feb 5, 2019
This is kind of long because I told everything I had to learn to do what I needed to do today plus how to see the layer thing. feel free to use this any way you like, and be sure to cut it all you want!
How to use this simple (but not necessarily) little app called Chrysalis to fix your keyboard up exactly how you like. This is just a writer’s explanation of how to use Chrysalis for little things.
First,
a) Download Chrysalis [website someone], update the firmware for your keyboard here [website someone else], install Chrysalis on your computer. The websites there have good directions.
b) While you are hanging around in bars and pool halls on a school night, you might as well go ahead and join Discord—I think it’s harder not to find it than it is to find it. You will need it probably sometime, and it’s nice to ask questions to people who will actually answer them even though they are the Einsteins of Keyboardio! If you need help with this switching of the key functions, go to #Chrysalis in discord, which is where they will tell you stuff about how to use it.
c) Next, start Chrysalis up; then on the bottom left, hit scan for keyboards and on the right, choose yours.
d). Hit “connect” and…. Voilá!
Your app will open on the default layer, which is the way Keyboardio will think you are set up whenever you plug in and start up. You can change how Keyboardio thinks you are set up though, which is the whole point of this little app.
Now this is a follow-your-dog-down-the-street easy kind of app which you can use to assign different jobs to the keys than the ones they came with. And you can save them so when you plug in, Keyboardio will remember your needs as a Crypto-Russian Keyboard Code-Builder or whatever.
To use Chrysalis it seemed to me there is only one thing you kind of have to learn just a definition of and know where two of them are-- and those are “layers.”
About Layers:
@obra explained it to me like this on Discord:
Each “layer” is a layout of keys.
Some, like QWERTY cover all the keys
Some, like NUMPAD cover only part of the keyboard.
If a layer doesn’t cover the whole keyboard, the parts underneath show through.
It’s like putting those old-school rubber covers on your keyboard with different key labels printed on them, except some of the covers have holes cut out.
Thank you @obra! I think what @obra means is you have some default layers (the one you get when you plug in default layer 0, and if you look at the picture, you will see a label on your function keys—mine says “Shift to 2,” so that means when I push on the function key with my palm, I get layer 2 default! You can go to layer 2 and see what it came with. I have not figured out what layer 1 or 3 are or what to do with them yet, but you probably will.
For my simple needs, layer 0 and 2 (where my function keys told me to go) were plenty to entertain me and prevent me from typing on that crazy keyboard for the rest of the day.
It’s already a great design, but there were just a couple of things I needed.
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I needed the carriage return (or “enter,” for you children) all the time, and can’t quite easily reach the enter key two switches away from home with my right index finger. I need a fix for that. (Turns out you can hit fn-space and get enter, as I found out on discord, but you know, I wanted a dedicated key).
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I can’t really reach the shift key way down on the bottom of the thumb arch every time I start a new sentence, which isn’t all that often, now that I think of it. But It’s just too far.
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Also, I think there is not a “capslock” key anywhere, perhaps to discourage yelling in writing. Generally I think that is a good idea; however, I use capslock to express horror, not to yell. well I figured out how to do this too.
Now to change the keys, this is how I did it:
A. So to solve problem 1, check you are on default layer 0 in Chrysalis.
I decided to put the shift key to the left of bskp and to the right of space on both thumb arches.
B. On the picture of the keyboard, click the key you want to change to something else. I do that, clicking the key on the top left of the left thumb arch which I want to be “shift.”
Then at the bottom of the window on the left you see “key type”—“shift” is a punctuation key (go ahead, click on the little triangle and scroll through the key types!). I clicked “Punctuation.” Oh no. Well, that was wrong.
Perhaps “Shift” is another kind of key—maybe it’s a modifier? Oh yeah, there it is under “modifiers.” I guess all those keys on the thumb arch are modifiers. Ok.
C. So I find “Lshift” (left shift) in the modifier key set and click on it. I already clicked where I wanted the Lshift to be and it is outlined in red. Kinda nice with the picture.
D (for DONE) Now on the picture on my screen, the key to the left of backspace says Lshift. Then you hit the little circle thing on the bottom right to save it and hit the little circle thing (don’t forget) on bottom right and Voici
Now eat the ice cream, get another bowl, and repeat to change the other little things on layer 0 that I or you want to change.
E. Now get this: With a paper clip (be careful not to scratch the little darlings), you can lift up the thumb keys (but only the thumb keys because all the others have unique shapes) and switch them around! So I moved the “shift” mechanical key to where I had put it electronically and moved the ctrl key to the bottom of the left thumb arch. Perfect!
I also wanted an enter key I could reach in spite of the handy fn-space carriage return trick, and there are two keys that have no assigned job yet, the “butterfly” and “any.” I used the butterfly to be my enter key, still on layer 0. Just like before. Follow the dog. This is a fabulous space for enter if you ask me.
And that is all for the poet’s keyboard. Also, please note that Fn-space is a carriage return if this is too much trouble.
for more fun and games,
I did decide I liked the music control thing—being able to adjust the tunes with my keyboard which I have never actually done on my mac which does NOT have a groovin’ keyboard.
Since those music commands are rightly “functions” and my picture says the function layer is on layer 2 (right ON the function keys in the layer 0 picture), I go to layer 2 default, and start choosing how I want to do my music. I don’t know why I changed it; I am sure it was perfect already, but it gets pretty fun while you work with Chrysalis, and anything beats the frustration of day 2 of typing with the new keyboard—(I’ll get it though and be able to write ten times more stories without carpal tunnel syndrome than I’ve been able to write. Plus now that they refuse to give you pain meds in the recovery room anymore lest you become addicted to surgery CPT repair surgery is simply out. Thanks Keyboardio!
Back to the music, I decided I would never use “pg up” and “pg down,” and I assigned them volume up and down. And sure enough, it worked!
I put it on layer 0 because I’ll never use the page keys. If you do use page up and page down, you could put the volume on them in layer 2 default so you would just hit the palm fn key with page up and page down just the volume of Meddle when your boss calls you. It’s already set up to do that somewhere else but I can’t remember where and I need that volume down all the time.
When you want to assign music functions, you go to “media keys” on the left under the picture in order to find them.
I still don’t have a good solution for CAPS LOCK, but I know for darn sure I will never use Numlock as long as I want to live, so although I changed Numlock to Delete in layer 0, I can still have it be Capslock on the function layer.
Chrysalis is now easy, and it’s fun and I freaking love this keyboard though I avoid it like the plague after my fifteen minutes (today), but 20 tomorrow! Thanks Jesse and Kaia.
–@jen
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