VIA and QMK Setup for Inland MK47 Ortholinear Keyboard

via-qmk-inland-mk47-guide.md

VIA and QMK Setup for Inland MK47 Ortholinear Keyboard

By default, the Inland MK47 keyboard only lets you use a modified, older version of VIA from the manufacturer's website, which they could stop serving at any time if they'd like. Since I would like to own my hardware forever and not only limit myself to the manufacturer's whims, I did the legwork to make it work with QMK and VIA.

Note: This guide assumes that you are mildly competent at the following:

1. Running command line commands.
2. Navigating directories.
3. Editing files and saving them.
4. Reading directions.

If you run into an unforeseen snag, you can use a search engine to look up your specific issue.

Prerequisites

1. Complete all steps in QMK's setup guide.
   • At the end of these steps, you should have QMK set up properly (i.e., you can access it from the command line), and the test at the end of that guide should succeeded for you.
2. From the command line, run qmk cd to reach the home directory, qmk_firmware/. Keep this window open.
3. Make sure you have either VIA installed (you can download the appropriate file from their releases), or Google Chrome + Internet access.
   • Chrome is necessary to run the webapp as of April, 2025 due to Firefox's lack of support for the WebHID API... Long story.
   • Hint: If you are on MacOS and it won't let you run VIA locally, make sure you have VIA in your Applications folder, then in Terminal, type xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Applications/VIA.app and hit enter.

Adding VIA Keymap

1. Open the QMK directory qmk_firmware/ (located in /home/your_username on MacOS) with Finder, Terminal, or your favorite IDE.
2. From that directory, navigate to keyboards/inland/mk47/keymaps, then make a new folder named VIA.
3. There should be a folder named default in the same keymaps parent directory. Copy its contents to your VIA folder.
   • Now you should have a file named keymap.c in your VIA folder.
4. In VIA, create a file named rules.mk and put in the following line: VIA_ENABLE = yes. Save that file.
5. In the keyboards/inland/mk47 directory, create a new file via.json. Paste in the following content and hit save. Note that I intuited this stuff from this dude's YouTube tutorial.

   {
        "name": "Inland MK47",
        "vendorId": "0xFFFE",
        "productId": "0x0002",
        "matrix": {
            "rows": 4,
            "cols": 12
        },
        "layouts": {
            "keymap": [
                [
                    {
                        "a": 7
                    },
                    "Tab",
                    "Q",
                    "W",
                    "E",
                    "R",
                    "T",
                    "Y",
                    "U",
                    "I",
                    "O",
                    "P",
                    "Back Space"
                ],
                [
                    "Esc",
                    "A",
                    "S",
                    "D",
                    "F",
                    "G",
                    "H",
                    "J",
                    "K",
                    "L",
                    ";",
                    "'"
                ],
                [
                    "Shift",
                    "Z",
                    "X",
                    "C",
                    "V",
                    "B",
                    "N",
                    "M",
                    ",",
                    ".",
                    "/",
                    "Return"
                ],
                [
                    "",
                    "Ctrl",
                    "Alt",
                    "Super",
                    "⇓",
                    {
                        "w": 2
                    },
                    "",
                    "⇑",
                    "←",
                    "↓",
                    "↑",
                    "→"
                ]
            ]
        }
    }

Flashing VIA-Compatible Firmware

1. Unplug your MK47 keyboard if you have it plugged in.
2. Hold down Esc key; do not let go as you plug the keyboard back in. Let go once the USB-C connector is fully seated.
   • This puts the keyboard in Bootloader Mode.
3. Go to your command line window and navigate to the qmk_firmware directory if you're not there already.
4. Run this command: qmk flash -kb inland/mk47 -km via.

• This will flash the new VIA keymap you made in the previous section.

7. Launch VIA, either through your local install or on the official VIA website. VIA should now recognize your Inland MK47.

Enjoy!

Disclaimers

• The above steps worked for me on a M3 Mac Mini, though I don't think it wouldn't work for other operating systems.
• The above information is current as of April, 2025.