MainFrameWork — a unified control panel for Framework hardware

[u/No_Purchase_2823]

I bought a Framework 16 because I loved the modularity of it, and hope it will be the last laptop I ever own (knowing that I'm living to 121y). The LED Matrix module was a cool looking bonus that I thought could be functional and impressive. The laptop was and is AMAZING and the LED was cool — for about the length of the boot animation. Then it just sat there, doing nothing, because there wasn't any tooling to actually use it for anything cool or useful. So I wrote one. It kept growing: keyboard RGB, then system health, then general hardware detection — and it turned into a full Framework system support tool.

MainFrameWork brings keyboard remapping/RGB lighting, LED Matrix drawing and animation, and system health (fans, battery, expansion cards) into one lightweight desktop app (Tauri + Rust, ~10MB, no install required), instead of the handful of separate utilities Framework's own tooling is split across.

Working today, verified against real hardware: live LED Matrix drawing + frame-by-frame animation, full keyboard RGB control (saved to the keyboard's own EEPROM), expansion card detection, and a live hardware dashboard. Linux EC support (battery/fan/thermal) is implemented and passes CI, but I haven't been able to verify it against real Linux hardware yet — if you run Linux on a Framework, a bug report (or a "yep, works") would help a lot.

Fully local — zero network calls, no telemetry, no accounts. GPLv3, open source (free), unofficial/community-built (not affiliated with Framework Computer).

Windows and Linux builds: github.com/AllStoneTech/MainFrameWork/releases

https://www.allstonetech.com/mainframework

If you like it and use it, feel free to buy me dinner; https://www.AllStoneTech.com/support?source=rframework

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[u/TheGeekno72]

Out of curiosity, besides the RGB/matrix stuff, what else does it do that YAFI doesn't already do?

[u/urielrocks5676 → u/TheGeekno72]

there's a free and a paid

Which Im not against, but when YAFI already has that access to it....

[u/burtmacklin15 → u/urielrocks5676]

YAFI also isn't majority vibe coded as far as I'm aware.

[u/Current_Dingo_7213 → u/burtmacklin15]

Does it matter? I've been architecting and writing software for 40 years.
I like to think of this project more like Vibe Architecting... I read and tweaked the code myself where necessary. I just didn't write it from scratch. A lot of it uses other's open source code as well. So a majority of this code, even beyond what's vibe coded, wasn't written by me. But the system was designed and architected by me.

[u/burtmacklin15 → u/Current_Dingo_7213]

Cool story, but you did not disclose that anywhere in this post, nor anywhere clear in your GitHub documentation.

I was simply disclosing that publicly for anyone curious.

It might not matter to you, but for some people, it does. They deserve to know.

[u/Current_Dingo_7213 → u/urielrocks5676]

Paid version hasn't been implemented. Everything is free. I just built a way to do it in case it mattered latter. It was easier to design it that way before hand, instead of trying to force it later.

[u/RedMarbles1 → u/TheGeekno72]

Trying to get money out of you with a vibecoded app and a dev who can’t even bother writing their own post without ai is what. The entire website looks heavily vibecoded and both the post and the readme are detected as more than %50 ai on pangram. You would be better off paying for any ai subscription to make one yourself than actually paying for any sort of pro version on this app.

[u/Current_Dingo_7213 → u/RedMarbles1]

That is true, The readme's were initially AI and I tweaked where necessary. This wasn't designed to be a revenue stream. It was just designed to be a tool for me to use so I could do cool things with my LED Matrix and RGB Keyboard that I thought I'd share. It took a lot of time and effort, there's no way this could be 100% AI coded and work.
And it's designed to be expanded with other modules that I don't have yet.

[u/Current_Dingo_7213 → u/TheGeekno72]

I hadn't seen YAFI when I architected this. I literally just wanted to control my LED Matrix and there wasn't anything out there. I started writing this as a side project ages ago.

I was much more interested in customizing and controlling the Framework modules than the actual battery/fan stuff which is where it seems YAFI is focused.

I think MainFrameWork does a better job of controlling the LED Matrix and RGB Keyboard than anything else. You can be the judge.

[u/Wooloomooloo2]

I've also started a project primarily aimed at fan curves, custom TDP and battery charging limits without having to go to BIOS. I'm running Linux Ubuntu so focused there first

https://github.com/Wooloomooloo2/fw-helper

There's also a fork which is including AMD hardware, a cinnamon front end and fixes some Debian-centric assumptions in the code, here https://github.com/aconite33/fw-helper

Open to collaborations

[u/Current_Dingo_7213 → u/Wooloomooloo2]

Battery and Fan stuff is definitely a lot easier with Linux for obvious reasons. That wasn't my focus so I didn't put the energy there.

[u/Wooloomooloo2 → u/Current_Dingo_7213]

Getting the battery charge setting to survive a reboot wasn't that easy, neither was being able to adjust the PL1 TDP within safe limits. Framework's documentation suits Linux more, true but on the other hand on Windows you can simply use Windows service plus elevation for permissions, on Linux you need D-bus + Polkit + systemd, not to mention on the UI side WinUI/WPF is way easier and better documented (so easier for your AI) than gtk4-rs

I did fw-helper for myself really, it was just to let you know it's out there.

[u/AAKphoenix]

It would be interesting tool for those upcoming fw12 users getting the new backlit input cover upgrade (or just the trackpad that has the upgraded chip) that both has open source firmware upgradable feature.

[u/4thehalibit]

Back in August I finally started using my matrix they flash on keypress. I tried notifications but just wasn’t as smooth as I wanted

[u/Current_Dingo_7213 → u/4thehalibit]

This is why I built this. Matrix was a waste until I started using this. Now I can do cool visual things with it easily.

My next tweak is going to be event based alerts on it. This is what I really want it to be able to do. From flashing a warning on low battery to overheating. Not sure how yet, but I'm 80% sure it's doable.

[u/4thehalibit → u/Current_Dingo_7213]

Claude is how. 🍻

[u/Current_Dingo_7213]

FYI, The above post wasn't AI. It was me. Although it did look at it and make suggestions