Keyman Developer command line tools guide

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Keyman Developer has a set of command line tools for creating keyboards and models.

Keyman Developer integration (Windows only)

These tools are included with a default installation of Keyman Developer, including a runtime of node.js.

npm or zip (Windows, macOS, and Linux)

These tools are also available as:

• a zip download from keyman.com/developer/download
• an npm package, @keymanapp/kmc

You'll need node.js. Unlike previous versions of Keyman Developer, version 17 no longer requires WINE to run on Linux or macOS.

Zip download

# To build keyboards and packages:
mkdir kmc
cd kmc
# hint: the download is currently called 'kmcomp', although the
#       compiler is now called 'kmc'.
curl -L https://keyman-staging.com/go/download/kmcomp -o kmc.zip
unzip kmc.zip
# Optionally, add kmcomp to your PATH

npm install

npm install -g @keymanapp/kmc

The five minute quick start

1. Generate a basic keyboard project

TODO: THIS SECTION NEEDS REWRITE ONCE kmc generate lands.

We'll first use KMConvert to create a keyboard project, with the minimal metadata required to compile and install. In your /keyboards - folder do:

kmconvert template -id sample -name "Sample" -languages en-au

(We can add further parameters to prepopulate our keyboard metadata, e.g. -author. See the KMConvert reference for full details.)

This will have created a new folder called sample/.

2. Build the project

cd sample

Now, we'll build our keyboard project with kmc.

kmc build .

And... that's it! We'll now have a compiled keyboard and package in the build/ subfolder. Admittedly, the new keyboard doesn't do very much. But that's up to you to fill in.

3. Install the keyboard

Windows: we can install this keyboard using kmshell:

"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Keyman\Keyman Desktop\kmshell" -i build\sample.kmp -s

Alternatively you can double-click the .kmp package file in Windows Explorer to install it.

Linux: we'd use the following km-package-install command:

km-package-install -f build/sample.kmp

macOS: open Keyman Configuration and drop the package .kmp file onto the Keyman Configuration window.

Now, use your favourite editor to edit the source/sample.kmn file, and when you wish, compile and reinstall with the commands above. For example, I use Visual Studio Code to work with the whole sample/ folder:

code .

File layout

See file layout for details on the source file layout that Keyman Developer generates.

Reference and Examples

kmc - command line compiler

kmc is the command line compiler. You can use it to compile all Keyman files.

kmc build project.kpj

Compile all components of a keyboard or model project named project.kpj KMComp will respect the path settings within the project file. This is the recommended way to build, as it will build keyboards, models and packages all in one step. You can also call kmc build <folder> to build the project in the referenced folder, e.g. kmc build ..

kmc build keyboard.kmn

Compile a keyboard file to a .kmx (desktop targets) and/or .js (web/touch targets). If an output file is not specified, writes to the same folder as the keyboard.

kmc build package.kps

Compile a package file to a .kmp (all targets). All included keyboards must already be compiled.

• kmc reference

KMConvert

TODO: REWRITE

KMConvert generates keyboards and models from templates, and converts keyboard layouts between different formats.

The New Project dialog in Keyman Developer provides a graphical version of the functionality in KMConvert.

• KMConvert reference