AlienFX is a utility to control the lighting effects of your Alienware computer.
At present there is a cli version (alienfx) and a gtk gui version (alienfx-gtk).
Dependencies
============
AlienFX is written in python and has been tested on python 2.7. It requires
the following python packages to run:
1. pyusb >= 1.0.0b1
Note that your distribution may only provide the pre-1.0 version of pyusb. If
this is the case, you can install the 1.0 version of pyusb using the
following command:
pip install --pre pyusb
2. pkg_resources
3. cairo
4. gi
Installation
============
Install AlienFX using these commands:
sudo python setup.py install
sudo python setup.py install_data
Note that the second invocation is required to ensure that icon files etc. are
properly installed.
The installation includes a udev rules file that allows AlienFX to access the
AlienFX USB controller on your computer without needing root permissions. If
you run the install commands without sudo, then the udev rules file will not
be installed.
Usage
=====
Lighting configurations are stored in "theme files", which are simple json
files stored in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alienfx. If XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set, then
~/.config/alienfx is used. Both the cli and gui programs use these theme
files, and the gui program allows you to create new themes as well.
See the man page of alienfx for the cli options supported.
Supported models and adding support for new models
==================================================
At present, AlienFX supports and has been tested on the Alienware M14xR1 laptop.
To add support for a different model of Alienware computer, do the following:
1. Copy alienfx/core/controller_m14xr1.py to controller_<your computer name>.py
in the same directory, and modify it using the original file as a reference.
2. At the top of alienfx/core/prober.py, add an import statement to import your
new controller module created in step 1. This should be done at the docstring
""" Import all subclasses of AlienFXController here. """.
3. Modify data/etc/udev/rules.d/10-alienfx.rules to add a line for the VID and
PID corresponding to the AlienFX USB controller on your computer.
4. Test your modifications, and please submit a patch!