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u/AgitatedCondition386 12 hours ago

KezboardSwitcher - Automatic keyboard layout switching for macOS

For the past three months, I’ve been offering my KezboardSwitcher for sale on my website. Interest was virtually non-existent :)—which is totally fine by me; it’s a very specific use case, and the price might have been a bit too high for such a simple app. That’s why I decided to release the source code. I’ve been using the app myself for nearly three years now. At first, it was nothing more than a few lines of Swift code with all my keyboards and layouts hard-coded. Then, about six months ago, I decided to give it a shot and turn it into a proper app with a UI and everything, allowing anyone to configure keyboards and layouts directly via a simple interface. And so, here comes the AI ​​disclaimer: Yep, I built this using Claude Code. But what does it actually do, and why did I need it? I regularly use various keyboards, depending on where and what I work and do. I got tired of manually switching the system-wide keyboard layout every time I switched from a German keyboard to a US one. Likewise, I prefer the US layout for coding, but when writing—especially in German—I prefer the German layout; I actually switch physical keyboards for this (using the internal German keyboard on my Mac and usually an external US one). That’s exactly where KeyboardSwitcher helps me out: as soon as I use a keyboard, it applies the layout configured for that specific keyboard. The app is still for sale on my website, and the entire license key handling logic remains in the code—and will stay there. However, anyone who wants to can simply strip that out and build the app themselves or just buy it from me. :) Link to repo: https://github.com/SteVio89/KezboardSwitcher
1 comments held Reddit says 0 on reddit ↗
  1. u/investigatormaker 1 12 hours ago
    Picking the layout based on which physical keyboard is in use is something macOS leaves to you. The German internal board plus US external board you describe is exactly who needs it: bilingual Mac users and anyone typing on an external ANSI keyboard. Deliberate or not, the Kezboard in the title is the best demo of the problem you could ask for, since that Y/Z swap is what you get typing on the wrong layout. Open-sourcing it while keeping the paid build is a sensible split for something this niche. By the way, I make ThreadFox: your AI researches, writes and publishes Reddit outreach from your Chrome within a job you authorize, and the plan for one product is free, showing which Reddit communities have rules allowing a post about KezboardSwitcher: https://threadfox.vip/p/d7lhk Does the paid build add anything over the open-source one, or is it a way to support you?