mirror of
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releasenotes update
This commit is contained in:
@@ -1,49 +1,117 @@
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# ZephCore 1.17.3-zephcore
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One fix. The antenna amplifier setting added in 1.17.2 switched the amplifier off completely instead
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of just its receive boost, leaving those nodes barely able to hear anything.
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> [!NOTE]
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> Upgrading from 1.17.2 is straightforward — your contacts, settings and phone pairing all survive.
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> **If you never touched `radio.fem.rxgain`, nothing about your node changes.** The default is on, and
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> on behaves exactly as it did.
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---
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## `radio.fem.rxgain 0` no longer makes a node deaf
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Some boards carry an extra amplifier chip between the radio and the antenna. 1.17.2 added
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`set radio.fem.rxgain 0` to switch off its receive boost and save the current that part draws, while
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leaving transmit untouched.
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It switched off the entire amplifier instead. With the chip powered down, nothing reaches the receiver
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— not the boost, and not the signal either. Measured on a Heltec V4.3 that was about **69 dB** of loss,
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where the setting promised around 16 dB. One node could no longer hear its own repeater from 50 metres
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away.
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The setting now does what it says. The signal goes **around** the amplifier's receive boost rather than
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through it, costing about **17 dB**, and the chip stays powered — so transmit, and everything else, are
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unaffected. If you deliberately switched it off to save power, it now costs you what it was always
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supposed to cost.
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Available on the **Heltec T096**, **Wireless Tracker V2** and **WiFi LoRa 32 V4.3**.
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> [!IMPORTANT]
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> **The WiFi LoRa 32 V4 no longer has this setting.** Its amplifier is a different chip with no separate
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> receive-side control, so there was never a working version of this on the V4 — it only ever got the
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> broken behaviour. It now replies `Error: unsupported`. If you had switched it off on a V4, that node
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> gets its hearing back, and simply stops saving the current it was trying to save.
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> [!NOTE]
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> The 17 dB figure was measured on a V4.3. The T096 and Wireless Tracker V2 use the same amplifier and
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> are wired the same way, but were not measured — if the number looks different on yours, please say so.
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---
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## Also in this release
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Nothing here changes how a node behaves.
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- **A build fix.** After resetting the Zephyr sources by hand, a rebuild could quietly skip re-applying
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ZephCore's patches and produce firmware without them. It now checks the sources instead of trusting a
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marker file. This only ever affected people building from source.
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# ZephCore 1.17.3-zephcore
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One fix and two new settings. The antenna amplifier setting added in 1.17.2 switched the amplifier off
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completely instead of just its receive boost, leaving those nodes barely able to hear anything. And for
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people who put their node in a case it did not come in, the screen can now be turned upside down and the
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joystick flipped to match.
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> [!NOTE]
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> Upgrading from 1.17.2 is straightforward — your contacts, settings and phone pairing all survive.
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> **If you never touched `radio.fem.rxgain`, nothing about your node changes.** The default is on, and
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> on behaves exactly as it did. Both new settings default to off, so a node you do not touch behaves
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> exactly as it did too.
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---
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## `radio.fem.rxgain 0` no longer makes a node deaf
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Some boards carry an extra amplifier chip between the radio and the antenna. 1.17.2 added
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`set radio.fem.rxgain 0` to switch off its receive boost and save the current that part draws, while
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leaving transmit untouched.
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|
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It switched off the entire amplifier instead. With the chip powered down, nothing reaches the receiver
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— not the boost, and not the signal either. Measured on a Heltec V4.3 that was about **69 dB** of loss,
|
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where the setting promised around 16 dB. One node could no longer hear its own repeater from 50 metres
|
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away.
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The setting now does what it says. The signal goes **around** the amplifier's receive boost rather than
|
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through it, costing about **17 dB**, and the chip stays powered — so transmit, and everything else, are
|
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unaffected. If you deliberately switched it off to save power, it now costs you what it was always
|
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supposed to cost.
