Keyboard Support

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(image: Keyman icon) Creating Keyboards

Introduction

If you have never created a keyboard before, you might want to work through the Keyman Developer Tutorial. The tutorial takes you through the process of creating a keyboard using the Keyman Keyboard Language.

There are two ways to create a keyboard from scratch:

  • Using the Keyboard Wizard
  • Using the Keyman Keyboard Language

Using the Keyboard Wizard

The Keyboard Wizard gives you a simple interface to quickly create a keyboard using a visual representation of a computer keyboard. You can drag and drop characters from a character map, and create ANSI and Unicode keyboard layouts. You cannot access most of Keyman's more powerful features from the Keyboard Wizard, but it will be useful to get you started on your design. You can convert keyboards created in the Keyboard Wizard to standard Keyman source files in TIKE. To learn more about the Keyboard Wizard, click here.

Using the Keyman Keyboard Language

The Keyman Keyboard Language (.kmn files) is what provides the flexibility that is needed to write keyboards with complex character management, including constraints, dead keys, post-entry parsing, virtual key management (accessing any key on the keyboard), and other Keyman features. You can learn more about the Keyman Keyboard Language in the Programmer's Guide, available here.