Getting Started

Configuring the modules

The first time you plug in your Navigator, the module will not respond. We'll need to modify the Voyager's layout, add a Navigator with one of the plus icons, then compile and flash the new layout to the board.

You’ll do this in Oryx as shown in the gif below.

When flashing your keyboard through Chrome, you will need an external mouse connected. This isn't needed when flashing through our Keymapp tool.

Getting used to your Navigator

Transitioning to the Navigator Trackball or Trackpad takes practice. Don't throw out your mouse just yet! It will take time to get comfortable with the Navigator and find what settings work for you. Be patient with yourself while you get used to everything.

Remember that you don't need to fully switch right away. Some movements and actions may feel frustrating and slow at first. It's completely okay to keep your regular mouse by you so you can switch back and forth. Over time, you’ll find yourself using the Navigator more and more often.

Navigator settings

A few core settings can be found by clicking on the Navigator in Oryx.

The rest of the Navigator settings are in the Navigator tab of your layout’s advanced settings.

Trackball Settings

Enabling Press to exit auto-mouse gives you a different way to use the auto-mouse layer. This mode toggles your auto-mouse layer on when you move the mouse, then waits to deactivate it until you’ve pressed a key (it’ll count down your Auto-mouse deactivation delay once you’ve pressed a key.)

You can invert the scroll direction of either axis, either in firmware through Oryx or in your operating system settings. Doing this in Oryx makes sense if you only want this to apply to the Navigator (that way any other mice on your computer will still scroll like they always have).

Raising Auto-mouse activation threshold can help if you are a particularly heavy typist or use the Trackball at a high tenting angle and notice the mouse layer activating while you type.

Setting the Rotation of your Navigator Trackball is useful if you plan to use a 3D-printed shell that changes the orientation of the Trackball, such as our thumb shell.

Trackpad Settings

On Windows and Linux, the Trackpad will work as soon as you flash your new layout. You can adjust things like cursor speed in your operating system settings. When using the Navigator Trackpad in macOS, you will want our Navigator companion app to enable gesture support and smooth scrolling. The Trackpad will work without the app, but only for basic mouse movements. This is due to Apple’s lack of support for third-party devices.

When you first launch the companion app, you will need to grant it Accessibility permissions through macOS. Simply follow the prompts in the app. If you’ve used anything like Alfred, Karabiner Elements, even Zoom, you will be familiar with this process.

Clicking All Settings… brings up more configuration options for the Trackpad. Here are the most important ones as you get started:

Cursor Speed affects how fast your mouse pointer moves while Acceleration affects how much finger movement it takes to reach top speed. A faster Cursor Speed with linear Acceleration will be quite fast all the time while a slower Cursor Speed with a curved acceleration will be slow when moving your finger slowly and quickly speed up when moving your finger quickly. Try both settings somewhere in the middle to start and experiment to find what feels right.

Enable Kinetic Scrolling gives your scrolling momentum. Pages will continue to scroll after your fingers leave the Trackpad if you were scrolling quickly, like you are “throwing” the scrollbar. This type of scrolling is common and useful with the small Trackpad surface; we recommend leaving this enabled.

Tap Duration affects how much time you have to perform actions like double and triple-taps with the Trackpad. You may want to set this on the slow side while you practice, then you may find you can raise it, or you can just leave it if you like how it feels.

Movement affects how “off-center” your finger can be compared to your first tap when doing a double or triple-tap. A strict Movement setting would require you to hit almost the exact same point for it to count as a double-tap. A relaxed Movement setting would let your finger drift. We suggest most people start far on the relaxed side and adjust if it feels too easy to trigger.