As the firmware evolves, there are - and will be - APIs that we deprecate, and eventually remove. We are constantly adding new features and plugins too.
This document lists noteworthy new features for the current release, with examples of use. Another section provides a short guide for upgrading from deprecated APIs. For deprecations, their planned removal date is also listed.
If any of this does not make sense to you, or you have trouble updating your .ino sketch or custom plugins, do not hesitate to write us at [email protected], we can help you fix it.
With the next version of Kaleidoscope
, we are introducing a new plugin API. It's more efficient, smaller, and uses less resources than the previous one, while being more extensible, and a lot easier to use as well. But all of this matters little when one's not all that interested in writing plugins. However, the new plugin API comes with breaking changes, and one will need to update their own sketch too.
To achieve all of the above, we had to change how plugins are initialized. Instead of using Kaleidoscope.use()
in the setup()
method of one's sketch, the plugins must now be initialized with KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS()
, outside of the setup()
method. While use()
was expecting pointers (&Plugin
), _INIT_PLUGINS()
expects references (Plugin
).
The conversion should be simple, and all of the official plugins have been updated already to use the new API, so they're safe to use this way. Some third-party plugins may still use the older API, they will need to be updated.
To make things clear, here's an example of how to migrate from the old way to the new:
// Old way
void setup() {
Kaleidoscope.use(&LEDControl,
&Macros,
&OneShot,
&MouseKeys,
&LEDOff,
&LEDRainbowEffect);
Kaleidoscope.setup();
// New way
KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS(LEDControl,
Macros,
OneShot,
MouseKeys,
LEDOff,
LEDRainbowEffect);
void setup() {
Kaleidoscope.setup();
}
One thing to keep in mind is that with the old interface, plugins were able to automatically pull in their dependencies. This is not possible with the new interface, and one is required to initialize dependencies manually. Please consult the documentation of the plugins you use, to discover their dependencies - if any - and add them to the list if need be. You only need to add each dependency once.
Developing plugins should be considerably simpler now, there is no need to register hooks, just implement the parts of the kaleidoscope::Plugin
interface that make sense for a particular plugin.
In practice, this boils down to implementing one or more of the following hook points:
onSetup()
: Called once during device bootup, at the end of thesetup()
method. It takes no arguments, and must returnkaleidoscope::EventHandlerResult::OK
.beforeEachCycle()
: Called once, at the beginning of each cycle of the main loop. This is similar to the old "loop hook" with itspost_clear
argument set to false. Takes no arguments, must returnkaleidoscope::EventHandlerResult::OK
.onKeyswitchEvent
: Called for every non-idle key event. This replaces the old "event handler hook". It takes a key reference, a key address, and a key state. The key reference can be updated to change the key being processed, so that any plugin that processes it further, will see the updated key. Can returnkaleidoscope::EventHandlerResult::OK
to let other plugins process the event further, orkaleidoscope::EventHandlerResult::EVENT_CONSUMED
to stop processing.onFocusEvent
: Used to implement bi-directional communication. This is called whenever the firmware receives a command from the host. The only argument is the command name. Can returnkaleidoscope::EventHandlerResult::OK
to let other plugins process the event further, orkaleidoscope::EventHandlerResult::EVENT_CONSUMED
to stop processing.beforeReportingState
: Called without arguments, just before sending the keyboard and mouse reports to the host. Must returnkaleidoscope::EventHandlerResult::OK
.afterEachCycle
: Called without arguments at the very end of each cycle. This is the replacement for the "loop hook" with itspost_clear
argument set.
Whereas one would have used Focus.addHook()
to register a new focus command, with the new architecture, one needs to add the object implementing the command to their list of plugins in KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS()
. A number of plugins that used to provide optional Focus commands now provide them by default. Some still provide optional ones, and we must transition to the new way.
For example, where one would have written the following before:
Focus.addHook(FOCUS_HOOK_LEDCONTROL);
...we need to add the appropriate object to the plugin list:
KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS(LEDControl,
FocusLEDCommand)
Upgrading from Focus
to onFocusEvent
and FocusSerial
is a reasonably simple process, the interface is quite similar. Nevertheless, we present a step-by-step guide here, covering two use cases: one where we wish to always provide a Focus command when both our plugin and FocusSerial
are enabled; and another where we only wish to provide the command when explicitly asked to do so.
