OptiKey

4.1.1 is the same as 4.1.0, but re-releasing as 4.1.1 to prompt upgrades for existing users. Main change was fixing the bug when installing on a PC with default language set to Chinese.

New:

• Adds point source (tracker) plugins
• Adds Chinese

Fixed:

• None

Deprecated:

• None

New:

• Pre-release to test PR #876

Fixed:

Deprecated:

New:

• Allow key actions to be repeated on subsequent switch presses #882

Fixed:

• Fixes issue with simulating character key strokes that include Alt - previously Optikey was using LeftAlt. Reverting to AltGr to prevent accidentally creating a shortcut combination of keystrokes.
• Fix SkipWhile that missed first gamepad press #895

Deprecated:

New:

• Command line arg to auto load Dynamic Keyboard at startup
• Lock down mouse actions #421

Fixed:

• Various improvements to Dynamic Keyboards
• Additional logging added when issue with BASS audio
• Alt key was Alt Gr #844
• Error launching two instances of a dynamic keyboard #783
• OpenClipboard fail crashing the OptiKey #862
• ALT-M Crash on Windows 11 Home #858
• Improve dynamic keyboard error screen #814

New:

• Brand new major release, forked from v3.2.4 ("Optikey Classic").
• New whitelist for Tobii eye trackers, supporting only Tobii Dynavox (accessibility) eye trackers. Support for Tobii gaming trackers will continue in Optikey v3 ("Optikey Classic").

Fixed:

• None

Deprecated:

• Support for Tobii gaming trackers
• Support for recalibrating Tobii trackers from within Optikey

New:

• Add setting to limit "BackOne" #826

Fixed:

• Fix bug in eye gesture for action type return to fixation #813
• Fix SuggestionCol bindings #820
• Fix race condition in KeyFixationSource #822 #810
• Fix LockonTime defaulting to zero #823
• Possible fix for disposal of sequence #824 #524
• Remove NBug, fix logs of crashes #825
• Adds vcredist as installer prerequisite - this avoids users seeing crashes on startup and having to manually resolve (https://github.com/Optikey/Optikey/wiki/Crash-when-using-Tobii-eye-tracker)

Deprecated:

• Removes the two strongest gaze smoothing levels as they are not practical

New:

• Prevents update notification from v3 (or prior) to v4 (or later). This is in preparation of a known breaking change which will affect existing users and could potentially prevent their eye trackers from working with Optikey v4+

Fixed:

• Crash loop when NBug fails to send a crash report
• Irisbond Hiru missing from installer combobox
• Scroll up key was incorrectly disabled on vertical expanded mouse keyboard

Deprecated:

• None

New:

• Reinstates setting in 'Extra Features' management console tab to default to Look To Scroll scrolling method (or not)

Fixed:

• Scroll Up key broken in v3.2.0 #809

Deprecated:

• None

New:

• Eye Gestures! Gesture with your eyes to trigger custom actions #749
• Adds support for IrisBond Hiru (new eye tracker!)
• Adds support for joysticks and keypads (XInput/DirectInput) as trigger sources #791
• Adds Gaze Indicator (in Visual tab of Management Console) to show where user gaze is being received
• Adds ability to change the key selection time on subsequent selections, i.e. speed up or slow down #740 #741
• Adds custom key borders to dynamic keys #742
• New dynamic key 'MoveWindow' to allow window move and resize operations #764
• Stores and restores Magnetic Cursor across restarts #747
• Add setting to suppress showing a warning when no gaze point is availabale when a trigger is pressed #790

Fixed:

• Mouse cursor gets "stuck" near top of screen #738
• Allows look to scroll to pass through main Optikey Window #742
• Minor improvements to look to scroll #748
• Minimise functionality
• Issue when changing font size #676
• Fixes issue with toast notifications not allowing the user to continue using Optikey
• Fixes mouse keyboard shrinking unexpectedly #766 #784
• Issues with LookToScroll #796 #797 #800 #801 #802 #803 #804 #805 #806
• Fixes to plug-in engine #799

Deprecated:

• None

New:

• Hindi support #722
• Smoothing/stream processing improvements #731 #729 #671 #732
• Improvements to magnify popup behaviour #725
• Add new setting to disable manual resizing of Optikey using a mouse #736

Fixed:

• Cursor position not working on initial keyboard
• Fixes Dynamic key error when using mouse button trigger #681 #734

Deprecated:

• None

New:

• None

Fixed:

• Fixes issue with magnify popup sometimes not appearing ability to debug issues with the magnify popup (mouse actions)

Deprecated:

• None

New:

• None

Fixed:

• Sizing issues related to dynamic keyboards and conversation keyboards #715 #713

Deprecated:

• None

New:

• None

Fixed:

• Mouse magnifier does not center on selection point in v3.0.6 #711
• Mouse magnification step appears on wrong monitor sometimes #670

Deprecated:

• None

New:

• Adds support for Tobii Eye Tracker 5 #690
• Resizing using the mouse. Thanks to Kirsty, it is finally possible to resize and move Optikey using mouse control (either manual or within Optikey). Also change between docked and floating from the Management Console. #678
• Auto restart Optikey upon crash #695
• Adds ability to pass parameters to external plugin commands #697
• Adds optional alphabetical layout for Italian keyboards

Fixed:

• Reinstated the requirement to lock-on to a key when repeating a selection. Not requiring lock on for repeated selections was introduced in v3.0.4. This will be replaced with a new opt-in group of settings when this release is finalised.
• Dynamic key error when using mouse button trigger #679 #680
• Crash upon launch with key/mouse trigger source #679 #680
• Sizing Issues #691
• Dynamic keyboard appbar persists after leaving keyboard #685
• Fixes issue with Conversation keyboard key appearing to lock down from dynamic keyboards #691
• German conversation alpha keyboard was incorrectly using the English conversation alpha layout

Deprecated:

• None

Additional notes:

• Users with dynamic keyboards containing MultiStepKeys will need to refactor to use new command keys.
• If user pins Optikey apps to the taskbar an upgrade will delete these shortcuts. There is currently no known workaround using Advanced Installer.

