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v0.6.0 - keyboard backlight, power button, keyboard animations

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@I4cTime I4cTime released this 23 Oct 04:40
· 1 commit to main since this release
v0.6.0
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Learn about vigilant mode.

Keyboard backlight and the power button (#23, #24, #25)

Lighting on the m16/m18 family turned out to be two devices, and Cryo only drove one of them.

  • The keyboard is its own USB device. On the m18 R2 the AW-ELC controller (187c:0551) drives the rear rings, the lid logo and the power button; the per-key keyboard is a separate Darfon HID device (0d62:aab1, "DELL Technologies Keyboard"). Cryo now talks to it over hidraw (64-byte feature reports, the protocol alienfx-tools calls "API V5"): colour, brightness and the firmware's own breathe, wave and night-rider effects.
  • Quantum, Spectrum and Rainbow animate the keys for real: the firmware has no smooth multi-colour mode, so cryod streams per-key frames at 8 fps (34 ms a frame on the m18 R2). Quantum morphs cyan to violet in step with the chassis, Spectrum cycles the rainbow on every key, Rainbow spreads the rainbow across the key columns and scrolls it.
  • The power button follows the effect. It is zone 4 on the controller (3 is a phantom, 5 makes the firmware drop the whole animation), and it has to be driven through the controller's power-state animation slots: rings and lid run in the user animation, the button in all four active slots, dark in the two sleep slots. Smooth on AC and on battery; the chassis goes dark in sleep. This replaces the stock blue-on-AC button colour, which lives in the controller until AWCC on Windows reprograms it.
  • cryoctl doctor reports the keyboard node and report size; the verdict tells "no lighting at all" from "chassis lighting missing".

Desktop app

  • Clicking a colour swatch applies it with the current effect straight away.
  • The keyboard preview keeps one size instead of stretching with the window.

Compatibility

  • Alienware 16X Aurora AC16251 (Core Ultra 9 275HX + RTX 5060 Laptop) is the first community SUPPORTED report (#21), with the reporter's fan-latency data point in docs/COMPATIBILITY.md.
  • The compatibility label the model-report template references now exists.

Housekeeping

  • No em dashes anywhere in copy or code (#26). PySide6 floor raised to 6.12 (#18).

Upgrading

cd cryo && git pull && sudo ./packaging/install.sh

The installer restarts cryod; restart cryo-gui (quit it from the tray) to load the new window. Lighting is re-applied on start; if the keyboard shows nothing, cryoctl doctor should list per-key keyboard (0d62) with a /dev/hidraw node.

Full Changelog: v0.5.0...v0.6.0

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