KeyAble

KeyAble is an accessible web app for customising Keychron keyboards. With it you can make any key, or the knob, do something else: a keyboard shortcut, a media control, a system action, or a macro that runs several actions in one go. It also gives full control over keyboard RGB lighting.

Keychron's own Launcher web app is very difficult to use with a screen reader. KeyAble does the same job in a few plain steps: pick a key, pick what it should do, and hear the change read back before anything is written to the keyboard. It runs in your web browser and needs nothing installed.

How to run it

Use KeyAble online, with nothing to download: https://keyable.slightperception.com

The user guide and the download are on KeyAble's home page: https://www.slightperception.com/apps/keyable/

KeyAble is a single HTML file with no build step.

1. Open KeyAble.html in a browser that supports WebHID, the browser feature that lets a web page talk to a keyboard over USB. That means Chrome, Edge, Brave, or another Chromium-based browser. Firefox and Safari do not support WebHID and will not work. If you have the whole repository, it is in the Project folder.
2. Connect your Keychron keyboard with a USB cable, and set its connection switch to cable mode, not Bluetooth or 2.4GHz.
3. Follow the on-screen steps: connect the keyboard (it is identified automatically), choose a key, then choose what it should do.

To test the KeyAble app without a keyboard, choose "Try KeyAble Without a Keyboard (Demo)" on the first page and pick any model.

Because it is one self-contained file, you can also host it on any static web server, or just open it from disk. It talks directly to the keyboard from the browser; nothing is sent anywhere over the internet.

What it can do

• Change what a key does: another key, a keyboard shortcut, a media control, a system action (such as Lock Screen or Copilot), a macro, or nothing.
• Change the knob's press and turn actions, on models that have one.
• Set a separate action for a key held with Fn, so a key can do two jobs.
• Edit the Mac or Windows layout, with keys and modifiers named correctly for the side you are editing.
• Choose a key from a list, or by pressing it in Capture Mode.
• Multi-step macros: type text, press keys or shortcuts, use media controls and system actions, and pause.
• RGB lighting control, including turning the backlight off to save battery.
• Review every key that differs from factory and reset any of them, reset a single key, or reset the whole keyboard.
• Save the keyboard's setup to a file and restore it later.
• Light and dark themes, following your system setting unless you choose.

Supported keyboards

19 Keychron models across the Q, V, K, and B series (58 variants once you count each ANSI, ISO, knob, and non-knob version separately). The full list is inside the app under Help, "Supported Keyboards".

• Tested on real hardware: V5 Max, V6 Max, Q6 Max, and B6 Pro. The others are built from Keychron's own firmware data.
• Not supported: JIS (Japanese) layouts, HE (Hall Effect) models, and the Ultra 8K models, whose firmware does not use the VIA protocol.

Reporting a problem

If your keyboard connects but is not recognised, the first page shows its ID and a Report This Keyboard ID button that starts an email to shaun@slightperception.com. For anything else, email the same address.

Making your own version

Everything you need to understand how KeyAble works, add a keyboard, or build your own remapper is in the docs/ folder:

• HOW-IT-WORKS.txt - a plain-English tour of how the app talks to the keyboard and stores remaps.
• KEYBOARD-DATA.txt - where the keyboard layout and factory data came from, and how to add a model.
• ACCESSIBILITY.txt - the accessibility decisions that make it work with screen readers, and the ones not to break.
• QMK_VIA_Keycode_Reference.txt - the numeric keycodes and VIA protocol commands a remapper needs.
• PARITY.txt - what KeyAble cannot do yet, and everything Keychron Launcher can assign to a key.

When changing the app:

• Check the script after every edit with node DevTools/check-inline-js.js Project/KeyAble.html (needs Node.js).
• The "can't do yet" list is in two places: section 1 of docs/PARITY.txt and Help, "What KeyAble Can't Do Yet". When a gap closes, update both.

Licence

KeyAble is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE in the project root. In short: anyone may use, modify, and share it for any purpose, as long as the copyright notice and licence text are kept with the code.

Copyright (c) 2026 Shaun Preece.

Credits and acknowledgements

KeyAble is by Shaun Preece and Steven Scott, and stands on open work by others:

• QMK firmware - the open keyboard firmware most Keychron boards run on.
• ZMK firmware - the open firmware the B6 Pro runs on, with Keychron's VIA support added.
• VIA - the open protocol (and configurator) used to read and write key assignments over USB.
• Keychron - their public QMK firmware and VIA JSON files were the source of the keyboard layout and factory-default data. The exact firmware versions used, from Keychron's QMK fork and from mainline QMK, are listed in docs/KEYBOARD-DATA.txt.

Thanks to the QMK, ZMK, and VIA communities for making accessible keyboard remapping possible at all.