See [UPGRADING.md](UPGRADING.md) for more detailed instructions about upgrading from earlier versions (even earlier betas). This is just a list of noteworthy changes.
A new plugin API was introduced in May 2018, which replaces the old system. The new system is hopefully easier to use and develop for:
- It does not require one to register / use hooks anymore. Implementing the interface provided by `kaleidoscope::Plugin` is all that is required.
- The new system has more hook points, and the method names are much more clear now.
Plugins under Keyboardio control have all been updated to use the new API, and they no longer support the older one.
See [UPGRADING.md](UPGRADING.md#new-plugin-api) for more information.
### Transition to a monorepo
We heard a lot of complaints that while the plugin architecture of Kaleidoscope is great, having so many plugins scattered around in dozens of repositories is a huge barrier of entry for potential contributors, and a significant pain point for end-users to update. For these reasons and more, we merged almost all plugins into the Kaleidoscope repository.
While at first it may seem that this is a move towards a monolithic architecture, rest assured, it is not. The plugin APIs are still a core part of Kaleidoscope, it isn't going anywhere. We merely rearranged the sources, is all. Nothing else changes.
Some headers and names did change, however, see [UPGRADING.md](UPGRADING.md#source-code-and-namespace-rearrangement) for more information.
### Bidirectional communication for plugins
The bi-directional communication protocol formerly implemented by `Kaleidoscope-Focus` has been partially pulled into core, using the new plugin system mentioned above. The new system makes it a lot easier for both end-users and developers to use the feature.
See [UPGRADING.md](UPGRADING.md#bidirectional-communication-for-plugins) for more information.
### Consistent timing
Numerous plugins use timers, most of them directly calling `millis()`. This has the disadvantage that calls within a main loop cycle will be inconsistent, which makes timing synchronization across plugins hard. The newly introduced `Kaleidoscope.millisAtCycleStart()` function helps dealing with this issue.
See [UPGRADING.md](UPGRADING.md#consistent-timing) for more information.
### USB detach / attach
It is now possible to detach, and re-attach the USB link from/to the host, without resetting the device. The intent of this feature (as implemented by the `Kaleidoscope.detachFromHost()` and `Kaleidoscope.attachToHost()` methods) is to allow configuration changes without rebooting.
See the [Kaleidoscope-USB-Quirks][plugin:USB-Quirks] plugin for a use-case.
The [OneShot plugin](plugins/Kaleidoscope-OneShot.md) gained finer stickability controls, one can now control whether the double-tap stickiness is enabled on a per-key basis. See [UPGRADING.md](UPGRADING.md#finer-oneshot-stickability-control) for more information.
In certain cases we need to delay the unicode input sequence, otherwise the host is unable to process the input properly. For this reason, the [Unicode](plugins/Kaleidoscope-Unicode.md) gained an `.input_delay()` method that lets us do just that. It still defaults to no delay.
The [Cycle](plugins/Kaleidoscope-Cycle.md) plugin has much better support for cycling through keys with modifiers applied to them, such as `LSHIFT(Key_A)`. Please see the documentation and the updated example for more information.
There are situations where one would like to disable sending a report after each and every step of a macro, and rather have direct control over when reports are sent. The new `WITH_EXPLICIT_REPORT`, `WITH_IMPLICIT_REPORT` and `SEND_REPORT` steps help with that. Please see the [Macros](plugins/Kaleidoscope-Macros.md) documentation for more information.
The plugin was intended to work with OneShot primarily, and that's where it is most useful. To make it less surprising, and more suitable to include it in default-like firmware, we made it possible to ask it not to highlight normal modifiers. Please see the [LED-ActiveModColor](plugins/Kaleidoscope-LED-ActiveModColor.md) documentation for more information.
Changing layers now triggers the `onLayerChange` event - but only if there was real change (thus, calling `Layer.on(SOME_LAYER)` multiple times in a row will only trigger one event). This event was introduced to help plugins that depend on layer state schedule their work better.
To make it easier to create custom shortcuts, that do not interfere with system ones, an old trick is to use many modifiers. To make this easier, `Ctrl+Shift+Alt` is commonly abbreviated as `Meh`, while `Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Gui` is often called `Hyper`. To support this, we offer the `Key_Meh` and `Key_Hyper` aliases, along with `MEH(k)` and `HYPER(k)` to go with them.
## `keymap` internals are now a one dimensional array
Historically, Kaleidoscope used the dimensional array `keymaps` to map between logical key position and hardware key position. `keymaps` has been replaced with `keymaps_linear`, which moves the keymap to a simple array. This makes it easier to support new features in Kaleidoscope and simplifies some code
New `PER_KEY_DATA` and `PER_KEY_DATA_STACKED` macros are available (when defined by a hardware implementation). These macros make it easier to build features like `KEYMAPS` that track some data about each key on a keyboard.
