Meletrix Zoom65 EE & VIA - Help!

[Zobeid Zuma]

Yesterday I finally broke into my Meletrix Zoom65 Essential Edition kit and put it together.  I hit a few rough spots in the build, as often happens, but I sorted it out OK in the end.  It's built, it's running.  All key switches tested good, I can type on it, the Caps Lock key lights up red when engaged.  But. . .  VIA won't recognize it, and I feel like I've tried everything.

My stand-alone VIA 2.0.5 application wouldn't recognize it.  Then I went to the VIA website, but they don't seem to have stand-alone applications to download anymore.  It's all done on the web, and my browser (Firefox) doesn't work with it.  (At this point I took a little break to do some swearing.)  So, I downloaded Chrome and tried again.  Now it ran, but it still doesn't recognize the Zoom65 -- just asks me to authorize the device, then sits there with a creepy Spongebob-like guy rocking back and forth.

I thought maybe I need to try on Windows, so I fired up my Windows PC and went to the same site with Edge, but had the same result.  Then I installed Chrome on the Windows PC and tried again, but got the same result.

Then I dug through the incredibly confusing and badly-designed Meletrix website until I found a deeply-buried note saying, "If you have the wireless version and it's not recognize by VIA, you must flash new firmware to it."  I had to download Meletrix's special flashing program, install their special driver (with Windows throwing security warnings at me), then run the flasher (with Windows throwing security warnings at me), then find out their special flasher program won't recognize the Zoom65 either.  I went in circles a while before discovering that it's not recognized when plugged into some USB ports, but it works when plugged into others.  Go figure.

I finally flashed the new firmware, and. . .   It made no difference.  The keyboard still works, VIA still doesn't recognize it.

I'm at the end of my rope.  I've ran out of ideas.  Any suggestions?  Has anyone got VIA working with this keyboard?  (BTW, I set mine up with split spacebar and split backspace, so I kinda really need VIA to make it work as intended.)

[Sup]

Hey, I did some research for you.

The firmware you flashed is probably the right one and should work. The thing you need to load is the .json file. This keyboard is probably not officially supported and added to VIA.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ccM6jrPUvhoygvPGaZ1i4bYQ0juRxKYa/view?usp=share_link The Json file. You go to VIA hit settings and enable show design tab. Go to design tab and load the. .Json file. You should be able to remap from there. You will have to do this every time you want to remap it.

 

[Zobeid Zuma]

Yes, I'm familiar with that, as I already have to do that with my F77.  I already tried it with the Zoom65, and I only got errors.  But. . .  of course. . .  Since you suggested it, I had to go back and try it again.

I examined the .json file that I got from Meletrix and found it somehow full of HTML.  Obviously the download had gone wrong somehow.  I downloaded again and made sure it was the actual file.  Then I tried to load it into VIA and got a different error message.  Then, on a hunch, I switched on the V2 deprecated compatibility, and then it loaded!!

So, looks like my problem is solved.  And thank you!  You gave me that little nudge I needed.

Now allow me to vent a bit at Meletrix.  This was an absolute nightmare.  This is everything, absolutely everything, that VIA was supposed to move us all away from.  I mean, I would have been more comfortable compiling QMK like in the old days.  When I bought a Keychron, I plugged it into my computer, launched VIA, started configuring keys.  That's how it's supposed to work.  Not this madness I've had with the Zoom65.

[marksen]

This was an absolute nightmare.  This is everything, absolutely everything, that VIA was supposed to move us all away from.

VIA made changes a while back to not make it easy for vendors to add their boards, and consequently hardly any boards are getting added anymore.

The sooner everyone moves to VIAL the better.

[Maledicted]

This was an absolute nightmare.  This is everything, absolutely everything, that VIA was supposed to move us all away from.

VIA made changes a while back to not make it easy for vendors to add their boards, and consequently hardly any boards are getting added anymore.

The sooner everyone moves to VIAL the better.

What did they do that made it harder for vendors to implement VIA? It wasn't too bad with my handwired board with an rp2040 as the controller. I wanted to use VIAL but it flipped out about the hardware PWM driver I needed for the beeper I installed when I tried to compile.