DevKeyboard is a simple program that I created for a school project. When the QWERTY keyboard was originally created in 1867 it was designed for one purpose: to create an optimal keyboard layout for writers. Back in 1867, there were no computers, coders, or programs around, so no one thought to put the curly brace or the equals sign in an easy to reach place. Today, coders around the world still use a 148 year-old keyboard designed for writing. The QWERTY keyboard wasn’t designed for coders, but the DevKeyboard is. Please feel free to download and edit any of the code I have written!
Website: http://devkeyboard.woodmantech.com
DevKeyboard is a lightweight program that runs in the background of your computer, and creates shortcuts to common programming keys and symbols. It is written completely in AutoHotKey Script, so if you want to edit any of my code; download AutoHotKey.
DevKeyboard can be downloaded one of two ways:
- Download compiled release here.
- Download the source code by clicking "Download ZIP" on the sidebar.
DevKeyboard is a completely different kind of keyboard than any other keyboard currently out there. All of the keys still work as they normally would, however they each also have a shortcut. When you hold down one of the keys for a set amount of time - 0.15 seconds is default, however this can be changed in settings (see below) - a new symbol appears. For example if you press the letter "f", "f" will be printed on the screen. However if you hold down "f", "{" will be printed on the screen. See a full list of shortcut keys below, and please note that any of these remaps can be changed in the settings menu.
| Original Key | Hold Down Shortcut | Editable? |
|---|---|---|
| g | < | Yes |
| h | > | Yes |
| f | { | Yes |
| j | } | Yes |
| d | ( | Yes |
| k | ) | Yes |
| s | [ | Yes |
| l | ] | Yes |
| a | ! | Yes |
| ; | →; | No |
| z | ` | Yes |
| x | + | Yes |
| c | & | Yes |
| v | = | Yes |
| b | || | Yes |
| n | == | Yes |
| m | " | Yes |
| , | && | Yes |
When you start up DevKeyboard for the first time it will have the default layout that I have created, and think is great for most programming languages. However, if you would like to change the default layout so it is more suited for your needs; follow these instructions.
- Find the
icon in your tray and right click it.
- Click "Settings".
- Change the time and/or remap of the keys.
- Click "Save".
- DevKeyboard will restart with your new settings
Please note that DevKeyboard.ahk will look for all of the icon files in it's parent folder. Simply move the icons from the icon folder to the parent folder of DevKeyboard.ahk.