Issues with Keychron Keyboards in VIA

[wilba]

The usual way VIA works is for keyboard definitions to be added to the Github repository the-via/keyboards allowing the VIA client to automatically download and use a definition when matching firmware is detected.

For whatever reason, Keychron has not added definition for some of their keyboards to the Github repository, and is instructing users to a) enable the "Design" tab in Settings, b) use the "Load Draft Definition" to load a definition. This is essentially instructing users to use a "developer's back-end" every time they want to use VIA, which is not what the VIA developers intended.

Maybe the recent change from V2 to V3 definitions is related to people's issues. The toggle button that was previously "Use V3 Definitions" has now changed to "Use V2 Definitions", since V3 is now the latest and current, and V2 is the previous. Maybe people should try using that toggle button and loading the definition and see if that fixes things.

As far as I know, Keychron firmware was built and installed before the change from V2 to V3 (because their "VIA Guide" refers to an old version of VIA), so most likely VIA needs a V2 definition loaded in order to recognize a device with that V2-compatible firmware.

Technical details: If VIA detects QMK firmware built with VIA_PROTOCOL_VERSION of 11+ it will require a V3 definition, otherwise it requires a V2 definition. All keyboards in QMK master branch should have both V2 and V3 definitions in the Github repository, thus VIA will work with old firmware and newly built firmware.

[nicos68]

Q1 v2 & Linux (Fedora 37) user here. I did use the "Use V2 definition" toggle, and it did make things better as I was able to load the definition and have the "configure" tab show the keyboard layout. However, whatever change I made in the app had no impact on the keyboard itself. I have made tests on window, which did not bring any improvement.

So I decided to go through the QMK path. I followed the tutorial and compiled the firmware myself, but couldn't use the flash utility, because it's not available on Linux. The firmware of the v2 version of the Q1 is not available yet, because the v2 is based on a new chip. It can be found on this pull request by Keychron's staff though. So if you checkout the branch, you can fully use QMK to configure the Q1 v2. It is a bit of a hassle and involves many manual tasks, but it is fully functional, and with some luck it will soon be mainlined so things will be 100% functional with QMK and VIA.

[davidhaley]

I shared this link with Keychron support.

[adophoxia]

For whatever reason, Keychron has not added definition for some of their keyboards to the Github repository, and is instructing users to a) enable the "Design" tab in Settings, b) use the "Load Draft Definition" to load a definition. This is essentially instructing users to use a "developer's back-end" every time they want to use VIA, which is not what the VIA developers intended.

This is mostly because of both, how it came as a surprise out of nowhere for manufacturers like KC and how people either don't know that there's a new version of VIA that they have to use instead of 1.3.1 that they might be on, or they don't know or don't care about updating the firmware on their boards to be able to take advantage to that, both sides that I've seen more and more of. In which case, they'd have to do one or both of these 2 options regardless.

For the "developer's back-end" method, in the case of the K Pro, which was spawned from the-via/releases#221, this series will still need this (albeit, with the V3 definition. That bit's true) since it'll be a long time until the K Pro series is in mainline QMK due to how KC did BT support for these boards compared to how the QMK team wants it done, so until a compromise is reached, it'll be like this for now.

Maybe the recent change from V2 to V3 definitions is related to people's issues. The toggle button that was previously "Use V3 Definitions" has now changed to "Use V2 Definitions", since V3 is now the latest and current, and V2 is the previous. Maybe people should try using that toggle button and loading the definition and see if that fixes things.

This. Even with the "developer's back-end" method since people didn't understand that this toggle was needed for loading the JSONs that KC currently has. (V2 Definitions)

As far as I know, Keychron firmware was built and installed before the change from V2 to V3 (because their "VIA Guide" refers to an old version of VIA), so most likely VIA needs a V2 definition loaded in order to recognize a device with that V2-compatible firmware.

For other KC boards that weren't in mainline QMK and any boards people got before Nov 26, that used to be the case, but now the bluetooth_playground has the VIA V3 changes and even now, qmk:master has all of the Q/V boards (except Q1v2), so it's just a matter of flashing the firmware from either these two branches.

[jrgiacone]

It doesn't look like the q1v2 has been pushed to master yet correct, been trying to find a way to use the new VIA version 3, but I have not found any documentation on how to do it

[calebmeyer]

It did take a lot of tinkering and a support page from keychron to get VIA able to do anything with my k8 pro. It does work once I enable the v2 toggle, import the json, and switch to the configure tab.