In development · Windows 11

Your keyboard, your way.

Key Assign is a keyboard layout editor. Change what each key types by drawing the keyboard on screen or in a text file, and add dead keys and whole layers on AltGr, such as Cyrillic or Greek.

See the progress

Edit key Ascan code 1E

Level	Types
Normal	a
Shift	A
AltGr	á
AltGr + Shift	Á

Caps Lock inverts Shift, as it does for letters

On the 5 key, Caps Lock changes nothing: it types 5, and with Shift, %. You choose key by key. (A sketch: the interface is still being designed.)

A keyboard that fits what you type

Changing a key in Windows usually takes old tools or programs that run in the background. Key Assign edits the layout itself, and installs it in place of the one you already use.

Graphical editor

The keyboard on screen, in ANSI or ISO shape. Click a key and enter its value at each level: normal, Shift, AltGr and AltGr + Shift.

Text file

Every layout is saved as UTF-8 text with comments, easy to read and to compare. If there's a mistake, you get its line and column.

Dead keys and layers

Make any key dead, AltGr too, and edit its table on a second keyboard. A table that covers an alphabet is a layer: AltGr + K, then a, types а.

Caps Lock, key by key

Letters invert Shift and digits don't. Key Assign lets you decide on each key, on the AltGr levels too.

Start from what you use

Open the layout in use as a starting point, or make a new one. Packs (Cyrillic, Greek, IPA, typography…) will be addable to any layout.

Reversible and private

It never touches Windows' own keyboard files: it installs its own. It saves a copy before installing so you can go back. No telemetry: everything stays on your machine.

Two ways to edit, one model

The graphical editor and the text file are two views of the same thing. What you save from one opens without loss in the other.

Graphical

To see the keyboard and try ideas.

ANSI and ISO keyboards
Values typed, pasted or given as a Unicode code
A second keyboard for a dead key's variants

Text

To save, compare and version.

# key  scan  normal  shift  altgr  altgr+shift  caps
layout "Spanish (mine)"

key 10  q        Q        @       none  shift
key 28  dead(´)  dead(¨)  U+007B  none  -

dead ´ {
    a = á    A = Á
    space = ´
}

Progress

Key Assign is in development and can't be downloaded yet. The first goal is an editor that reads an installed layout, shows it and saves it as text; installing it into Windows comes after. The skeleton, the layout model and the text format are done.

M0Skeleton: app, keyboard logic and testsDone
M1Layout model and text formatIn review
M2Proofs of concept on building, reading and installing layoutsPending
M3Read the layout in use and view it on an ANSI or ISO keyboardPending
M4Graphical editor and a typing test areaPending
M5Build and install in place of the layout in use, with a backupPending
M6Packs and chained dead keysPending
M7Sustained layersPending
M8More physical keyboards (JIS, ABNT2, KS), .klc import and other changesPending
M9Version 1.0: installer, English and Spanish, accessibilityPending