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AstroSnail / apexctl

(Apache-2.0) Control SteelSeries Apex keyboards on GNU/Linux!
Apache License 2.0
28 stars 3 forks source link

Is macro key support within the scope? #10

Open ghost opened 4 years ago

ghost commented 4 years ago

At least Apex Raw requires running the Steelseries software on the background for the macro keys to work (on Windows), the changes aren't seemingly written to the device. I wanted to ask if the maintainer desires macro support and whether it can be realistically achieved.

ghost commented 4 years ago

I just realized that https://github.com/Gibtnix/Apex-Macros is maintained, but perhaps this is a question worth asking nonetheless.

AstroSnail commented 4 years ago

Hi, thanks for asking.

Apex-Macros doesn't actually enable macro key support in any greater capacity than Apexctl. Apex-Macros's purpose is to be a very minimal tool to enable the extra ('macro') keys when the system is booted. Apexctl features the ability to run on boot as well, ontop of other features, but is larger and thus might be less appropriate for this specific task.

(Also, it's good that Apex-Macros is still maintained. They made some good improvements recently that I might want to make in Apexctl as well.)

I have not studied SteelSeries's software in detail, so I'm not familiar with the features it provides. However, a great focus was put in Apexctl's support files to allow common macro/hotkey programs in Linux to recognize and handle the extra keys. You might want to try to set up keybinds in your desktop/window manager if it supports keybinds. If not, you can try software such as xbindkeys and sxhkd, which are designed to perform tasks when certain keys or key combinations are pressed.

If this is not sufficient, I can look into what SteelSeries's software does and determine whether it can be realistically achieved.