Customize keyboard backlight

Framework Laptop 13
1

Is it possible to customize features of the keyboard & backlight? Example are:

  • changing backlight timeout (for battery and plugged in)
  • scheduling backlight (enable during nighttime & on battery)
  • toggle when screen brightness is low
  • toggle backlight for certain keys (and add cool effects)
  • changing what function keys do
  • customize power button backlight
15 Likes
2

I’d second this. The change of kbd backlight levels is something that I got really used to and would be nice to have.

1 Like
3

This is handled by the EC(embedded controller) which is open source, at the moment this functionality is not well exposed to the user but it should be technically do able but I’m not sure how

Framework is planning on making this easier to tweak in the future I believe

1 Like
4

I’d like to see this as well.

5

One thing I miss from my Thinkpad is a led for mute status. If I could turn on the backlight for just the F1 key to indicate “muted”, that could be cool.

That’d also be useful. WhyTF does Fn+F9 fake like typing Meta+P instead of producing a proper scancode? (Yeah, I know, the answer is some Windows stupidity, that’s not the point)

6

+1 for timeout. One of the remaining things I envy on my partner’s macbook.

3 Likes
7

I’d just like to second this request. Just something I could modify in /sys/class/leds/ or something

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8

Is there any update on this feature request? This is my main “bug” with the Framework right now. It’s also been talked about here.

I’m ok with 3rd party software (Windows) if that would be available.

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9

+1

Still waiting for the keyboard backlight timeout to be “fixed”. :frowning:

10

I’m working on a VERY simple program that does a keyboard backlight timeout using the ectool on Gnome systems (it uses Gnome’s dbus and Mutter to know when the user is idle). I’d like to share it, but it needs some configuration of dbus to work in a way that I think might be insecure.

1 Like
11

I just wrote a small Linux daemon to do this GitHub - jonas-schievink/keylightd: Keyboard backlight daemon for the Framework Laptop

No fancy features, just “turn backlight on when keyboard or touchpad are used” and “turn it back off after a timeout”, since that’s what I was missing from my XPS 13.

(it uses evdev directly, so doesn’t need any specific desktop environment)

12 Likes
12

@jschievink This is great. I also ended up working on an ioctl based version (was also done in rust) but yours is better!