Alright, so let me tell you about this little thing I’ve been tinkering with, this “stricker caddie” project. It’s nothing groundbreaking, you know, but it’s something I actually built and use, which is more than I can say for half the grand ideas I get.
It all started ‘cause I’m a massive slob when it comes to my gaming setups. Specifically, my fight sticks. I’ve got a couple of ‘em, and I like to mess around with button layouts for different games, sometimes even different characters. My so-called “strickers” – that’s what I call the custom button configs or mappings. Sounds cooler than just “layout,” right? Anyway, trying to remember which setup was for what game, or what that one specific button did in that one specific scenario… total nightmare.
My early attempts to keep track were a joke. Seriously.
- Sticky notes all over my desk, my monitor, even on the stick itself. They’d fall off, get lost, or the cat would decide they were a new toy.
- Scraps of paper with cryptic scribbles that made sense for about five minutes. A week later, it looked like ancient hieroglyphics.
- Text files on my computer. Which folder did I put that in again? Was it `fightstick_layouts_*` or `strickers_new_v3_*`? You get the picture. A complete mess.
I looked around for apps, of course. Figured someone must have made something simple for this. But nah. Everything I found was either way too overblown, like it was designed for managing a space mission, or it was just plain ugly and clunky. Some things just want your data, too. No thanks.
So, one evening, after losing a match because I forgot my parry button on a new layout, I just thought, “Screw it, I’ll make my own.” How hard could it be to make a simple thing to just store some text and maybe an image? Famous last words, as always when you start a project, eh?
I didn’t want to get bogged down in learning some crazy new programming language or framework. Keep it simple, stupid, that was the motto. I poked around with some basic app-building tools I already kinda knew. The goal wasn’t to sell this thing or win awards; it was to solve my own damn problem. My very own stricker caddie.
The first few versions were, uh, functional. And that’s being generous. Looked like something from the nineties. Getting the data to save and load correctly without corrupting itself was the first big hurdle. I swear, I spent a whole night just trying to figure out why my saved layouts kept disappearing or showing up garbled. Turns out, it was some dumb little mistake I kept overlooking. Always is, isn’t it?
Then came making it not look like a pile of garbage. I’m no designer, that’s for sure. I just wanted something clean, something where I could quickly see the name of the layout, maybe a little picture I could draw or upload of the stick, and some notes. Making the interface intuitive enough so I wouldn’t need a manual for my own app was another little battle. It’s funny how the simplest-looking things can be a real pain to actually build right.
There were definitely moments I just wanted to toss the whole idea. Especially when I tried to add a feature to quickly duplicate a layout and tweak it. Sounds easy, but for some reason, it kept messing up the original, or the copy would be all wrong. Classic me, overcomplicating things probably.
But, bit by bit, after plenty of evenings filled with more coffee than code, I got something that actually, you know, works for me. It’s super basic. No fancy cloud sync, no sharing features, none of that stuff the pros would put in. It just sits there on my computer, holds my stricker configurations, and I can pull them up when I need ‘em. That’s it. My personal digital caddie for my button mashing.
Is it perfect? Hell no. Is it pretty? Debatable. But it does the job I built it for. It stops me from scribbling on sticky notes like a madman, and that’s a win in my book. Maybe one day I’ll add a way to time my combo practice or something. Or maybe I’ll just leave it as is. For now, this stricker caddie is my trusty little helper. And honestly, building it was a good reminder that sometimes, if you want something done right (or at least, done your way), you’ve just gotta do it yourself, even if it’s a bit rough around the edges.
