Use this interactive web application to design custom keyboard layout based on an existing one, with differences updated live
Published on January 1, 2023 · Reading time: 1 minute
What is this?
Back in late 2022, I was working on a portable (as in
handheld) custom keyboard with a greatly reduced number of keys
and full support for Polish diacritics. You can already buy small
keyboards online, but there is no AltGr button or there
are other usability issues. Creating a custom keyboard was an excuse
to try out a modern non-Arduino microcontroller, the KB2040 by
Adafruit. Hopefully, one day, I'll finish the project!
This web application can be used to render two keyboard layouts and get a list of missing keys for each one. It's possible to, for instance, compare full-size and reduced layouts (60%, 40%, or even smaller). Some extra features are implemented (multiple layers, horizontal and vertical offsets, custom labels) and presented on page load.
This utility does some complex data transformations using Python. However, there is no backend because I don't want to deal with security and legal stuff. Python in the browser is available thanks to the Pyodide project, it does its job well, but loading times may be noticeable on lower-end hardware.