Metagrid while it communicates with Cubase via the Remote Devices (and thus midi), it functions more like a huge computer keyboard with the ability to have an unlimited (?) number of keys/buttons. When you create a new button you can set it to execute one or more Cubase Key Commands. It will execute Key Commands that have keystrokes assigned to them and also those that don’t. But in every case it behaves just like typing one or more assigned keys on your computer keyboard. It apparently has no knowledge about what window currently has focus (although it does know what program has focus). It issues commands in the context of the currently focused window. If you assigned a button to the ‘close’ command, that button will behave just like ctrl+w. If the current focus is the Project Window it will close the whole Project. If the focus is any other window, then that window would close.
When you add a command to a Metagrid button it opens a list to choose from that mirrors what you see in Cubase’s Key Command window (including any Cubase Macros, Logical Editor Presets etc. you’ve created). There are some new features recently added that I haven’t explored yet.
That said even if Metagrid did not exist there is still a problem in how regular old Key Command behavior is dependent on which window has focus. Pretty much every day I’ll type a keystroke, wait a bit and then mutter, “Why didn’t that do whatever… Oh the focus is on the Mixconsole.” Grab mouse, click, redo keystroke - gets old. This is the fundamental problem and it is all internally contained within Cubase.
Metagrid comes into play mostly because it shines a big spotlight on this limitation.
When using a computer keyboard to issue Key Commands there is an upper boundary on the total number of keystrokes you can use. At some point it becomes too many to remember, so we only use a subset of the available commands. With Metagrid the problem of remembering keystrokes disappears. I could assign every Key Command that exists to its own button. Each button clearly labeled and color coded. Because I can now readily access a much larger number of commands, the focus issue is more apparent just because of the increased number of commands in use.