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Preview. The current manual is at svalboard.com/manual.

Moving from Vial

The firmware does not bring your Vial settings across. Flashing resets the board to the default layout. Keybard can import your Vial .vil to restore it.

  1. In Vial, save your layout as a .vil. Keep it unchanged.
  2. Write down anything you rely on that a .vil doesn’t hold: DPI, scrolling, automouse and layer colors (see What a .vil doesn’t hold).
  3. Flash both halves with the vLaunch2 files (see Firmware files and Flashing firmware).
  4. Open https://keybard.svalboard.com in Chrome or Edge and choose Connect Keyboard.
  5. Choose Import Layout and pick your .vil. Read the review, then apply it. This restores your layout, macros, tap dances, combos, key overrides and QMK settings.
  6. Set DPI, scrolling, automouse and layer colors again in Keybard.
  7. Check every layer, your macros, your modifier swaps and your mod-tap feel (Chordal Hold replaces Achordion).
  8. Export a .svil backup once it all works.

The first start after flashing takes a few seconds longer while the board sets up its settings storage.

If you’d rather start fresh, skip the import and use Keybard’s Layouts panel for letter and NavNAS layers (see Start from a layout Svalboard provides).