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Available on the **Heltec T096**, **Wireless Tracker V2** and **WiFi LoRa 32 V4.3**.
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> [!IMPORTANT]
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> **The WiFi LoRa 32 V4 no longer has this setting.** Its amplifier is a different chip with no separate
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> receive-side control, so there was never a working version of this on the V4 — it only ever got the
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> broken behaviour. It now replies `Error: unsupported`. If you had switched it off on a V4, that node
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> gets its hearing back, and simply stops saving the current it was trying to save.
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> [!NOTE]
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> The 17 dB figure was measured on a V4.3. The T096 and Wireless Tracker V2 use the same amplifier and
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> are wired the same way, but were not measured — if the number looks different on yours, please say so.
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---
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## The screen can be turned upside down
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DIY builds and upgrade kits do not always hold the board the way the original case did. The
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**Meshnology N37E**, for instance, takes a Wio Tracker L1 and puts it in a different enclosure — one
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that mounts the screen the other way up. Until now the only answer was to build your own firmware with
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the panel flipped, which meant giving up the published builds everyone else uses.
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`set display.rotate on` turns the picture 180 degrees. It survives reboots, and the same firmware
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everybody else runs is now the firmware you run too.
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On the boards with a joystick there is a menu entry as well — **System → Display → Rotate 180** — so it
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can be set on the device without a cable.
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The rotation costs nothing to keep on. It is not done by redrawing the screen the other way round; the
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firmware asks the display chip itself to scan its rows and columns in reverse, which is two bytes sent
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once. Every frame after that is drawn exactly as before.
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> [!IMPORTANT]
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> **This works on OLED screens only** — the SSD1306 and SH1106 panels, which covers the **RAK4631**,
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> **GAT562 30S**, **Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 V4** and **V4.3**, **LilyGo T3S3**, **Station G2** and
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> **Wio Tracker L1**.
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>
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> Boards with a colour screen or e-paper answer `Error: this panel cannot rotate`, and the setting is
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> not saved — so a stored value can never claim something the screen is not doing. Those panels can be
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> rotated in principle, but it would mean turning every frame around in software rather than asking the
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> chip to do it, and that is a different piece of work.
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> [!NOTE]
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> **The LilyGo T-Impulse Plus is the one OLED board left out.** Its small screen only occupies part of
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> the display chip's memory, and the trick that flips the picture flips the chip's whole range — which
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> would have slid the image off the visible area rather than turning it over. It reports the setting as
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> unsupported, like the colour and e-paper boards.
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> [!NOTE]
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> On the Wio Tracker L1 and Station G2 the flip relies on their screen being wired the way these
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> modules normally are. It was reasoned from the board description rather than measured on a bench, so
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> if a rotated screen comes out shifted a few columns sideways rather than cleanly turned over, please
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> say so.
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## The joystick can be flipped to match
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Turning the screen over does not turn the buttons over. A case that mounts the board upside down puts
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the joystick upside down as well, so pushing up walks the menu down and left goes right.
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`set input.rotate on` swaps both axes back. On the joystick boards there is a menu entry next to the
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rotation one — **System → Display → Flip input**.
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It is deliberately a **separate** setting rather than part of the rotation. A case can put the screen
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somewhere new without moving the stick, and boards whose screen cannot rotate can still end up with the
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controls the wrong way round — so tying the two together would have made both less useful. Set whichever
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you actually need.
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This one works on every board with directional controls, including the ones whose screen cannot rotate.
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Only the four directions are affected: buttons, tap gestures and long presses are untouched, and on the
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single-button boards the flip swaps which way the pages step.
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Both settings are readable with `get display.rotate` and `get input.rotate`. `get display.rotate`
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reports what the panel is actually doing rather than what is stored, so a refused rotation shows up as
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refused.
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Suggested by **celsoazevedo** ([@celsoazevedo](https://github.com/celsoazevedo)) in
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[issue #76](https://github.com/liquidraver/ZephCore/issues/76).