The biggest difference between Focus
and onFocusEvent
is that the former required explicit registering of hooks, while the latter does it automatically: every plugin that implements the onFocusEvent
method will be part of the system. As a consequence, only plugins are able to supply new commands: there is no explicit registration, thus, no way to inject a command that isn't part of a plugin. This also means that these functions now return kaleidoscope::EventHandlerResult
instead of bool
. Furthermore, with FocusSerial
, all communication is expected to go through it, instead of using Serial
directly. Lets see a trivial example!
bool exampleFocusHook(const char *command) {
if (strcmp_P(command, PSTR("example")) != 0)
return false;
Serial.println(F("This is an example response. Hello world!"));
return true;
}
KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS(Focus)
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
Kaleidoscope.setup();
Focus.addHook(FOCUS_HOOK(exampleFocusHook, "example"));
}
namespace kaleidoscope {
class FocusExampleCommand : public Plugin {
public:
FocusExampleCommand() {}
EventHandlerResult onFocusEvent(const char *command) {
if (strcmp_P(command, PSTR("example")) != 0)
return EventHandlerResult::OK;
::Focus.send(F("This is an example response. Hello world!"));
return EventHandlerResult::EVENT_CONSUMED;
}
};
}
kaleidoscope::FocusExampleCommand FocusExampleCommand;
KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS(Focus, FocusExampleCommand);
void setup() {
Kaleidoscope.setup();
}
The new version is slightly more verbose for the trivial use case, because we have to wrap it up in an object. But other than that, the changes are minimal, and we don't need to explicitly register it!
Observe that the return values changed: with Focus
, if we wanted other hooks to have a chance at processing the same command, the hook returned false
; if we wanted to stop processing, and consider it consumed, it returned true
. With the new system, this is more descriptive with the EventHandlerResult::OK
and EventHandlerResult::EVENT_CONSUMED
return values.
Perhaps a better example that shows the quality of life improvements the new system brings is the case where the command needs access to either plugin state, or plugin methods. With the former system, the focus hooks needed to be static methods, and needed to be public. This is not necessarily the case now, because onFocusEvent
is a non-static object method. It has full access to plugin internals!
namespace kaleidoscope {
class ExamplePlugin : public Plugin {
public:
ExamplePlugin();
static bool exampleToggle() {
example_toggle_ = !example_toggle_;
return example_toggle_;
}
static bool focusHook(const char *command) {
if (strcmp_P(command, PSTR("example.toggle")) != 0)
return false;
::Focus.printBool(exampleToggle());
return true;
}
private:
static bool example_toggle_;
};
}
kaleidoscope::ExamplePlugin ExamplePlugin;
KALEIDOSCOPE_PLUGIN_INIT(Focus, ExamplePlugin)
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
Kaleidoscope.setup();
Focus.addHook(FOCUS_HOOK(ExamplePlugin.focusHook, "example.toggle"));
}
namespace kaleidoscope {
class ExamplePlugin : public Plugin {
public:
ExamplePlugin();
EventHandlerResult onFocusEvent(const char *command) {
if (strcmp_P(command, PSTR("example.toggle")) != 0)
return EventHandlerResult::OK;
example_toggle_ = !example_toggle_;
::Focus.send(example_toggle_);
return EventHandlerResult::EVENT_CONSUMED;
}
private:
static bool example_toggle_;
};
}
kaleidoscope::ExamplePlugin ExamplePlugin;
KALEIDOSCOPE_PLUGIN_INIT(Focus, ExamplePlugin)
void setup() {
Kaleidoscope.setup();
}
It's just another plugin, with just another event handler method implemented, nothing more. No need to explicitly register the focus hook, no need to provide access to private variables - we can just keep them private.
Optional commands are something that were perhaps easier with the Focus
method: one just didn't register them. With onFocusEvent
, we need to do a bit more than that, and move the command to a separate plugin, if we do not wish to enable it in every case. This adds a bit of overhead, but still less than Focus
did.
bool exampleOptionalHook(const char *command) {
if (strcmp_P(command, PSTR("optional")) != 0)
return false;
Serial.println(Layer.getLayerState(), BIN);
return true;
}
KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS(Focus)
void setup() {
Kaleidoscope.setup();
}
Do note that we do not register the exampleOptionalHook
here! As such, because it is unused code, it will get optimized out during compilation. While this is a simplistic example, the optional hook might have been part of a class, that provides other hooks.
namespace kaleidoscope {
class ExampleOptionalCommand : public Plugin {
public:
ExampleOptionalCommand() {}
EventHandlerResult onFocusEvent(const char *command) {
if (strcmp_P(command, PSTR("optional")) != 0)
return EventHandlerResult::OK;
::Focus.send(Layer.getLayerState());
return EventHandlerResult::EVENT_CONSUMED;
}
};
}
KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS(Focus)
void setup() {
Kaleidoscope.setup();
}
The trick here is to move optional commands out into a separate plugin. It's a bit more boilerplate, but not by much.
