About Klavier
Klavier is a simple desktop application that makes typing French accents very easy, no matter what common (latin based) keyboard layout you use. It was inspired by a program called Tajpi, which serves for a similar purpose regarding Esperanto language. Similarly as Tajpi, Klavier makes no changes to a system, it just sits in the background and modifies accents when a hotkey is pressed.
Tray icon
Klavier is just a small icon located conveniently in the tray area.
Settings
Open from icon's context menu. Settings are plain and simple.
Notifications
A quick look at greyed out icon tells you that Klavier is currently disabled.
Usage
Actual accents are produced by typing a base letter, e.g. "a" and looping between available diacritic marks by pressing the hotkey repeatedly. Typing an "a" letter and then immediately pressing the hotkey will therefore replace "a" with an "à". Another hotkey press will change "à" to "â", then "æ" and then "a" again. The very same effect is applicable for all other similar letters, like e, i, c and so on.
The hotkey can be mapped to either Insert key or K key. K is very rarely used in French, mainly in foreignwords, so if Insert key is not a possible choice, it can be replaced with the K key easily.
Download
Here you can download the latest version of Klavier.
| File | Description | Size | Version | Last update |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Klavier-installer.exe | Windows installer for 32-bit version of Klavier. | 16.4 MiB | 0.1.0 | 4/2/2017 |
| Klavier-portable.zip | Portable version of 32-bit version of Klavier. | 5.11 MiB | 0.1.0 | 4/2/2017 |
System requirements
Klavier should work on Microsoft Windows 10 with no additional rquirements. For older versions Universal C Runtime is required, however if you do have automatic updates turned on, it should already be present on your system. I have tested Klavier on both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. For even older versions, especially Windows XP, I'm not sure.
Moreover, a proper Visual C++ Redistributable Package installed is required to be installed on your system in order to run Klavier. On Windows 10, it is very likely that you already have it, but if you don't, you can find it on the Microsoft website (the x86 version is the one required).
If not sure, download the installer instead of the portable version. It already incorporates Visual C++ Redistributable Package and installs it automatically if it is not present on your system.
Q&A
- My antivirus software is suspicious of Klavier. Should I worry?
- Suspicious antivirus/antimalware software is completely expectable. In order to work, Klavier has to record your keystrokes so it can modify letters written when the hotkey is pressed. This is basically the same approach many potentially dangerous keyloggers use, thus antivirus can do some checks when Klavier is run for the first time. Klavier will NEVER store anything you have written nor send it anywhere. Source code is freely available to anyone. As long as you build it yourself or use official installer/executable provided above, you are fine.
- I'm getting some missing DLLs errors. What can I do about it?
- Klavier executables provided below were built using Microsoft's Visual Studio 2015, therefore they have some system dependencies. First of all, you shouldn't get this type of error if you use Windows 10, as all necessary libraries are already there. For Windows 8.1 and Windows 7, you should be fine as well if you have automatic updates turned on. If you don't, make sure you have Update for Universal C Runtime installed. Moreover, you need Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 - Klavier installer provided above will automatically check and install it if it is missing on your system.
- I have some other question. Can I contact you?
- Of course! You can find contact section at the bottom of this webpage.
License
Klavier is open sourced which means I made the whole program source code freely available to anyone. If you are interested, you can find it with more licensing details and a list of used 3rd party content on a GitHub repository.
Contact
I've made Klavier for my own use and in my free time, since I hate switching between software keyboards. However, I'll be happy if it helps somebody else too. If you have any idea on how to improve Klavier or you have found any bug, don't hesitate to contact me at richard@filipcik.sk or create an issue on the GitHub repository.