Aaaaah! Now that's interesting. I'm glad I made this post. Thanks for your answer!
Now that I know what "layers" are, I really would like to make some suggestions for changing how the program works, which I think would really help people more intuitively understand what layers are and how they work.
This is going to sound pretty radical and drastic, but please hear me out because I think this might be worth considering, and I make all these suggestions very humbly for your consideration…
Firstly, get rid of the word "layers" completely. It may be that the word "layer" is a widely understood term in the world of controls? But I'm not personally familiar with it and I don't think everyone else will be either. Instead, "Layers" are now simply called "Control sets".
Next, you get rid of all the "Layer" tabs along the top, and instead just have three simple tabs: "Mouse buttons", "Scrolling" and "Other options".
Next (here's the drastic change). The layers ("control sets") are now incorporated into the Profiles window on the left. So, currently, you have just one entry per application, with a tickbox next to it. Instead: each application now has a simple title bar (with no tickbox). And under that bar - indented - you'd have the list of control sets for that application. (Which could possibly be collapsible?)
The first control set entry under each application says "Default control set". Then when you add a new control set, an entry appears such as "Controls triggered by holding SHIFT" or "Controls triggered by pressing F3". (Numbering isn't needed at all.)
Then at the bottom, instead of just an "Add" button, you now have both "Add application", and "Add control set" buttons. When you press "Add control set" a new entry appears under the application, which at first says "Controls triggered with [no key assigned yet]"
The other big change is that the modifier keys are no longer accessed in the settings. Now, when you add a "control set" to an application, quite simply, a fourth tab appears called "Trigger key". (So the tabs, in order are: "Trigger key", "Mouse buttons", "Scrolling" and "Other options".)
Here are a few advantages of this idea…
1. Having the "control sets" on the left, alongside the profiles, means that you'd now get a clear, visual representation of the hierarchical relationship between application profiles and layers. (Currently I find this extremely unclear and rather confusing - it took a bit of head-scratching to figure this out!)
2. Another thing I found really confusing is that the trigger keys are ESSENTIAL to make the layers work, yet the modifier keys hidden away in the settings - apparently not that important. Now, the all-important trigger keys would be accessible right there in the application.
3. Modifier keys are no longer globally fixed, so you can add them, remove them, and change them as you wish, tailoring them to each application. No need for "layer numbering". If you want one application to have a second layer triggered with Shift key, and another application to have a second layer triggered with Ctrl - no problem. You just set up those two control sets, and no worrying about how they relate to each other, or global keys, because they are completely independent.
4. Another minor benefit is that now the scrolling options tab, and the "options" tab, are all layer-specific.
Well, please take all this as only a humble suggestion. Admittedly, I'm not too familiar with your software yet (less than 24 hours since I installed it) and it's possible that some of these suggestions may be based on fundamental ignorance or naivety about how things work. But hopefully this was interesting, and if nothing else has pointed out certain areas that are currently confusing.
It strikes me that I had read the manual, and even I had failed to grasp that actually your software offers functions that I didn't know about. Certainly, not everyone would get this straight away, and I think it's important to make that functionality nice and clear, so people can see it's possible, and how it works. The more intuitive your software is to use, the more people will use it.
Incidentally, I don't think I will be using layers as a replacement for Volumouse, for two reasons: First and foremost, the volume speed is too slow I'm afraid (Volumouse lets me go up/down 8 at a time). Also, whenever I change layer I get a message pop up in the corner of Windows saying "activating layer 2" - I would find this irritating every time I changed volume. (Another problem I had was that every time I tried to change volume, the focus would jump back to the XMBC window - but I realised I need to close it to the tray and then this won't happen.)
Cheers