New:

• New Translate functionality. Select to translate text in the scratchpad and place it on the clipboard ready to be pasted anywhere #613
• Layout changes for main keyboards
• Improvements and changes to dynamic keyboards (including adding Sleep and Web Browsing keys to Menu, and Sleep to the Mouse key, among other changes)

Fixed:

• Selecting menu key on dynamic keyboard can result in the keyboard being shrunk #658
• Reinstates PointTtl setting in the management console - this setting is used to filter out stale data from the eye tracker. Useful if there is a significant lag between the measurement of your gaze position and that information being received by Optikey.
• Dynamic key virtual key codes can be incorrect for characters requiring modifiers #667
• Various fixes and improvements to dynamic keyboards #669 #672 #675

Deprecated:

• None

Additional notes:

• Users with dynamic keyboards containing MultiStepKeys will need to refactor to use new command keys.
• If user pins Optikey apps to the taskbar an upgrade will delete these shortcuts. There is currently no known workaround using Advanced Installer.

New:

• New features for dynamic keyboards (#643), including
  KeyGroup for keys that share a common set of attributes
  Override LockOn, Completion, RepeatDelay, and RepeatRate times for custom key response speed
  KeyUp can now be used with KeyGroup to release all down keys with a matching KeyGroup
  Legacy keyboards can now utilize the same dynamic keys as the new keyboards
  The legacy multistep dynamic key is deprecated
  This (and previous dynamic keyboard) close #588 #589 #591 #595 #623

Fixed:

• None

Deprecated:

• None

Additional notes:

• Users with dynamic keyboards containing MultiStepKeys will need to refactor to use new command keys.
• If user pins Optikey apps to the taskbar an upgrade will delete these shortcuts. There is currently no known workaround using Advanced Installer.

New:

• Support for CommuniKate symbol boards which are based on non-latin alphabet content, e.g. Urdu
• Better handling of SAPI voices which require legacy speech synthesis - removed error notification and also added ability to intelligently switch back to regular synthesiser when the voice changes

Fixed:

• Better support for multi-screen set ups - fix for #490 and part of #175, whereby mouse positions were wrong if a secondary monitor was on the left
• Better support for multi-screen set ups - turned on per-monitor DPI-aware feature, which fixes Optikey's resizing when switching from hi-DPI to normal monitor or vice versa (e.g if you plug in an external screen to your Surface Pro while running Optikey). There may still be some scenarios in which you need to restart Optikey to get correct sizing, but this fixes a common situation. The fix only has an effect if you're running a recent version of Windows 10.
• More detailed notes of above two fixes here: https://github.com/OptiKey/OptiKey/pull/632

Deprecated:

• None

Known bug:

• If user pins Optikey apps to the taskbar an upgrade will delete these shortcuts. There is currently no known workaround using Advanced Installer

New:

• Optikey is now 4 separate applications, tailored to end user requirements: Optikey Pro, Optikey Chat, Optikey Symbol, and Optikey Mouse. Full details at the new website www.optikey.org

Fixed:

• IrisBond drivers updated from 3.7.6.0 to 3.10.0.4. IrisBond recommend that you update your camera drivers also by downloading and installing this updated API: http://downloads.irisbond.com/drivers_irisbond_api
• Issue where a keyboard incorrectly resizes based on changing resolution, e.g. when a tablet orientation changes.
• An incorrect release was made as 3.0.0 which resulted in Urdu characters being typed when the Clear Scratchpad key was selected. This has been resolved in this replacement version (3.0.1)
• Fixed lack of logging
• Fixed apps versioning themselves in the AppData user settings directories

Deprecated:

• None

Known bug:

• If user pins Optikey apps to the taskbar an upgrade will delete these shortcuts. There is currently no known workaround using Advanced Installer

Huge thanks to @kmcnaught for splitting Optikey into 4 stand-alone applications. Thanks Kirsty!

New:

• Overhaul of how dynamic keyboards and defined and what they can do. Adds ability for users to define dynamic keys which can trigger macros, loop, use plugins, change their styling, and more #599

N.B. Pre-existing dynamic keyboards using the old layout rules and xml will continue to work, but going forward there is a new way to express dynamic keyboards, detailed here: https://github.com/Optikey/Optikey/wiki/Creating-and-Using-Dynamic-Keyboards

Fixed:

• Some outstanding issues with dynamic keyboard resizing and incorrect persistence of temporary state

Deprecated:

• None

Huge thanks to @AdamRoden for this, and the last few releases. His vision and work to supercharge dynamic keyboards has been a huge asset.