On Sunday I uploaded the new version of the Keyboard Layout Analyzer. It has a plethora of new features and charts, and a new layout design. My goal was to create something that was more useful and easier on the eye.

Several key features are currently missing from the app (saving/loading of layouts, heatmap stats, etc), and I hope to have those finished within the next week or two. I’ll do a second post, when version 2.1 is released, to chronicle those features. I decided to launch the new app before I had finished everything because I was worried my to-do list would get too large, and I’d simply just never finish before moving onto another project (I have quite a few unfinished projects). Work is also about to get a little hectic in two weeks, so I figured it was best to launch while I had some extra time on my hands. Below is a list of what’s new in the app.

• Resigned layout.
• Code rewritten from scratch (mostly because I just wanted to start fresh).
• New configuration keyboard that allows you to set finger placement, finger start positions, and modifier characters for each key. Also supports drag and drop for ease of use.
• Drop down for loading sample texts (hopefully more to come soon).
• Bar charts comparing fingers are now available for distance and finger usage. For row usage, a row usage bar chart is presented.
• Distance traveled is now broken down by finger.
• Distance, finger usage, and row usage are displayed by a selectable unit type (percent, key strokes, etc).
• Stats on consecutive finger and hand usage have been added in.
• An adjustable number of layouts can be compared.
• New algorithm for determining the best layout.

Many of the new features are user driven. I received around 8 emails, and they were all extremely helpful in guiding the direction the app took – so thank you to everyone who gave feedback (even if I didn’t implement every idea – yet at least). Hopefully in another week or two I’ll do another update chronicling the remaining features.

Lastly, I had a request to keep the original version intact and available, and have decided to make it available here. If you use IE8 or below, you’ll automatically be redirected there anyway.