Am using windows 7. And i uninstalled Internet Explorer and installed Chrome and Firefox. After downloaded Keyman 10 desktop version for Tamil Language the installer asks for Internet Explore 9. Is there any alternative to install without IE9(Coz I hate that browser)
I’m curious why you uninstalled IE rather than simply make Chrome or Firefox your default browser?
I can’t speak for the OP, but I also have a particular disdain for IE. Since XP days I have always been installing Windows with a customized installer, it saves SO much time! Quite a while ago I ended up simply removing IE from ever installing in the first place. It’s a very effective way to prevent it from ever opening which still happens even if you set another browser as the default.
Unfortunately some core components of Keyman are built upon IE, so it is absolutely necessary to have IE installed to use Keyman. The roadmap says that this will eventually change and IE dependency will be phased out. But that is some time away.
The good news is that you really don’t have to use IE as your browser, you can continue to use whatever browser you wish. Although IE must be installed on your system.
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Dear bobh
I have already uninstalled IE and made firefox as my default browser. But the installer replies the same message… Any how thanks for your quest
Thanks Jolene
Why keyman for desktop usage needs IE components. Though windows itself used to have .net framework.
Keyman Desktop uses the IE component MSHTML to render the configuration dialog, the documentation, and parts of the On Screen Keyboard interface.
This makes Keyman unnecessarily dependent on a proprietary operating system that is now moving to a subscription model, unlike say Ubuntu which is free and runs the excellent free firefox and brave browsers.
@alapbet, I’m not sure how this is relevant. Keyman Desktop is a Windows program that uses Windows components. Keyman for Linux is a Linux program that uses Linux components. Furthermore, when Keyman Desktop was created, Brave and Firefox did not exist!
Yes, i realize that, and Keyman works really well. But I would question a design decision that ties a package so tightly to someone else’s. You have to have the OS, obviously, but to require the browser - not cool. I am currently running Keyman on a Windows machine - but I still can’t get a keyboard to work on Linux. I’ll keep trying!
FWIW, the component we depend on is not Internet Explorer, but MSHTML, which is a core OS component distributed in the System32 folder. The problem arises when people try to strip out Internet Explorer and delete also the MSHTML component with the misguided idea that it is only used by IE and not needed by other programs. MSHTML is (or was) used by many components in Windows and other programs to render HTML. (Of course, Microsoft have deprecated MSHTML, so that is the primary reason we will be moving away from it in a coming version of Keyman.)
On Linux we use WebKit to render HTML.
On macOS we use Safari to render HTML.
On Android we use Chrome.
On iOS we use Mobile Safari.
Each platform has a built in HTML renderer. We use the OS HTML renderer where we can because it delivers hugely valuable functionality at a low cost.
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One of my user (on Windows 7, with IE-8) hit the same issue. I just compiled the keyboard for Keyman version 8 (I had to comment out the stores KEYBOARDVERSION and TARGETS, so I did it on a separate branch). I’m yet to hear from the user, if this helped.
Is Keyman Desktop v8 is dependent of IE 9?
@Benjamin_Varghese I cannot recall which version of Internet Explorer that Keyman Desktop 8 depended on; I suspect it would have been earlier than IE9 but it was many years ago.
We are starting work now on removing the IE dependency in Keyman 13.
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Thanks for the quick response. My user just confirmed that Keyman 8 works fine on Windows 7 with IE 8. So I’m relieved.
We are starting work now on removing the IE dependency in Keyman 13.
Wow! that’s helpful (at least to some users).
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