6 Programming

Set up the programming environment

1. Open up Arduino IDE on one of the lab computers.
2. Go to File > Preferences.
3. Copy and paste the following URL into the Additional Board Manager URLs box:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sparkfun/Arduino_Boards/master/IDE_Board_Manager/package_sparkfun_index.json

5. Click OK and go to Tools > Board: ... > Board Manager...
6. Search for SparkFun AVR Boards and click Install.
7. Click Close and go back to Tools > Board: ... and scroll down until you find SparkFun Pro Micro.
8. Go to Tools > Processor:... and select ATmega32U4 (5V, 16 MHz).
9. Next go to Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries...
10. Search for keyboard and install HID by Arduino, Keyboard by Arduino, and Mouse by Arduino.
11. Download the sample programs: https://github.com/rpbritton/keyboard-sail/archive/master.zip.

Basics of Arduino Programming

1. Add your includes.
2. Create your global variables.
3. setup() runs once at the beginning to configure stuff like your GPIO pins.
4. loop() is called after setup() and then everytime it ends (like a while (true) loop).

Test it out

1. Open blinky.ino. Read through the comments to get a feel of what is going on.
2. Click Verify to check if the code compiles.
3. If that works, click Upload. The controller LEDs should flash a few times and then one of them should start blinking at an interval.

Modifying the sample keyboard firmware to get it working.

1. Open basic-keyboard.ino in Arduino IDE and read through the code and comments. Try to understand what's going on.
2. Change the rowPins[] array to be equal to your selected row pins starting from the top row and moving down. The syntax is rowPins[] = {Pin Number 1, Pin Number 2, Pin Number 3, ...};. For example: rowPins[] = {6, 3, 8, 4, 9, 7, 12};.
3. Do the same thing for the colPins[] array, starting from the left column to the right column pins.
4. Next look at the layout[numRows][numCols] 2-dimensional array. For each row create another array with {},, with create one char for each column. For example: {'q', 'w', 'e', 'r', 't', 'y'},. For the codes of modifiers look at https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/KeyboardModifiers.