Live Training: Your Layout, in Real Time

Our keyboards are different. That’s probably why you got one. But that also means there is a learning curve: Getting used to your new keyboard takes time and practice.

Live Training is here to help. With Live Training, you get an interactive view of your layout, as you use it:

Live Training shows everything from individual keystrokes, to multiple keys pressed at the same time, to layer changes. You get a complete view of your layout, as you use it.

You can start Live Training and switch to a different window. It’ll keep working, and you can use the interactive keymap as a reference. This is great when just starting out, and for developing muscle memory for layout changes you make over time.

Getting Started with Live Training

Live Training uses the WebUSB standard, which is currently supported by Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers, such as Brave. It works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It requires no drivers, and no administrative privileges. Live Training does not work for ChromeOS, unfortunately, due to security limitations built into the OS. It will also not work for Windows 7 and other legacy operating systems that are past official EOL (“End of Life”) such as OS/2 Warp etc.

A note to Linux users, follow these instructions to set the appropriate udev rules.

For a video tutorial, please watch the following:

 

Preparing Your Layout

• Clone and modify your keyboard layout, and include the new Oryx key. You can place it anywhere you like:

  

• Using Google Chrome or another Chromium-based browser, click the Train link on the Oryx navigation bar:

  

• Click Connect your keyboard, and follow the on-screen prompts, tapping the Oryx key on your keyboard to confirm the connection when required:

  

That’s all there is to it! You are now in Live Training mode. You can switch to other windows or use the built-in training area. When done, simply close the window.

 

Troubleshooting “No Device Found” and “Access Denied” errors

If you are unable to connect to Live Training, follow these troubleshooting steps in the order listed. Please don’t skip any steps. Remember, you can always also email us at contact@ergodox-ez.com.

1: Are you using a USB hub? Is the keyboard plugged into your monitor?

Some USB hubs misbehave when Chrome tries to enumerate the keyboard as a USB device. The first thing you should do is unplug the keyboard from the USB hub and plug it directly into your computer. A computer monitor with pass-through USB counts as a USB hub too.

Then, continue with the steps below.

2: Re-flash the default layout

1. If you don’t yet have Wally installed, download and install it on your machine.
2. Download the default layout for your keyboard from Oryx. You’ll find it here for the Moonlander, here for the ErgoDox EZ, and here for the Planck EZ.
3. Open Wally and follow the step-by-step directions to flash the keyboard with the default layout.
4. Try Live Training again.
5. If Live Training works with the default layout, don’t stop here: Go on to the next step. Yup — you might still need to disable the New USB Backend and reinstall system drivers to get Live Training to work with your own layout.

3: Disable Chrome’s New USB Backend

1. In Chrome, go to chrome://flags/ and search for “Enable New USB Backend”. If you’re reading this on Chrome, you can click this link to get to the setting.
2. Set this flag to “Disabled”.

4: Reinstall the built-in system driver for your keyboard

1. Keep Chrome open.
2. Open Windows Device Manager, and scroll down to “Universal Serial Bus devices”.
3. Open that category, and find the entry for your keyboard.
4. Right-click it and select Uninstall Device.

5. Unplug your ZSA keyboard and restart your computer.
6. Once your machine is done booting up, plug the keyboard in again. Then, try connecting to Live Training.

Another Windows 10 Driver Issue

Some recent updates of Windows 10 have another driver issue, which you can resolve like this:

1. Download the Zadig USB utility. There’s nothing to install; you’ll just be downloading an executable. After it’s done, run it.
2. In Zadig, click Options > List All Devices. In the dropdown menu, you’ll see multiple entries for “Moonlander Mark I”. You want the one that has WinUSB in the first “Driver” field, like this:

(Others will say “HidUsb” instead.)

3. If you see an orange arrow pointing to a WinUSB driver with an earlier revision number than the one to the left, click the drop-down beside “Downgrade WCID Driver” and click “Install Driver”:

(It may look like nothing happens, but that’s fine.)

4. Now, open the Device Manager and expand “Universal Serial Bus Devices”. Right-click “Moonlander Mark I” and choose “Uninstall Device”. Check the box for “Delete the driver software for this device” and click “Uninstall”.
5. Unplug your Moonlander and restart your computer.
6. Once your machine is done booting up, plug the keyboard in again. Then, try connecting to Live Training.

5: Try Brave browser

If you’ve gotten this far and still no joy, download and install Brave. This is a Chromium-based browser and we’ve had some people report success in using it where Chrome did not work for them.

6: Contact support

If you’ve carefully followed the steps in order and you’re still unable to connect to Live Training, please write contact@ergodox-ez.com and we’ll take it from there. Thank you for trying out Live Training!

Frequently Asked Questions

How does this work?

Live Training uses webUSB technology, which allows the browser to directly communicate with the keyboard, once you initiate the connection.

Is this a keylogger?

No. Live Training does not send any information about the characters being printed. The protocol only sends the physical positions of the keys being pressed.

Is it open-source?

The code that runs on the keyboard is open-source, and available to review and use here.

I have another question.

Please email us anytime! contact@ergodox-ez.com is where we’re at, and we’d love to hear from you. Thank you for trying out Live Training!