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Text Services Framework and context aware applications

What is the Text Services Framework?

The Text Services Framework, or TSF, is a set of components for modern applications that support advanced input and text processing. It supports features such as keyboard drivers, handwriting recognition, speech recognition, as well as spell checking and other text processing functions.

Keyman Desktop 9 and later versions automatically detects applications that have support for TSF and upgrade the experience for those applications.

For those applications that support TSF, the most important advantage is that Keyman can read the current 'context' from the application. The 'context' is the characters on the screen around the insertion point. Earlier versions of Keyman remembered the context while inputting text, but as soon as an arrow key was pressed, or the mouse clicked, Keyman would forget the context. This means that existing text can be edited in a much more intuitive manner when using TSF.

What applications support TSF?

TSF is supported by a range of software and Windows components. For example: MS Office Applications, Firefox, Adobe Create Cloud Apps, Wordpad, SIL Fieldworks, and Notepad in Windows 11.

Context aware applications on other platforms

Certain Linux and MacOS applications also have the ability to read the current 'context' from applications. All apps on iOS and Android can read the context. Similarly, on web, context is always available.