deskthority

Today we look at a new offering from Wooting, which incorporates a bunch of changes compared to their older line-up. Hope you enjoy the video!

The actuation meter is pretty nice. You can of course turn it (and the other backlighting) off, I presume? It strikes me as something like a solenoid: best off by default but fun to toggle back on every now and then for shits and giggles.

Are the analog keys directly viewable by the host, for doing things like musical instrument control (or actually just “modulation wheels” like many midi keyboards) and if so: how? Far as I know the USB keyboard spec has no analog functions, but you can of course create a hybrid device with USB mouse or joystick output mixed in. (All QMK / TMK keyboards are hybrid USB keyboard + mouse devices, whether you use mouse keys or not; just so they can support that function of theirs.)

Hoping it’s not just a custom driver you must install for that, for obvious Apple using reasons. They love breaking even those third party drivers which bother to come to the Mac in the first place.

Muirium wrote: 03 Sep 2022, 16:52 The actuation meter is pretty nice. You can of course turn it (and the other backlighting) off, I presume? It strikes me as something like a solenoid: best off by default but fun to toggle back on every now and then for shits and giggles.

It's just one of the lighting modes, so you can switch it off or use another one.

Muirium wrote: 03 Sep 2022, 16:52Are the analog keys directly viewable by the host, for doing things like musical instrument control (or actually just “modulation wheels” like many midi keyboards) and if so: how? Far as I know the USB keyboard spec has no analog functions, but you can of course create a hybrid device with USB mouse or joystick output mixed in. (All QMK / TMK keyboards are hybrid USB keyboard + mouse devices, whether you use mouse keys or not; just so they can support that function of theirs.)

I don't follow Oo . Could you elaborate?

Can you use the analog keys to control analog things on the computer, the way a joystick can?

I’ve some vague and perhaps faulty memory that this was indeed a thing a few years ago. Never looked into it further though.

Muirium wrote: 04 Sep 2022, 16:24 Can you use the analog keys to control analog things on the computer, the way a joystick can?

I’ve some vague and perhaps faulty memory that this was indeed a thing a few years ago. Never looked into it further though.

Yes and no. It has three profile that make the computer think it's actually a gamepad with analog sticks. You can program those to output things like X- and Y-axis outputs in an analog fashion. It doesn't work with all games though, and I'm not at all sure about how it works out of a game context.

Did you have to install a driver?

If it provides gamepad emulation out of the box, then they’ve taken the right approach—showing up as multiple USB device endpoints—and it could be more useful than they intended. Cross platform too.

But if it’s just done privately in a driver, then not so much.

Muirium wrote: 04 Sep 2022, 23:05 Did you have to install a driver?

If it provides gamepad emulation out of the box, then they’ve taken the right approach—showing up as multiple USB device endpoints—and it could be more useful than they intended. Cross platform too.

But if it’s just done privately in a driver, then not so much.

I didn't install any drivers, no. Don't know if Windows doesn't do them automatically though. Might be best to contact the devs if you want to be sure.

derp