JohSchneider

this PR was waiting on #18178 which was merged... but.. @drashna what's the background that lead to the revert PR #18709 ? :-S

> There are a couple of boards using the mcp code sadly there are multiple versions... the ergodox-derived ones do their own i2c handling (and reset everything everytime?), and only...

Note: the [core] I2C_PAL_MODE addition has it's own PR: #19286

ok, compared the MCP23018 handling to how it's done in the ergodone (thanks for the hint) seems pretty similar: calling mcp23018_init only once during startup; and as soon as i2c-errors...

thanks for the info.json related hints : ) see last commit - comme ca?

un-stale: by rebasing onto current develop (-:

since the i2c changes/dependencies are now removed; the "core" label can be dropped

rebase onto develop Q: is there anything i can or need to do to help this PR get merged? :-)

no changes, just a rebase onto origin/master

"playing" with this PRs code, to see if&how a dpad feature would fit in here. while doing so, some refactoring/typo fixes/.../suggestions came together = https://github.com/Alabastard/qmk_firmware/pull/2 feel free to cherry-pick commits...