Keyman 8 Beta Announcement

I’m very pleased to announce that we are today publishing the first beta of Keyman Desktop 8.  This preview release of Keyman Desktop 8 includes a bunch of new features and most importantly full x64 support.

This release is very incomplete but we wanted to get the new beta x64 support out for some of our loyal users who have been begging us to get it finished for quite some time now, and also to give this new functionality a chance to be tested rigorously in the wild.

Some other the new functionality that has made it into this release:

• “Select keyboard for all applications” option: when you choose a keyboard layout, the keyboard layout is selected for all running applications
• Mnemonic layout support for On Screen Keyboard: Mnemonic layouts will now work even better on European keyboards
• Unicode 5.2 support and enhanced Character Map and Font Helper utilities

Keyman Desktop 8 will be supported on Windows XP, Vista, 7, Server 2003 and Server 2008.  This release is compatible with Keyman Desktop 7.1 but will overwrite any existing Keyman Desktop 7 installation.  Keyman Desktop 7.1 licenses will work with this beta release of Keyman Desktop 8.  You cannot install both Keyman Desktop 7 and Keyman Desktop 8 concurrently.  We recommend that you turn off the “Start with Windows” option in case you run into a serious bug in the beta.

Follow our progress

No new software product announcement would be complete without a
Twitter feed!  I’ll be reporting on the status of Keyman Desktop 8
development using the #keyman8 tag on my account
@mcdurdin.  Use the tag #keyman8 when you
tweet about Keyman 8 and our development team will see your comments
instantly — well, assuming we are not asleep.

• Twitter: @mcdurdin (Keyman 8 development lead) and @tavultesoft
  (all Tavultesoft news)
• RSS: mcdurdin

Tell us about your experience

• Twitter: @mcdurdin (Use the #keyman8 tag)
• Email: beta@tavultesoft.com
• Web: http://www.tavultesoft.com/forums/category.php?ForumCategoryID=330

Download the beta

• Beta Download Home Page
  
• The Beta Download Home page lists currently known issues and bug fixes in the release.