Where to put drivers?

[kaievns]

Hi folks, I need a bit of an advise on where to put drivers in my config.

This is not my first zmk project and I'm trying something more ambitious this time with a new custom PCB keyboard build that has a trackball integrated.

I have set up a new shield and MCU overlay for the new PCB, transformations, keybindings, etc, and it compiles and works. Now I'm trying to add the trackball driver to the thing.

Basically what I want to accomplish is to copy and integrate this project https://github.com/inorichi/zmk-pmw3610-driver into my configs so I could tinker with the code locally without dealing with the full blown github actions, west, etc.

I see @ufan dropped his work into the app/drivers folder in the zmk repo itself over here https://github.com/ufan/zmk/tree/ptdevice-refactor/app/drivers/sensor/pixart/pmw3610. But I'm not sure how that would translate into a user config

I have stashed my work over here, it's pretty vanilla, I just don't know where all the C and Kconfig files from the driver should go in here https://github.com/kaievns/little-wing/tree/main/zmk-config

Thank you!

[kaievns]

I think I found a way to use the extra modules ref for that.

I have basically dumped that repo into an arbitrary folder ${my-config}/drivers/pmw3610 and then referred to that as an external zephyr module in the CLI args like so

west build -d build/right -p -b nice_nano_v2 -- \
  -DSHIELD="little_wing_right" \
  -DZMK_CONFIG="/workspaces/zmk-config/config" \
  -DZMK_EXTRA_MODULES="/workspaces/zmk-config;/workspaces/zmk-config/drivers/pmw3610"

the /workspaces/zmk-config is my docker mount for my user config.

it works, but it sort of feels hacky. is there a more officially blessed way to do this?

thank you

[caksoylar]

You found the right way, they are "modules" and hence when building locally (where the config/west.yml manifest isn't used) you have to use the -DZMK_EXTRA_MODULES arg to pass them to the build command. This is the official way that is documented at https://zmk.dev/docs/development/local-toolchain/build-flash#building-with-external-modules.

If you want it more proper, you probably want to mount the module as an additional volume rather than putting it in a subfolder in your config. But that's a Docker-specific issue.

[Nick-Munnich]

To expand on the above answer, you could also adjust the west configuration to prevent you from needing to input those values every time (though I don't know about the interaction with docker at all). See https://docs.zephyrproject.org/3.5.0/develop/west/build-flash-debug.html#permanent-cmake-arguments

[kaievns]

thanks folks, I'm closing this then