What's this project?
k3lp (/kɛlp/) is a newly created project by the FlorisBoard maintainers. This mobile-first library is designed to support the parsing and utilization of Unicode Keyboard3 files. Keyboard3 is an enhanced and rewritten standard developed by The Unicode Consortium, officially released with CLDR 45. It offers an open and interoperable standard for declaring and sharing keyboard layouts.
Why?
Although the Keyboard3 standard has been available for some time, there is currently no ready-to-use open-source library to effectively leverage these files. This is where k3lp comes into play, aiming to provide an easy-to-use, multi-platform library written in Kotlin 2.0. The library includes all the necessary business logic for layout parsing and will eventually standardize the runtime layout implementations, while leaving the actual user interface implementation to the keyboard developer.
What's the goal?
Our goal is to not only make this new layout logic available for FlorisBoard, but to offer an open-source library for all keyboard developers to parse and work with Unicode Keyboard v3 layout files. This is thus also an open call to all Android (and iOS) developers who are interested in contributing to this open project. If you would like to get involved, please comment down below or send an email to the project lead to help shape the future of open keyboard layout usage.
Who funds the project?
We are also excited to share that we have secured funding for this project through the nlnet organization’s NGI Zero Core funding programme. This funding allows us to work on this project during our work time. You can find more details about the k3lp project on the nlnet website.
You can also check out the Florisboard roadmap if you’re interested.