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---
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## Also in this release
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Nothing here changes how a node behaves.
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- **A build fix.** After resetting the Zephyr sources by hand, a rebuild could quietly skip re-applying
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ZephCore's patches and produce firmware without them. It now checks the sources instead of trusting a
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marker file. This only ever affected people building from source.
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@@ -1,68 +0,0 @@
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# ZephCore 1.17.4-zephcore
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Two new settings for people who put their node in a case it did not come in: the screen can be turned
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upside down, and the joystick can be flipped to match.
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|
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> [!NOTE]
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> Upgrading from 1.17.3 is straightforward — your contacts, settings and phone pairing all survive.
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> Both new settings default to off, so a node you do not touch behaves exactly as it did.
|
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|
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---
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## The screen can be turned upside down
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DIY builds and upgrade kits do not always hold the board the way the original case did. The
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**Meshnology N37E**, for instance, takes a Wio Tracker L1 and puts it in a different enclosure — one
|
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that mounts the screen the other way up. Until now the only answer was to build your own firmware with
|
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the panel flipped, which meant giving up the published builds everyone else uses.
|
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|
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`set display.rotate on` turns the picture 180 degrees. It survives reboots, and the same firmware
|
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everybody else runs is now the firmware you run too.
|
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|
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On the boards with a joystick there is a menu entry as well — **System → Display → Rotate 180** — so it
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can be set on the device without a cable.
|
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|
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The rotation costs nothing to keep on. It is not done by redrawing the screen the other way round; the
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firmware asks the display chip itself to scan its rows and columns in reverse, which is two bytes sent
|
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once. Every frame after that is drawn exactly as before.
|
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|
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> [!IMPORTANT]
|
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> **This works on OLED screens only** — the SSD1306 and SH1106 panels, which covers the **RAK4631**,
|
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> **GAT562 30S**, **Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 V4** and **V4.3**, **LilyGo T3S3**, **Station G2** and
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> **Wio Tracker L1**.
|
||||
>
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> Boards with a colour screen or e-paper answer `Error: this panel cannot rotate`, and the setting is
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> not saved — so a stored value can never claim something the screen is not doing. Those panels can be
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> rotated in principle, but it would mean turning every frame around in software rather than asking the
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> chip to do it, and that is a different piece of work. The joystick flip below works on all of them.
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> [!NOTE]
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||||
> **The LilyGo T-Impulse Plus is the one OLED board left out.** Its small screen only occupies part of
|
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> the display chip's memory, and the trick that flips the picture flips the chip's whole range — which
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> would have slid the image off the visible area rather than turning it over. It reports the setting as
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> unsupported, like the colour and e-paper boards.
|
||||
|
||||
## The joystick can be flipped to match
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|
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Turning the screen over does not turn the buttons over. A case that mounts the board upside down puts
|
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the joystick upside down as well, so pushing up walks the menu down and left goes right.
|
||||
|
||||
`set input.rotate on` swaps both axes back. On the joystick boards there is a menu entry next to the
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rotation one — **System → Display → Flip input**.
|
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|
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It is deliberately a **separate** setting rather than part of the rotation. A case can put the screen
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somewhere new without moving the stick, and boards whose screen cannot rotate can still end up with the
|
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controls the wrong way round — so tying the two together would have made both less useful. Set whichever
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||||
you actually need.
|
||||
|
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Only the four directions are affected. Buttons, tap gestures and long presses are untouched, and on the
|
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single-button boards the flip swaps which way the pages step.
|
||||
|
||||
---
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||||
|
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Both settings are readable with `get display.rotate` and `get input.rotate`. `get display.rotate`
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reports what the panel is actually doing rather than what is stored, so a refused rotation shows up as
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refused.
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||||
|
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Suggested by **celsoazevedo** ([@celsoazevedo](https://github.com/celsoazevedo)) in
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[issue #76](https://github.com/liquidraver/ZephCore/issues/76).
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Reference in New Issue
Block a user