A fully customizable on-screen keyboard that types into any program.
KeyDeck is built around one idea: your keyboard should be whatever you need it to be. Build the layout you want, save it as a loadout, program each button to send a key or a whole shortcut, and scale the whole thing to a size that suits you. Hold down any key, and let KeyDeck learn the words you use as you type. It never takes focus from the program you're typing into.
The default KeyDeck layout: main keys, navigation cluster and numpad, plus a predictive text bar.
| Build your own layout | Move, resize, recolor, add and delete keys, or start from a blank board |
| Loadouts | Save any number of layouts and switch between them in a click |
| Programmable keys | Set any button to send any key, or a whole shortcut like Ctrl+Shift+Esc |
| Scalable interface | Everything resizes together, from tiny to extra large, with adjustable opacity |
| Hold any key | Letters, numbers, F-keys, everything, not just Shift, Ctrl and Alt |
| Predictive text | Suggestions that learn your words and phrases |
| Types anywhere | Works with games and apps, without stealing focus |
The layout is not fixed. Switch on Edit layout and shape the keyboard however you like.
- Move keys by dragging them. They snap to a grid so everything stays tidy.
- Resize a key by dragging its bottom-right corner, or type exact width and height values.
- Recolor each key and its text individually, or reset it to the default.
- Add new keys, duplicate existing ones, and delete the ones you don't need.
- Clear all empties the board, and Blank layout in the Loadouts menu starts a new one from scratch.
Start from the full default keyboard (main keys, navigation cluster and numpad) and rearrange it, strip it down to a handful of big keys, or build something entirely your own.
A Dvorak-style arrangement with the home row recolored. Every button sends the key it shows.
Just the letters A to Z, resized and recolored from red to violet.
A loadout is a saved layout, including every key's position, size, label, color and what it sends, shortcuts included. Make as many as you need.
- Save the current layout, or Save as a new loadout under any name.
- Switch between loadouts from the Loadouts menu in one click, for example one for a game, one for writing, and one for a compact corner of your screen.
- KeyDeck remembers which loadout you used last and opens with it.
- Loadouts are plain JSON files in
%APPDATA%\KeyDeck\loadouts. The Open loadouts folder menu item takes you straight there, so you can back them up or share them by copying a file. - Reset to default layout brings back the built-in keyboard whenever you want a fresh start.
Every button on KeyDeck is programmable. A button is a position, a size, a label and what it sends, and you can change each of those independently. What it sends can be a single key or a whole shortcut.
Send any key. Open Edit layout, select a button, and pick from the Sends list of 120+ keys: letters, numbers, punctuation, F1 to F24, arrows, the navigation cluster, the numpad and media keys. Give the button any label you like, and an optional shift label that appears while Shift is active.
Program a shortcut. Select a button and click Program shortcut... to make it send a combination of keys with one click. Type the shortcut with + between keys:
| You type | What the button does |
|---|---|
Ctrl+Shift+Esc |
Opens Task Manager |
Alt+F4 |
Closes the active window |
Win+D |
Shows the desktop |
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V |
Copy and paste |
Win+Shift+S |
Starts a screenshot snip |
You can combine Ctrl, Shift, Alt and Win with any other key, and common names like Esc, Del, PageUp and Return work too. KeyDeck checks what you type and tells you if it doesn't recognize a key. The button is labeled with your shortcut by default, and you can rename it. Windows blocks software from generating Ctrl+Alt+Delete, so KeyDeck won't accept that one.
With programmable keys you can put your game's controls exactly where you want them, turn a spare button into a dedicated F-key or media control, or build a keypad of the shortcuts you use every day.
A board made entirely of programmed shortcut buttons: Copy, Paste, Alt+Tab, Task Manager and more, each one click.
KeyDeck can be as big, as small and as see-through as you want. The whole interface scales together, not just the keys.
- Choose Tiny, Very small, Small, Medium, Large or Extra large, or enter a custom size from 14 to 80 pixels.
- The toolbar buttons, menus, suggestion bar and editing panel all grow and shrink with the keys, so nothing looks out of proportion.
- Key labels shrink and trim themselves to fit, so text never spills over neighboring keys at small sizes.
- Opacity can be set to 100%, 90%, 80%, 70% or 55% under Settings, so you can see the window or game behind the keyboard.
- Pin KeyDeck always on top so it stays within reach.
The same keyboard at a small size (top) and a large size with reduced opacity (bottom), showing the desktop through it.
Most on-screen keyboards let you latch Shift, Ctrl and Alt and nothing else. KeyDeck lets you hold every key.
- Right-click any key to hold it down. Right-click it again to release it.
- Switch on the Hold button in the toolbar and every ordinary left-click becomes a hold toggle instead of a tap.
- Release all lets go of everything at once, so nothing is ever left stuck down.
- Held keys are shown in orange so you can see at a glance what is down.
This is handy for any game or tool where you hold a key while doing something else, such as holding A while clicking to collect crops all at once, holding W to walk, or holding Shift while you work with the mouse.
Modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Win) behave the way you'd expect from an on-screen keyboard: a single click applies to the next key and then releases, and right-click locks them down. You can switch that one-shot behavior off in Settings. When Shift is active, the number and symbol keys switch to their shifted characters so you can see what you'll get.
Five keys held down at the same time (Q, O, D, J and N), shown in orange.
A suggestion bar above the keys offers three predictions as you type, and it gets better the more you use it.
- Completes words as you type them, and suggests the next word between words.
- Starts with a built-in vocabulary of 1,200+ common words and over 100 starter phrases, so it is useful from the first keystroke.
- Learns from you. It remembers the words you use, which words tend to follow each other, and the phrases you repeat. A new word is only learned after you've typed it twice, so typos and one-offs don't pollute your suggestions.
- Follows your capitalization, including names, sentence starts and ALL CAPS.
- Click a suggestion to type it. Right-click one to make KeyDeck forget that word. Use Forget everything in Settings to start over.
- Everything it learns stays on your computer, in a single file in
%APPDATA%\KeyDeck. Nothing is sent anywhere. - It knows when you're gaming, not writing. Held keys pause suggestions, so your game controls are never learned as words.
After typing "the q" into a text editor, KeyDeck offers "quick", "quickly" and "quite". Click one to finish the word.
- Never steals focus. Clicking a key does not pull focus away from the program you're typing into, so keystrokes go where you were working.
- Hardware scan codes are sent by default, which is what most games listen for. You can switch to standard key events in Settings.
- Optional auto-repeat when you press and hold a key, just like a physical keyboard.
- The Caps Lock key lights up while Caps Lock is on, even if you turned it on from your physical keyboard.
KeyDeck needs Windows and Python 3. It uses only the standard library, so there is nothing else to install.
python keydeck.py
python -m pip install pyinstaller
python -m PyInstaller --noconsole --onefile --name KeyDeck keydeck.py
Your program is created at dist\KeyDeck.exe.
- Windows blocks injected keystrokes into programs running as administrator unless KeyDeck is also run as administrator.
- Key codes assume a US keyboard layout.
- Settings, loadouts and learned words are saved in
%APPDATA%\KeyDeck, so they survive updates and rebuilds. - Unsigned programs built with PyInstaller are sometimes flagged by antivirus software. Running
python keydeck.pydirectly avoids that.