KeyMagic

Cultural differences are amongst the features that define us as humans and have been refined through the course of thousands of years. One of the modern activities it reflects in is writing, with different styles and characters used. Since the standard keyboard is fitted with Latin characters, applications like KeyMagic help you out by providing a quick method to switch between multiple layouts.

When launched, the application automatically hides to the system tray, so that's the first place you might want to look. The main window only holds several management options for existing layouts, as well as the possibility to add new ones.

Clever implementation of hotkey support gives you the possibility to easily switch between layouts, while pressing it again returns to default settings. There's also a button combination to toggle the state of the application for more comfort. You're free to edit each one of them, which comes in handy in case the existing ones are already in use.

However, a better look at the application and you quickly realize it might not be exactly what you expected. First off, the amount of presets at your disposal is rather poor and unless you need to write text in Myanmar languages, chances are the application is of no use to you.

Only one file type can be inserted, namely KM2, which is the application's default state of storing data. This means that any custom layouts you have need to be converted if you want to import them and bind hotkeys. Don't bother for looking for a conversion feature because it's entirely missing from the given set.

Editing only refers to defining terms of a layout again, such as specifying hotkeys used, name and description. It would have been useful to see a built-in mapper to save you the time needed to look for one, as well as a converter. Last but not least, input only works for a specific selection of utilities, such as plain text or web browsers, with a high change for issues to occur if used in more advanced text editors.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that KeyMagic comes with good intentions but the set of features put at your disposal leaves a lot more to be desired. Starting with the poor presets you get to work with and ending with the lack of a converter or key mapper, the application sports little to no flexibility, not to mention practicality.