Keyboard Design

Most of the standard Keyman functionality is available within KeymanWeb. The following lists additional information that you can pass to the compiler and some recommendations.

Additional Stores

• VisualKeyboard: Use a store with this name to reference the .kvk file to embed into the KeymanWeb keyboard.
• Help: Simple help text can be included below the visual keyboard through this store.
• HelpFile: (mutually exclusive with Help) Reference a .html fragment to embed below the visual keyboard, where more than one or two lines of text is required.

Recommendations

• Only Unicode keyboards are supported.
• Avoid using virtual keys where possible, as some platforms do not support all virtual keys. In particular, Opera does not support ALT.
• Only Internet Explorer can distinguish between left and right Ctrl/Alt, so this functionality is not currently supported in KeymanWeb.
• Do include a visual keyboard and help information - this makes the keyboard vastly more useable.
• Save your keyboard file with a lowercase filename - this makes cross-platform references less problematic.
• Virtual key output is not supported.
• If you are creating a single keyboard for both Keyman Desktop and KeymanWeb, use the $keymanonly and $keymanweb compile targets to manage implementation differences between the two platforms.

Compiling for KeymanWeb

Keyman Developer allows you to compile your keyboards for KeymanWeb. This functionality is available as part of the KeymanWeb Pack for Keyman Developer.

Once you have activated the KeymanWeb Pack, you will be able to access the KeymanWeb tab in your keyboard source file. This tab lets you configure KeymanWeb-specific parameters and test the keyboard in a built-in browser test window.

Additional Documentation

Further documentation for KeymanWeb is available in the Keyman Developer KeymanWeb Pack help reference.