FAQs
What is Polychromatic?
Polychromatic is a frontend for OpenRazer.
In future, we’d like to be vendor agnostic, to become one place to manage various kinds of RGB from any brand.
Objectives:
- Easy and simple to use
- Focus on design and software quality
- Deliver an RGB experience agnostic to any ecosystem
- Integrate useful features to complement RGB functionality
Besides Razer, are other brands supported, like Logitech and Corsair?
Not right now. Our vision is to add support for open source projects like phue
, OpenRGB and libratbag.
There is no ETA and isn’t being worked on right now.
We’d like the application to have more robust internals before taking on other vendors. In the meantime, it’ll be grand if these other projects have a working Python library ready to use.
Is Windows or macOS supported?
Not right now. This project has some other priorities first before we carry the weight of cross-platform support. Maybe we’ll be ready in a year or two!
Plus, we need cross-platform Python libraries to integrate different vendors. The driver for OpenRazer, for example, is technically tied to the Linux kernel.
Can I remap keys?
No. Polychromatic’s main strength will be RGB lighting effects.
Key remapping (or “key rebinding”) is actually a generic operating system feature. Some hardware might remap their buttons/keys at a hardware level, but this is not supported in OpenRazer.
OpenRazer recommends input-remapper.
Can I create my own effects?
Yes! Currently this is in the form of frames and pixels.
While the editor makes it possible to hand craft your own wave of colours, this is limiting for complex and interactivity requirements. We aim to tidy up the app’s internals and then introduce new tools.
Effects can be created for any device supporting individually addressable LEDs (matrix). These effects can light up specific keys for your applications, games or just for ambience.
A background process runs the effect, sending the frames to the hardware (or just once if it’s static). Upon reboot, the application will restart playback.
Can I create my own profiles?
“Profiles” is a bit ambiguous. If you mean the ability to create a “preset” of settings/effects for your devices, then that’s something we’ll work on in a future update!
Why is the CLI deprecated?
We introduced the command line interface (CLI) from a feature request to allow users to control devices from the terminal. While this was an interesting feature initially, maintaining multiple interfaces creates overhead for development.
In future, we’ll be prioritising the graphical user experience. The CLI doesn’t align with our future plans, and isn’t technically efficient if you have multiple devices. We’re not sure if it’s been used for scripting, for human input or for automation (e.g. cron).
In the next major version, polychromatic-cli will be removed. As an alternate:
- Try razer-cli
- Use OpenRazer’s Python library directly.
- Use
dbus-sendto send D-Bus signals directly to theorg.razersession bus.
This software looks alien!
The dark and green design is an evolution from when the project started, aiming to deliver a distinct look & feel across all operating systems. Sadly, not all Linux distributions integrate Qt applications very well.
If our styling isn’t your taste, you’ll be pleased to know you can turn on “Use system theme” from the preferences.
The tray applet is running, but I don’t see it!
It’s likely that your desktop environment considers the “system tray” or indicator area obsolete. We don’t so. Take a look the “Supported Distros” page on how to restore functionality.
Alternately, run the program from a Terminal to see what’s up:
polychromatic-tray-applet -v