the Cloak toggle, and the Inverse list (whitelist / blacklist) toggle. Flip Cloak on and games see only the vJoy device plus your keyboard and mouse; physical sticks are invisible. Flip it off when a non-Macropod app needs the real hardware again. The Inverse list toggle below switches whitelist behaviour: with it off (default), apps you list are allowed to see your hidden devices. If HidHide is not installed yet, the same card has Browse / Re-check controls plus an Install HidHide button that pulls the latest signed installer.
State card: HidHide, vJoy, Cloak, Inverse list. Pick devices to hide and name them
Below the State card, Cockpit lists every connected HID. Each row has a per-device hide toggle and a name field. The name is what lets Macropod bind macros to that device; an unnamed device cannot be picked as a trigger source. Type the name your hands actually use ("left stick", "right pedals", "rudder") and flip the per-device toggle on if you also want HidHide to cloak it from games. Names persist across reconnects and show up everywhere bindings are listed, so the binding page stops being a wall of hex.
Per-device hide toggle and name field. Whitelist a game exe
Some apps need the real sticks even with cloaking on. The mass-mapper inside your favourite sim, OBS for stream overlays, a HOTAS calibration utility. Open the HidHide section, click Add .exe, pick the executable. That process bypasses the cloak; everything else still sees only vJoy.
Adding an .exe to the HidHide whitelist. Wire HID shift states
Some HOTAS controllers (VKB, virpil) expose modifier states on a separate logical device, so a shift button on the master changes what every other button means. The HID Shift States Translator wires that master's shift word to one or more slave devices. Pick the master in the dropdown, add the sticks you want as slaves, save. Now a single shift button on the master changes the binding meaning across the whole rig, without each stick needing its own shift hardware.
HID Shift States Translator with master and slaves.
Cockpit setup is a one-time pass per machine. The cloak state, device names, exe whitelist, and shift wiring all persist in the encrypted local DB and survive reboots. Migrating to another PC carries the device names and shift config; the HidHide whitelist is system-level and does not travel.