- [Atreus](hardware-devices/Hardware-Technomancy-Atreus.md): All known variants of the original Atreus are supported. From the Legacy Teensy variant, through the pre-2016 PCB with an A* MCU, the post-2016 PCB, and FalbaTech's handwired one too. Apart from the legacy Teensy variant, the other support both the A* or a Teensy as an MCU.
- [ErgoDox](hardware-devices/Hardware-EZ-ErgoDox.md): Originally developed to support the ErgoDox EZ, but all other compatible hardware is supported, such as the original ErgoDox and anything else wired like it, like some Dactyls.
- [Planck](hardware-devices/Hardware-OLKB-Planck.md): AVR-based Plancks, and anything else wired similarly should be supported, as long as they use a Teensy.
- [Splitography](hardware-devices/Hardware-SOFTHRUF-Splitography.md): Initial support for the Splitography Steno keyboard.
To make it easier to port Kaleidoscope, we introduced the `ATMegaKeyboard` base class. For any board that's based on the ATMega MCU and a simple matrix, this might be a good foundation to develop the hardware plugin upon.
The [CharShift](plugins/Kaleidoscope-CharShift.md) plugin allows independent assignment of symbols to keys depending on whether or not a `shift` key is held.
The [AutoShift](plugins/Kaleidoscope-AutoShift.md) plugin provides an alternative way to get shifted symbols, by long-pressing keys instead of using a separate `shift` key.
The [IdleLEDs](plugins/Kaleidoscope-IdleLEDs.md) plugin is a simple, yet, useful one: it will turn the keyboard LEDs off after a period of inactivity, and back on upon the next key event.
The [LEDActiveLayerColor][plugins/Kaleidoscope-LEDActiveLayerColor.md] plugin makes it possible to set the color of all LEDs to the same color, depending on which layer is active topmost.
We integrated the [LEDWavepool](plugins/Kaleidoscope-LED-Wavepool.md) plugin by [ToyKeeper][wavepool:origin], with a few updates and new features added.
The [WinKeyToggle](plugins/Kaleidoscope-WinKeyToggle.md) plugin assists with toggling the Windows key on and off - a little something for those of us who game under Windows and are tired of accidentally popping up the start menu.
### The `NumPad` plugin no longer toggles `NumLock`
The `NumPad` plugin used to toggle `NumLock` when switching to the NumPad layer. This caused issues on OSX where `NumLock` is interpreted as `Clear`. For this reason, the plugin no longer does this. As a consequence, everyone's encouraged to update their keymap so that the numpad layer uses normal number keys instead of the keypad numbers. See [Model01-Firmware#79](https://github.com/keyboardio/Model01-Firmware/pull/79) for an example about how to do this.
The `RxCy` macros changed from being indexes into a per-hand bitmap to being an index across the whole keyboard. This mostly affected the [MagicCombo](plugins/Kaleidoscope-MagicCombo.md) plugin.
The [Redial](plugins/Kaleidoscope-Redial.md) plugin was simplified, one no longer needs to define `Key_Redial` on their own, the plugin defines it itself. See the [upgrade notes](UPGRADING.md#Redial) for more information about how to upgrade.
The [LED-Palette-Theme](plugins/Kaleidoscope-LED-Palette-Theme.md) had to be changed to store the palette colors in reverse. This change had to be made in order to not default to a bright white palette, that would draw so much power that most operating systems would disconnect the keyboard due to excessive power usage. With inverting the colors, we now default to a black palette instead. This sadly breaks existing palettes, and you will have to re-set the colors.
We also changed when we reserve space for the palette in EEPROM: we used to do it as soon as possible, but that made it impossible to go from a firmware that does not use the plugin to one that does, and still have a compatible EEPROM layout. We now reserve space as late as possible. This breaks existing EEPROM layouts however.
The [EEPROMKeymap](plugins/Kaleidoscope-EEPROM-Keymap.md) plugin was changed to treat built-in (default) and EEPROM-stored (custom) layers separately, because that's less surprising, and easier to work with from Chrysalis. The old `keymap.map` and `keymap.roLayers` commands are gone, the new `keymap.default` and `keymap.custom` commands should be used instead.
Key masking was a band-aid introduced to avoid accidentally sending unintended keys when key mapping changes between a key being pressed and released. Since the introduction of keymap caching, this is no longer necessary, as long as we can keep the mapping consistent. Users of key masking are encouraged to find ways to use the caching mechanism instead.
We fixed way too many issues to list here, so we're going to narrow it down to the most important, most visible ones.
### Support for BIOSes, EFI, login prompts, etc
Keyboards report keys pressed to the host via either of two protocols: the boot protocol, or the report protocol. The boot protocol is the simpler, and it is what older BIOSes, EFI, and certain OS login prompts (or hard disk password prompts and the like) require. Until recently, the firmware wasn't able to provide this protocol, only the more advanced report one, which is required for N-key roll-over.
We now support the boot protocol, and on operating systems that fully conform to the USB specification, this works automatically. For all others, one can implement a way to force one mode or the other. See the [factory firmware][Model01-Firmware] for an example how to achieve this.
