Demo Mode

Firmware v1.5.0+demo mode

Demo mode turns the keyboard into its own display piece. It plays a loop of about 15 minutes and then starts over, until someone holds Esc for two seconds.

Start and stop

The demo needs no computer: it also runs with the keyboard on a USB charger or a power bank.

1. Open the settings layer and tap More….
2. Tap Demo Mode. On split72 it is on the row that appears. On split42 it appears on the top row of the settings layer, beside the glyph-script key.

To stop, hold Esc for two seconds. The keyboard goes back to your base layout and your own language. A short tap on Esc, or any other key, does nothing, so visitors can press keys without ending the demo.

The status displays say how to stop it: every 12 seconds they show Demo mode / Hold Esc to exit for 4 seconds. The rest of the time they show the usual layer, language and typing speed.

Caution

While the demo runs, no key you press reaches the computer. Every key press is ignored, so the keyboard seems dead to anyone who does not know about the Esc hold. That is why the key sits behind More…, where a stray tap does not reach it.

Key demo: type into a text editor

Firmware v1.7.3+key demo

Key Demo sits next to Demo Mode and plays the same loop. The difference: everything the demo types also reaches the computer, one key press at a time. Each line of a poem ends with an Enter, and each poem or word ends with one more. Open a text editor, start the key demo, and the editor fills with the demo’s text for as long as the loop runs. Use it as a typing test for a long session, or to check that every key press arrives.

The key demo never sends a modifier. No Shift, Ctrl, Alt or Windows/Command key, no Tab and no layer key ever reaches the computer, so the run cannot switch to another window, close a tab or start a shortcut. The keycaps still show Shift for capitals, but the computer receives the unshifted key:

The demo types	The editor receives
Every key knows its letter,	every key knows its letter,
LOAD "*",8,1	load '8',8,1

The keys arrive as key positions on a US layout. If the computer uses another layout, those positions produce that layout’s characters: on a German layout y and z swap, and the punctuation differs. During the language and glyph-script tour the keycaps show other alphabets, but the computer still receives the same Latin key positions.

Start, stop and the status-display hint work as for the normal demo. On split72 the key is the last one on the row that More… reveals; on split42 it is beside Demo Mode on the top row. Keys you press are still ignored, and holding Esc for two seconds ends the run.

Caution

Click into the editor before you open the settings layer. The key demo types into whatever window has focus.

What the loop shows

Seven blocks of activity, each followed by about a minute of rest:

Block	What happens on the keycaps
Typing	Short poems typed key by key. Each key lights up as it is pressed, and Shift flips every legend to upper case. Fn and Num are held for a few seconds each.
Languages	Short words with the keycaps in Greek, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Georgian and Armenian.
Menus	The language menu and the emoji picker page through their tabs, then the Intl, utility and settings layers.
Glyph scripts	Tengwar, runes, Cirth, Aurebesh, the Standard Galactic Alphabet, IBM VGA, C64, Amiga and Braille. See Glyph Scripts.
Layers	Two more poems, with Fn and Num held between them.
European languages	German and French, each followed by the Intl layer with its accented letters, then Ukrainian and the emoji picker.
Settings	One more poem, the Num layer, the settings layer and the language menu once more.

The rest between blocks is your own idle style: the keycaps fade over 10 seconds, then the style you picked runs for about a minute. The demo then wakes the keyboard and the next block starts.

The poems are the same five that the split72 status display types while the keyboard idles, so the demo needs no text of its own.

The typing follows your base layout. On Colemak or Neo the demo presses the keys that carry each letter on that layout.

What it does not change

These hold for both the demo and the key demo.

• Your language. The language tour is a preview on the keycaps only. The host app keeps seeing your real language, and nothing is saved.
• Your settings. Brightness, idle style, glyph script and layout stay as they were.
• Across a restart. Demo mode is not saved. Unplug the keyboard and it comes back normal.

A language or glyph script needs its font on the keyboard. Without the font pack those steps show your own language instead of blank keys.

Note

If the computer goes to sleep, the demo pauses with the displays and continues where it was when the computer wakes. A firmware or font update stops the demo.