PI Engineering XKEYS LED help?

Hi there-

Question about the PI Engineering XK24 keyboard. I’ve got it working great as far as Macro triggering in KBM but I’d love to extend a bit more. I can control the LEDs in the ControllerMate app but I’d like to have that control directly accessible in KB Maestro. Specifically I want to use the LEDs to indicate which keys are active when switching to a specific application. PI already told me there is no shell scripting but there must be someway to get KBM to talk to it because ControllerMate has no trouble. Thanks!

2 Likes

Keyboard Maestro has no support for controlling the PI Engineering devices. Its possible to do, obviously, but I have never written the code for it. I don’t get enough requests for support for this, and it would be specific to the device, so I don’t currently have any plans to do it. PI Engineering should release a shell command, or alternatively an SDK, but currently the work to support it outweighs the benefits to those few who use them.

Hmm- that’s what I kinda figured. It’s too bad. As a longtime Keyboard Maestro user these devices are sweet for macro triggering and the lack of LED control is by no means a deal breaker. Is there another USB device controller you’d recommend instead with better support in KM?

Nope - the XK24 is the only one I have (PI Engineering sent me one to test). I’ve long desired the ability to control the LEDs, but I can’t justify the time I’m afraid, plus its a bit device specific to be a good fit for Keyboard Maestro.

I Would like to see this feature in km too. So we dont need to use controllermate...not that its a bad app but its overkill to use 2 macroapps at the same time and might cause errors.

I ditto this request. But i am afraid it needs a lot more votes then the ones above... too bad

I hadn’t seen this thread before. I would so love this feature (although I have the XK60): using ControllerMate with it feels like planting a hectare of lettuce plants just so I can put a leaf on my sandwich.

But I won’t hold my breath; it really wouldn’t make sense for Peter to support it.

Haha, i like the way you put it. I also do that now; use ControllerMate just for the leds. Triggered by midi from KM as i don't know another way.

I would love to see this as well.

My XKs are on the shelf. StreamDeck XL all the way... Dynamic keys, with Profiles, are the way to go.

1 Like

+1 especially since Xkeys is no longer working with ControlMate in Catalina.

I predict improved Xkeys integration within KeyBoard Maestro.

1 Like

I hope this prediction will come true soon!

It would be great to have LED control but on top of that to have the xKey functionality of:
No light Key On/Off
Red light Key On/Off
Blue light Key On/Off
White light Key On/Off

This way every X-Key panel is really 4 deep.

I wish I knew how to write code and help with this...

Tal

Hey Tal,

Have you reached out, to PI Engineering, for the code to make this work with Keyboard Maestro? We place a lot on @peternlewis' shoulders to get device specific miracles and actionable requests to work, if you can get them to create a plugin or provide code, it may help. I guess the Stream Deck opened the flood gates. Like @ErikMH, ControllerMate was overkill and I had my Keys for about 8 years. I could never get the lights to work consistently. When I discovered you could use Keyboard Maestro for mapping macros, I 86'd the buggy ControllerMate software. Then when the StreamDeck became supported, esp with profiles and dynamic keys, it was over.

Anyway, good luck with the request.

KC

Hey KC,

Yes, I have talked to PI support and I believe they are communicating with @peternlewis, the more of us Xkeys users that express our wants would hopefully get it on the development tree plan. Now that I am moving to OSX Catalina and playing with KM I love it and do not want to go back to ControlerMate. I can make things work now, but I would love to get the maximum functionality from the X-Keys+KM. Stream Deck is cool for sure but I love my 2 Xkeys units 24 and 80 key. I don't mind paying for the extra functionality, for me, this is a work tool I use every day. If it makes my work faster I wiull gladly pay for it.

Tal

1 Like

Good for you! I wish you luck.

KC

XK-24 User here so +1 for this. Can anyone post a macro layout they have for an XK-24? I can get macros to run and map them to keys but it's taking a long time to remap all my CM layouts and I'm wondering if I'm doing it the slow way. Also, I can't get KM to map to a modifier key as well as I could with ControllerMate (eg when I map a key to ALT I want it to behave as if I'm pressing - and releasing - the ALT key). Thanks!

Registering my +1 for backlight control of X-Keys keyboards with KM. It's a bummer that it we can't do this, as ControllerMate for macOS can do this, however I worry about the future of ControllerMate, as development seems to have stalled.

The X-Keys panels are widely used by video/film post-production artists on macOS, so being able to port ControllerMate scripts over to Keyboard Maestro would be most welcome.

As Controller Mate is not supported anymore (From Cataline I think) I have a very strong feeling that they are in contact with Peter. And, I would like support too. I am still on High Sierra, so I use Controller Mate just for receiving MIDI signals from Keyboard Maestro to turn on or off the led's! :slight_smile:

+1 for X-keys backlight control. As @melorama, mentioned backlight control is no longer possible on macs running Catalina or newer.