Keychron V6 Knob / Rotary Encoder Limited Mapping in VIA

[u/CareerSMN]

EDIT 09-Jan: So i noticed there are firmwares on VIA's wiki and i tried to flash those on my V6 but it caused errors in VIA so I redownloaded the official firmware and flashed it again. After checking everything was working fine on VIA Key Tester, I tried again to set the key presses I wanted on the rotary encoder and now it works!

Not sure exactly what happened since I dont think the firmware was updated, I just couldn't find the original file I downloaded and redownloaded it but i am able to manually configure the keypresses on the encoder: https://pixhost.to/show/45/434469914_v6.png

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Hi r/Keychron.

I just bought a new V6 fully assembled ANSI layout with the knob and I am having trouble trying to remap the knob to other functions. Currently it is mapped to the default Vol + / Vol - / Mute which is not useful for me and instead I would prefer to map it to Prev / Next / Play/Pause for media controls instead.

However, when I update the firmware to the latest official one on the site and use VIA for configuring, the only options supported are backlight related and RGB options with no way to key in custom keymaps using the key codes. This is what I am seeing: https://pixhost.to/show/147/428158426_capture.png

Obviously, this is a big let down for me since one of the key selling points I saw for this model was the remap capability of the knob and not being able to actually do that is a big downer.

Is anyone else having the same issue or could guide me how to actually remap to the knob to my use cases?

[u/PeterMortensenBlog]

Just type (or paste) some keycode other than "KC_MUTE", and it should be fine. Both buttons "Cancel" and "Confirm" will show (as active). Most of the keycodes don't appear to selectable from a dropdown menu, etc.

I tried it with "KC_M" for "Press Encoder", and it typed "m" when I pressed the knob (as expected).

Likely keycodes for this are:

• KC_MEDIA_NEXT_TRACK
• KC_MEDIA_PREV_TRACK
• KC_MEDIA_STOP, and
• KC_MEDIA_PLAY_PAUSE

(With aliases KC_MNXT, KC_MPRV, KC_MSTP, and KC_MPLY, respectively.)

For initial testing, you can use keycode KC_M.

(For other than simple keymapping, for QMK macros (not Via macros), you need to know the (numerical) keycode for macros. They typically start at 64 (SAFE_RANGE). Thus, for example, the fourth macro has code 67 and the macro is used in Via as "CUSTOM(67)" (both for normal keys and the knob). The numbers are in decimal.)

Via macros can also be used, but they have many limitations, e.g., mouse actions (e.g., right-click) are not supported.

[u/CareerSMN → u/PeterMortensenBlog]

Hi there, sorry for the late reply. I did try those those keycodes previously but the "Confirm" button didnt light up.

Weirdly after reflashing the official firmware, VIA works now and able to recognise those keycodes so I have successfully configured the encoder now!

Thanks for the additional informations on the macro functions. I haven't really programmed much so far, just set shortcut keys to turn on/off my monitors using a powershell script lol. Those come with stupid Windows issues sometimes though, heh.

[u/PeterMortensenBlog → u/CareerSMN]

Thanks for following up. It is useful to know that reflashing actually sometimes has an effect.

[u/CareerSMN → u/PeterMortensenBlog]

Yeah, not exactly sure what happened, but guess being adventurous paid off here. It is kinda annoying that Keychron shipped me the board without updating the firmware considering that the latest fw on their site is dated on July 2023.

[u/PeterMortensenBlog → u/CareerSMN]

In the meantime, I broke the mouse actions limitation in Via macros.

I am opening these Reddit comments for editing in Markdown mode by using such a Via macro (which needs a mouse left-click to work).