A single-source-file C program to set the colors of a 3-region MSI keyboard.
I did not reverse engineer the /magic/ used here myself. And looking around github in regards to the subject of home-made programs to set the colors of these keyboard, there's already more than one of them. However, none of the ones I managed to find were what this repo now holds: A simple, single-source-file, (probably portable), commandline C program with minimal dependencies
There really isn't too much to it, but you can just look between the /* BEGIN: Magic */ ... /* END: Magic */ regions to take a look at the /magic/ constants and command sequences that must be sent to an HID device vendor_id: 0x1770, product_id: 0xff00
The program is self-documenting, and you can run kbrgb --help, but here are some examples:
kbrgb m:normal p:all:green:h(Make the whole keyboard green)kbrgb m:normal p:l:red:h p:m:green:h p:r:blue:h(Make the whole keyboard RGB (RedGreenBlue))- ...
You will need to have installed:
- A couple of standard-C headers (see top of
main.c) hidapi- If you're using cygwin (like me), you don't even have to install this one from source.
Instead, from the cygwin installer, install the following packages:libhidapi-devellibhidapi0And that's it
- If you're using cygwin (like me), you don't even have to install this one from source.
Just run make from the cloned repo, or do your own gcc -o kbrgb main.c -lhidapi (after all: it's only a single source file)
Since (at least for my laptop), the default color of the keyboard is all-red after boot (and I have yet to find a way of changing this), I've had the quite neat idea of setting up scheduled tasks to run the following:
- During logon:
kbrgb m:normal p:all:green:h - During logoff:
kbrgb m:normal p:all:red:h
Meaning that while I'm logged in, the keyboard is green, but while I'm logged off, it's red (and since red is the default color, it will also be red until I log on for the first time) I think that's rather neat :)