Software Shortcut Keyboard Registers Many Macros

April 16, 2020 by Kristina Panos 18 Comments

[FabroLabs Technologies] is an industrial designer who uses several creative-type software programs in a given day. Unfortunately, they all have slightly different shortcut schemes, and trying to remember all the different modifiers is a waste of time better spent elsewhere.

This lovely little macro keyboard is every bit as useful as it is cool looking. Spinning the rotary encoder cycles through a menu of programs on the 16×2 LCD, and the key map just updates automatically for the chosen program. At the heart of this build is an Arduino Pro Micro and 20 of the loudest key switches ever made — Cherry MX blues. We like that it manages to look like toy cash register and a serious peripheral all at once — it probably has something to do with those way-cool circular keycaps that were made on a resin printer.

We’re glad that [FabroLabs] laid down such a comprehensive and open build guide during the process of making this macro keyboard. The average hacker can learn a lot from industrial designers who show their work. Remember the time [Eric Strebel] showed us all how to improve our foam board design game?

Baby Keyboard Is Really Three Boards

March 19, 2020 by Kristina Panos No comments

Just when we think we’ve peeped all the cool baby keebs out there, another think comes along. This bad boy built by [andyclymer] can be configured three different ways, depending on what kind of control you’re after.

As designed, the PCB can be used as a six-switch macro keyboard, or a rotary encoder with two switches, or a pair of rotary encoders. It’s meant to be controlled with Trinket M0, which means it can be programmed with Arduino or CircuitPython.

This could really only be cooler if the key switch PCB holes had sockets for hot-swapping the switches, because then you could use this thing as a functional switch tester. But hey, you can always add those yourself.

If you’re in the market for purpose-built add-on input device, but either don’t have the purpose nailed down just yet, or aren’t sure you want to design the thing yourself, this board would be a great place to start. Usually, all it takes is using someone else’s design to get used to using such a thing, at which point it’s natural to start thinking of ways to customize it. [andyclymer] is selling these boards over on Tindie, or you can roll your own from the repo.

Need just a few more inputs? We’ve got you covered.

Emulating A Bluetooth Keyboard With The ESP32

February 13, 2020 by Tom Nardi 15 Comments

Most people associate the ESP family of microcontrollers with WiFi, which makes sense as they’ve become the solution of choice for getting your project online quickly and easily. But while the WiFi capability might be the star of the show, the ESP32 also comes equipped with Bluetooth; we just don’t see people using it nearly as often. If you’re looking to get started using Bluetooth on the ESP32, then this simple wireless macro keypad from [Brian Lough] would be a great way to get started.

From a hardware standpoint, this project is incredibly straightforward. All you need to do is connect a membrane keypad up to the GPIO pins on the ESP32. Adding in a battery is a nice touch, and you probably would want to put it into a enclosure of some sort, but as a proof of concept it doesn’t get much easier than this. In this case [Brian] is using the TinyPICO board, but your personal ESP32 variant of choice will work just as well.

The rest of the project is all software, which [Brian] walks us through in the video after the break. There’s a preexisting library for Bluetooth Human Interface Device (HID) emulation on the ESP32, but it needs to be manually installed in the Arduino IDE. From there, he demonstrates how you can build up a functioning keyboard, including tricks such as sending multiple virtual keys at once.

In the past we’ve seen the ESP32 used to create a Bluetooth game controller, but the ability to emulate a keyboard obviously offers quite a bit more flexibility. With a practical demonstration of how easy as it is to turn this low-cost microcontroller into a wireless input device, hopefully we’ll start seeing more projects that utilize the capability.

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Micro Macro Keyboard Makes A Major Difference

February 5, 2020 by Kristina Panos 10 Comments

Media keyboards are nice in theory. But in practice they never have all the keys you want, and they almost always have a few you don’t. Sure, you could maybe reassign the ones you don’t use, but then the caps are wrong, and it’s a whole thing. So really, the only winning move is to make a micro macro keyboard as [littleSilvr] did to make all your shortcuts one-button accessible.

This lovely input has an Arduino Pro Micro for a brain, and Gateron browns for brawn. That knob there is a rotary encoder, not a potentiometer, because endless volume knob twiddling is just so much nicer. In case you’re wondering, those shortcuts open Fusion 360 and Cura, but we’re still not sure what the hyphen does.

Can we talk about those keycaps, though? [littleSilvr] used [Make Anything]’s process of of printing in multi-color with a single extruder. The technique involves building a vector for each color, each of which gets its own STL file. Then you add retraction as you go up through the layers, slow the print speed, change filament colors while the nozzle and bed are still warm, and voila, a vibrant canvas of colors.

If you don’t have a printer and you don’t mind a bit of compromise on the number of inputs, try basing your build on an existing input, like an old rotary telephone dialer.

Via r/duino

Macro Foot Stool Helps Me Get A Leg Up On Work

December 20, 2019 by Kristina Panos 12 Comments

Macros are meant to make our lives easier, but they live up to this promise with mixed results. Generally speaking, a macro is a special combination of keys on the keyboard that execute a custom task — their goal is to speed up your productivity by getting away from mousing through menus. But once a macro requires more than two keys, they can get a bit cumbersome to input. I have personally found that repeated use of macros that require ctrl+shift can potentially cause problems. I don’t know about you (and your repetitive stress mileage may vary), but personal injury is the polar opposite of what I want from something that’s supposed to be convenient.

The more I thought about how nice it would be to have a field of dedicated one-punch macro keys, the more incomplete my life seemed without it. Every uncomfortable three-key shortcut I chorded was more motivational than the last.

I love keyboard shortcuts, and not just because I prefer keyboard navigation in general. A lot of little things about writing for the web can be streamlined with shortcuts, like writing html tags and doing image manipulation. And I’m always looking for a better workflow to pin down my fleeting mental fragments, at least until that dark day that I can turn on Dropbox Thoughts™ and burn my brainwaves directly to disk.

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