An useful quality-of-life toy for windows would be a pop-up keyboard overlay (like the Windows Touch Keyboard, but only visual) invoked by a shortcut, to help with learning a new keyboard layout, or using a foreign (but not mainy used) layout when needed. This could be an expansion to the current Shortcut Guide toy, which only supports hardcoded Windows-modifier shortcuts.
An optional enhancement to this would be to show shortcuts - as in: multi-key macros in programs e.g. Copy, Paste, Command Palette in VSCode, etc. - either specific to the focused window or work environment, or just display all of them (including all the hardcoded and standard shortcuts, plus the binds set in the Keyboard Manager toy or additionally supplied in a separate file).
The showcase could display the shortcuts in greyed-out style, until a modifier button has been pressed. When a modifier is pressed, the layout would shift colors on the keys that invoke shortcuts with that specific modifier, easing the learning curve of being a shortcut poweruser.
Scenario when this would be used?
The user could:
have the overlay pop-up automatically as soon as the input layout changes (with Win+Space) e.g. for a couple seconds
use this overlay to look at the screen instead of looking down at the keyboard and manually searching the desired character (like with Kanji or Cyrillic layouts), saving a little time
show the layout for a screen recording to record the keypresses if needed
Optionally:
display the shortcuts of a program on the layout
when a modifier is held, display the shortcuts that use that modifier key in an accented style
input a set of keyboard shortcuts to display next time
Supporting information
I got the idea from the basic Windows 11 On-Screen Touch Keyboard (pic included), while holding down a modifier or using a Cyrillic layout to practice my foreign language.
The original problem was that my keyboard only has english characters printed and I wanted to use the same keyboard for multiple layouts.
The optional functionality is basically found in KeyCombiner (https://keycombiner.com/), but without the "floating layout" part. I used KeyCombiner in the past (great site!), but I would rather have a floating transparent layout with only the functionalities listed above.
Because of this, I honestly think that the "enhancement" part of this idea would not be possible (I don't want to harm any existing businesses with copying)
Description of the new feature / enhancement
An useful quality-of-life toy for windows would be a pop-up keyboard overlay (like the Windows Touch Keyboard, but only visual) invoked by a shortcut, to help with learning a new keyboard layout, or using a foreign (but not mainy used) layout when needed. This could be an expansion to the current Shortcut Guide toy, which only supports hardcoded Windows-modifier shortcuts.
An optional enhancement to this would be to show shortcuts - as in: multi-key macros in programs e.g. Copy, Paste, Command Palette in VSCode, etc. - either specific to the focused window or work environment, or just display all of them (including all the hardcoded and standard shortcuts, plus the binds set in the Keyboard Manager toy or additionally supplied in a separate file). The showcase could display the shortcuts in greyed-out style, until a modifier button has been pressed. When a modifier is pressed, the layout would shift colors on the keys that invoke shortcuts with that specific modifier, easing the learning curve of being a shortcut poweruser.
Scenario when this would be used?
The user could:
Supporting information
I got the idea from the basic Windows 11 On-Screen Touch Keyboard (pic included), while holding down a modifier or using a Cyrillic layout to practice my foreign language.
The optional functionality is basically found in KeyCombiner (https://keycombiner.com/), but without the "floating layout" part. I used KeyCombiner in the past (great site!), but I would rather have a floating transparent layout with only the functionalities listed above. Because of this, I honestly think that the "enhancement" part of this idea would not be possible (I don't want to harm any existing businesses with copying)