As an end-user, there's nothing one needs to do. Consistent timing helpers are primarily for plugin use.
As a developer, one can continue using millis()
, but migrating to Kaleidoscope.millisAtCycleStart()
is recommended. The new method will return the same value for the duration of the main loop cycle, making time-based synchronization between plugins a lot easier.
The RxCy
macros changed from being indexes into a per-hand bitmap to being an
index across the whole keyboard. This means they can no longer be or
-ed
together to check against the keyswitch state of a given hand. Instead, the
kaleidoscope::hid::getKeyswitchStateAtPosition()
method can be used to check
the state of a keyswitch at a given row and column; or at a given index.
Prior versions of HostOS
used to include a way to auto-detect the host
operating system. This code was brittle, unreliable, and rather big too. For
these reasons, this functionality was removed.
Furthermore, HostOS
now depends on Kaleidoscope-EEPROM-Settings
, that plugin
should be initialized first.
To make MagicCombo
more portable, and easier to use, we had to break the API previously provided, there was no way to maintain backwards compatibility. This document is an attempt at guiding you through the process of migrating from the earlier API to the current one.
Migration should be a straightforward process, but if you get stuck, please feel free to open an issue, or start a thread on the forums, and we'll help you with it.
void magicComboActions(uint8_t combo_index, uint32_t left_hand, uint32_t right_hand) {
switch (combo_index) {
case 0:
Macros.type(PSTR("It's a kind of magic!"));
break;
}
}
static const kaleidoscope::MagicCombo::combo_t magic_combos[] PROGMEM = {
{
R3C6, // left palm key
R3C9 // right palm key
},
{0, 0}
};
void setup() {
Kaleidoscope.setup();
MagicCombo.magic_combos = magic_combos;
}
Previously, we used a global, overrideable function (magicComboActions
) to run
the actions of all magic combos, similar to how macros are set up to work.
Unlike macros, magic combos can't be defined in the keymap, due to technical
reasons, so we had to use a separate list - magic_combos
in our example. We
also needed to tell MagicCombo
to use this list, which is what we've done in
setup()
.
void kindOfMagic(uint8_t combo_index) {
Macros.type(PSTR("It's a kind of magic!"));
}
USE_MAGIC_COMBOS({
.action = kindOfMagic,
.keys = {R3C6, R3C9} // Left Fn + Right Fn
});
The new API is much shorter, and is inspired by the way the Leader
plugin works: instead of having a list, and a dispatching function like
magicComboActions
, we include the action method in the list too!
We also don't make a difference between left- and right-hand anymore, you can just list keys for either in the same list. This will be very handy for non-split keyboards.
First of all, we'll need to split up magicComboActions
into separate
functions. Each function should have a unique name, but their shape is always
the same:
void someFunction(uint8_t combo_index) {
// Do some action here
}
Copy the body of each case
statement of magicComboActions
, and copy them one
by one into appropriately named functions of the above shape. You can name your
functions anything you want, the only constraint is that they need to be valid
C++ function names. The plugin itself does nothing with the name, we'll
reference them later in the USE_MAGIC_COMBOS
helper macro.
Once magicComboActions
is split up, we need to migrate the magic_combos
list
to the new format. That list had to be terminated by a {0, 0}
entry, the new
method does not require such a sentinel at the end.
For each entry in magic_combos
, add an entry to USE_MAGIC_COMBOS
, with the
following structure:
{.action = theActionFunction,
.keys = { /* list of keys */ }}
The list of keys are the same RxCy
constants you used for magic_combos
, with
the left- and right hands combined. The action, theActionFunction
, is the
function you extracted the magic combo action to. It's the function that has the
same body as the case
statement in magicComboActions
had.
And this is all there is to it.
If your actions made use of the left_hand
or right_hand
arguments of
magicComboActions
, the same information is still available. But that's a bit
more involved to get to, out of scope for this simple migration guide. Please
open an issue, or ask for help on the forums, and we'll help you.
Older versions of the plugin used to provide EEPROM storage for the settings only optionally, when it was explicitly enabled via the TypingBreaks.enableEEPROM()
method. Similarly, the Focus hooks were optional too.
