It is certainly fair to post asking for updates on statements you made my friend. I am beyond stoked it isn't forgotten (see edit below). That was all I needed to hear.
Hey there dude, Josh here from Machine, just dropping in to say hi & give a quick update.
First off, thanks for your enthusiasm for what we make - it's really awesome to get good feedback and its nice to hear that people are stoked for the stuff we're working on, especially on the software/electronic side. Most of the work I do tends to be pretty invisible to the end user, most of the feedback I get is 'This is broken, please fix', so like I said, It's super-nice to see people are stoked about the configurator
Second, I totally appreciate you wanting updates more frequently, I'll try and be a little more forthcoming in future. Like Rama said, it's just me working on the configurator in my spare time outside of work and there's a f***-ton of stuff to get done, so I don't get much time to give updates besides the one-line messages I send to Rama to keep him in the loop.
The version of the configurator out right now (1.0.0) is the first bare-bones alpha release, it does just about enough to be useful but is missing a lot of the things we want to add to make it actually good. On top of that, the web-based firmware compiler the configurator uses originally wasn't built to handle many users, but given we'll be adding another 600+ users in the next couple of weeks, I've been putting a lot of work into making it more scalable and reliable. The release we're working on right now (1.1.0) is what I'm calling the first 'proper' release, adding in a lot of the stuff we didn't get chance to in the first alpha. The release will include:
- Drag-and-drop macros to make editing macros way easier
- Macro delays, allowing you to add delays in macros
- Board-level backlight control
- Layer-level backlight control
- Windows drivers in the installer, so you don't have to download them separately
- Possibly tap actions, so you can set separate Push actions and Tap actions on a key (If I can get it finished in the next few days!)
- Auto-updates, meaning you won't have to download a new configurator every time we add or fix something
The Auto-updates are a big one, they mean after this release, we can add new features and fix bugs often rather than doing big releases. So every time I complete a new feature, I'll be able to post a quick update wherever it needs to be, then push it out so everyone gets it. There are a handful of other projects I'm working on right now outside of actual work, but the lion's share of my time is going into the configurator/compiler right now, so you'll be seeing that progress relatively shortly.
Hope that gives you a bit of an insight into what we're working on. Like I said, I'll try and be a bit more responsive on here/reddit/email when I have the time, and things should calm down a little bit after this release drops
If there's anything else you wanted to ask, give me a shout, I'm happy to answer.
-JBL
