I was under the impression that they could not. But I’d be happy to be proven wrong if someone knows otherwise.
I was thinking something with Doomguy, but you’d need two of these matrices next to eachother and some cropping to fit him. Health = battery, Armor = volume %
A bit-crushed representation of the Aliens motion tracker, with “hits” at certain “distance” representing wifi signal strength normally measured in bars.
A self playing game of Tetris or Snake as a “screen saver”, really a lot of things that you used to see on graphing calculators
I’d probably go for raindrops streaking down glass Matrix style, possibly looking into replacing the LEDs with green ones (or using a green plastic filter somehow)
It’d be cool to get some progress bar integration. For nerds like a plugin/fork for Python packages like tqdm or progressbar2, or (I don’t know if this is possible) for anything that would put a progress bar on a Windows desktop icon like a file transfer.
You can not. Doesn’t fit. The top / keyboard section is larger than the bottom / touchpad section. There are also tracks taking up room on the bottom.
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I see. I thought they were the same size, and had data/power connection points, thank you for the clarification!
What about stats for a tamagotchi style app?
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- set a scrolling marquee (horizontal or vertical)
- games statistics like ammo count/ health/ etc
- music player integration: song name, playtime, etc
- pc statistics like cpu/gpu temp, cpu and mem usage, etc
I think you’re way too optimistic about the resolution available there. I would love ALL of these, with a paper display in a spacer tho. Possibly with a simple touch? Like what’s in the samsung buds (1 touch play, 2 next 3 previous, swype up down for volume), I don’t even mind if there’s no info, but there’s toch on the matrix. But it’s way too low for anything too informative.
really just want the app to be to run on startup, and execute the previous settings, also to be able to save current setting to the hardware, so when the os isnt running, it defaults to whatever preset you have saved. also need the missing modes added to the app (start a game, clock, eq wavefrom from mic input, alot of commands missing from the app) and app stability definately needs work…
I’m sorry, but it’s kind of an amusing that you say you “just” want, followed by what becomes a list of items with “and, also, also, and”. I mean, “just” is really struggling to keep it together there. 
I mean that in a lighthearted way.
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also where are these…
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They are a user made add-on.
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Extremely niche here but I DJ so integration with Rekordbox/Traktor etc … would he awesome
Could have each track on each module, volume, effects on each module.
I’d love that
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Well, I’d any of those tools have plug-ins that can be written, I’m sure you can write something to interface with the libraries necessary for the LED matrixes.
Can someone give me a hand with understanding how to run an animation or some basic command? I read the git read me, but I don’t get it. How do I run it? How do I set it up to run on boot?
I finally got a pair of the LED Matrix modules, but haven’t had a chance to actually install them and tinker yet, so bear with me as I am basing this on reading and prior experience.
The LED Matrix modules each have an RP2040 microcontroller inside (same as a Raspberry Pi). There are two components to the software - the firmware, which is actually loaded into the microcontroller memory, and a command line tool you run in your OS to talk to the firmware and give it commands / set modes.
I’m assuming the modules are preloaded with the firmware when they ship, but I haven’t confirmed this. It might still be worth learning how to load it for future updates. For every RP2040 board I’ve ever used, the process looks like this:
- Set the board into “bootloader” mode. Usually done via a command line command, or pressing a button on the board, etc. Think of this as like going into the BIOS.
- The board / module should now show up on your system as a USB storage device.
- Copy the compiled binary of your firmware onto the storage device.
- Reset / reboot the device, and it will load the firmware as it starts up.
For the command line tool, since the LED Matrix modules are essentially permanently connected when you install them, the tool can simply talk to the module over the USB connection it always has. This is where the tool that Framework built comes in - “inputmodule-control”
This tool is specifically built for the FW laptop so you’ll need to review the user guide here and run various commands to find your LED Matrix (it should show up as a serial device) and then send it specific commands.
Hope that helps you get started! This is definitely a tinkering type device, so I expect people will be building their own firmware additions, invoking the control command from their own scripts or apps, etc.
Is there going to be official “binary” documentation for the modules?
I see this: inputmodule-rs/commands.md at main · FrameworkComputer/inputmodule-rs · GitHub
But it appears to be incomplete. I actually plan on writing a Qt/QML wrapper that would either use libUSB or maybe just read/write to /dev/ttyACM0 to work. I would prefer not to rely on a rust + python script to do the commands and keep C++ things in the C++ world 
For any meaningful modern Tetris gameplay, you need a 10×22 pixels (they are called “Minos”) field, preferably higher, but exactly 10 wide. There is a set of standard rules called SRS, which is what makes the game familiar and playable across diverse implementations.
Unfortunately, 9×34 module does sound like a good fit for Tetris.
Also everything related to Tetris is heavily licensed and copyrighted, so if I were Framework I wouldn’t use it in promotion materials — just in case. I live the game, but the company behind it is annoying af.
Two more cents about Tetris:
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10×N fields are still possible if you stack two 9×34 modules side by side. idk if the gap would be OK though, haven’t seen it myself.
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If only the individual panels were 10×N pixels, it would’ve been fun to see some 1v1 local multiplayer.
Ok, so I followed what you suggested and I was able to play around with some of the predefined animations. Thanks for that.
Reset / reboot the device, and it will load the firmware as it starts up.
What do you mean by reset/reboot? Are you referring to the PC or the module itself?
Some more questions that came to mind while playing around:
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Is there a way to play a custom animation? Like a gif or video?
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Is it possible to set an animation and have it start playing automatically every time it boots?