Storing the settable settings in EEPROM makes it depend on Kaleidoscope-EEPROM-Settings
, which should be initialized before this plugin is.
Older versions of the plugin required one to set up Key_Redial
manually, and let the plugin know about it via Redial.key
. This is no longer required, as the plugin sets up the redial key itself. As such, Redial.key
was removed, and Key_Redial
is defined by the plugin itself. To upgrade, simply remove your definition of Key_Redial
and the Redial.key
assignment from your sketch.
Row/col based indexing was replaced by linear indexing throughout the whole firmware. A compatibility layer of functions was introduced that allows the firmware to remain backwards compatible, however, these functions are deprecated and will be removed in future versions of the firmware.
Also a new version of the onKeyswitchEvent-handler has been introduced. The old version is deprecated.
The OneShot plugin has much improved stickability control. Instead of only being able to control if one-shot layers should be stickable too, or disabling the sticky feature in general, it is now possible to control stickiness on a per-key basis with the new OneShot.enableStickability()
and OneShot.disableStickablity()
methods. The old properties are still available, but will be removed by 2019-04-30.
The EEPROM-Keymap plugin had its setup()
method changed, the formerly optional method
argument is now obsolete and unused. It can be safely removed. Supplying a second argument will continue to work until its scheduled removal by 2019-04-30.
The keymaps
array has been replaced with a keymaps_linear
array. This new array treats each layer as a simple one dimensional array of keys, rather than a two dimensional array of arrays of rows. At the same time, the KEYMAPS
and KEYMAPS_STACKED
macros that were previously defined in each hardware implmentation class have been replaced with PER_KEY_DATA
and PER_KEY_DATA_STACKED
macros in each hardware class. This change should be invisible to users, but will require changes by any plugin that accessed the 'keymaps' variable directly.
Code like key.raw = pgm_read_word(&(keymaps[layer][row][col])); return key;
should be changed to look like this: return keyFromKeymap(layer, row, col);
The old, deprecated, API will be removed on 2019-08-13.
With the move towards a monorepo-based source, some headers have moved to a new location, and plenty of plugins moved to a new namespace (kaleidoscope::plugin
). This means that the old headers, and some old names are deprecated. The old names no longer work.
The following headers and names have changed:
layers.h
,key_defs_keymaps.h
andmacro_helpers.h
are obsolete, and should not be included in the first place, asKaleidoscope.h
will pull them in. In the rare case that one needs them, prefixing them withkaleidoscope/
is the way to go. Of the various headers provided under thekaleidoscope/
space, onlykaleidoscope/macro_helpers.h
should be included directly, and only by hardware plugins that can't pullKaleidoscope.h
in due to circular dependencies.LED-Off.h
, provided by LEDControl is obsolete, theLEDOff
LED mode is automatically provided byKaleidoscope-LEDControl.h
. TheLED-Off.h
includes can be safely removed.LEDUtils.h
is automatically pulled in byKaleiodscope-LEDControl.h
, too, and there's no need to directly include it anymore.- Plugins that implement LED modes should subclass
kaleidoscope::plugin::LEDMode
instead ofkaleidoscope::LEDMode
. - GhostInTheFirmware had the
kaleidoscope::GhostInTheFirmware::GhostKey
type replaced bykaleidoscope::plugin::GhostInTheFirmware::GhostKey
. - HostOS no longer provides the
Kaleidoscope/HostOS-select.h
header, and there is no backwards compatibility header either. - Leader had the
kaleidoscope::Leader::dictionary_t
type replaced bykaleidoscope::plugin::Leader::dictionary_t
. - LED-AlphaSquare used to provide extra symbol graphics in the
kaleidoscope::alpha_square::symbols
namespace. This is now replaced bykaleidoscope::plugin::alpha_square::symbols
. - LEDEffect-SolidColor replaced the base class -
kaleidoscope::LEDSolidColor
- withkaleidoscope::plugin::LEDSolidColor
. - Qukeys had the
kaleidoscope::Qukey
type replaced bykaleidoscope::plugin::Qukey
. - ShapeShifter had the
kaleidoscope::ShapeShifter::dictionary_t
type replaced bykaleidoscope::plugin::ShapeShifter::dictionary_t
. - SpaceCadet had the
kaleidoscope::SpaceCadet::KeyBinding
type replaced bykaleidoscope::plugin::SpaceCadet::KeyBinding
. - Syster had the
kaleidoscope::Syster::action_t
type replaced bykaleidoscope::plugin::Syster::action_t
. - TapDance had the
kaleidoscope::TapDance::ActionType
type replaced bykaleidoscope::plugin::TapDance::ActionType
.
