Basics of keymap.rb

Important points

• The encoding of keymap.rb has to be basically "ASCII" though, "UTF-8 without BOM" should be also valid as far as multibyte characters are only used in comment lines
  • In other words, PRK Firmware doesn't work if the keymap.rb is encoded with "UTF-8 with BOM"
  • If you aren't sure whether your keymap.rb includes BOM, let's google "BOM check"

Known issues

• PRK can only process keymap.rb smaller than 4 KB (4096 Bytes)
  • You may reduce the size by eliminating comment lines that start with #

keymap.rb as a simple example

For example, this keyboard is composed "normal matrix" with five rows and twelve cols.

See Keyscan matrix about other types of matrix and direct-scan.

Initialize a keyboard

kbd = Keyboard.new

Initialize GPIO pins

kbd.init_pins(
  [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ],                              # row0  row1 ... respectively
  [ 6, 7, 8, 9, 29, 28, 27, 26, 22, 20, 23, 21 ]  # col0  col1 ... respectively
)

Configure layers

kbd.add_layer :default, %i(
  KC_GRV  KC_1    KC_2    KC_3    KC_4    KC_5    KC_6    KC_7    KC_8     KC_9     KC_0    KC_BSPC
  KC_ESC  KC_Q    KC_W    KC_E    KC_R    KC_T    KC_Y    KC_U    KC_I     KC_O     KC_P    KC_DEL
  KC_TAB  KC_A    KC_S    KC_D    KC_F    KC_G    KC_H    KC_J    KC_K     KC_L     KC_SCLN KC_QUOT
  KC_CAPS KC_Z    KC_X    KC_C    KC_V    KC_B    KC_N    KC_M    KC_COMM  KC_DOT   KC_SLSH KC_RSFT
  KC_LSFT KC_LCTL KC_LALT KC_LGUI LOWER   KC_SPC  KC_ENT  RAISE   KC_LEFT  KC_DOWN  KC_UP   KC_RIGHT
)
kbd.add_layer :raise, %i(
  KC_F1   KC_F2   KC_F3   KC_F4   KC_F5   KC_F6   KC_F7   KC_F8   KC_F9    KC_F10   KC_F11  KC_F12
  KC_GRV  KC_EXLM KC_AT   KC_HASH KC_DLR  KC_PERC KC_CIRC KC_AMPR KC_ASTER KC_LPRN  KC_RPRN KC_MINS
  KC_TAB  KC_LABK KC_LCBR KC_LBRC KC_LPRN KC_QUOT KC_LEFT KC_DOWN KC_UP    KC_RIGHT KC_UNDS KC_PIPE
  KC_LSFT KC_RABK KC_RCBR KC_RBRC KC_RPRN KC_DQUO KC_TILD KC_BSLS KC_COMMA KC_DOT   KC_SLSH KC_RSFT
  KC_LSFT KC_LCTL KC_LALT KC_LGUI LOWER   KC_SPC  KC_ENT  RAISE   KC_LEFT  KC_DOWN  KC_UP   KC_RIGHT
)
kbd.add_layer :lower, %i(
  KC_F1   KC_F2   KC_F3   KC_F4   KC_F5   KC_F6   KC_F7   KC_F8   KC_F9    KC_F10   KC_F11  KC_F12
  KC_ESC  KC_1    KC_2    KC_3    KC_4    KC_5    KC_6    KC_7    KC_8     KC_9     KC_0    KC_MINS
  KC_TAB  KC_F2   KC_F10  KC_F12  KC_LPRN KC_QUOT KC_DOT  KC_4    KC_5     KC_6     KC_PLUS KC_BSPC
  KC_LSFT KC_RABK KC_RCBR KC_RBRC KC_RPRN KC_DQUO KC_0    KC_1    KC_2     KC_3     KC_SLSH KC_COMMA
  KC_LSFT KC_LCTL KC_LALT KC_LGUI LOWER   KC_SPC  KC_ENT  RAISE   KC_LEFT  KC_DOWN  KC_UP   KC_RIGHT
)

kbd.define_mode_key :RAISE, [ nil, :raise, nil, nil ]
kbd.define_mode_key :LOWER, [ nil, :lower, nil, nil ]

kbd.define_composite_key :CAP_A, %i(KC_A KC_RSFT)

Start the keyboard

kbd.start!

See also

• Keycodes
• Layers and mode key
• Composite key
• issues/86