The Layer.defaultLayer()
method has been deprecated, because it wasn't widely used, nor tested well, and needlessly complicated the layering logic. If one wants to set a default layer, which the keyboard switches to when booting up, EEPROMSettings.default_layer()
may be of use.
Layer.defaultLayer
has since been removed.
A number of methods on the Layer
object have been renamed, to make their intent clearer:
Layer.on()
andLayer.off()
becameLayer.activate()
andLayer.decativate()
, repsectively.Layer.next()
andLayer.previous()
becameLayer.activateNext()
andLayer.deactivateTop()
.Layer.isOn
becameLayer.isActive()
.
The goal was to have a method name that is a verb, because these are actions we do. The old names have since been removed.
With the move towards a monorepo-based source, some headers have moved to a new location, and plenty of plugins moved to a new namespace (kaleidoscope::plugin
). This means that the old headers, and some old names are deprecated. The old names no longer work.
The autoDetect()
method has been formerly deprecated, and is now removed.
We've changed the API of the MagicCombo plugin, and while it provided a helpful error message for a while when trying to use the old API, it no longer does so, the error message has been removed.
TypingBreaks.enableEEPROM()
has been previously deprecated, and turned into a no-op, and is now removed.
These were deprecated in favour of a better, finer grained API, and are now removed.
We aim at making a new release by mid-July, and APIs we deprecate now, will be removed shortly after the major release, before the next point release. We may deprecate further APIs during the next month (until mid-June), and those deprecations will share the same removal date. We will try our best to minimize deprecations, and do them as soon as possible, to give everyone at least a month to prepare and update.
Deprecated in May 2018, this method is part of the old plugin API, replaced by
KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS
. To upgrade, you need to modify your .ino sketch
file, and replace the text Kaleidoscope.use
with KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS
,
then remove the &
from all of the plugins inside it, and finally, move it
outside of setup()
.
If your current sketch looks like this:
void setup() {
Kaleidoscope.use(&Plugin1, &Plugin2);
Kaleidoscope.setup();
}
You should change it so that it looks like this instead:
KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS(Plugin1, Plugin2);
void setup() {
Kaleidoscope.setup();
}
This includes using KaleidoscopePlugin
, Kaleidoscope.useEventHandlerHook
,
Kaleidoscope.replaceEventHandlerHook
, Kaleidoscope.appendEventHandlerHook
,
Kaleidoscope.useLoopHook
, Kaleidoscope.replaceLoopHook
,
Kaleidoscope.appendLoopHook
. They were deprecated in May 2017.
Their replacement is the new plugin API:
namespace kaleidoscope {
enum class EventHandlerResult {
OK,
EVENT_CONSUMED,
ERROR,
};
class Plugin {
public:
EventHandlerResult onSetup();
EventHandlerResult beforeEachCycle();
EventHandlerResult onKeyswitchEvent(Key &mapped_key, KeyAddr key_addr, uint8_t key_state);
EventHandlerResult beforeReportingState();
EventHandlerResult afterEachCycle();
};
}
Plugins are supposed to implement this new API, and then be initialised via
KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS
.
A key with a typo in its name, which was left in place after fixing the typo, so as to not break any code that may be using it already, however unlikely.
These APIs and functions have been deprecated for a long time, and as far as we can tell, aren't used by any third party or user code anymore. They were removed as of the June 10th, 2018.
The Kaleidoscope.setup()
method is still around, and is not deprecated,
but the variant of it that takes a keymap size is, and has been since October
2017.
Instead, one should use the argument-less Kaleidoscope.setup()
, and the new
KEYMAP()
macros to define a keymap.
Deprecated in October 2017, these are old aliases that should no longer be in
use. They were replaced by Kaleidoscope.useEventHandlerHook
,
Kaleidoscope.useLoopHook
, and Kaleidoscope.use
, respectively.
The replacements themselves are also deprecated - see below -, but their removal will come at a later date.
Deprecated in October 2017, replaced by LAYER_SHIFT_OFFSET
.
This symbol was meant to be used by plugins, not user code, and as far as we know, no third party plugin ever used it.
Deprecated in July 2017, replaced by keyWasPressed
, keyIsPressed
,
keyToggledOn
, and keyToggledOff
, respectively.