A Windows application that plays customizable sounds when you type, with optimized performance and low latency.

• Plays custom sounds for key presses and releases
• Multiple sound packs support
• Adjustable volume control
• Latency optimization settings
• Clean UI
• Minimal resource usage

This application is built using modern C++17 and integrates several technologies:

1. Low-Level Keyboard Hook System

   • Uses the Windows SetWindowsHookEx API to capture keyboard events globally
   • Implements intelligent filtering to avoid double-firing on auto-repeat
   • Detects injected keystrokes to avoid processing artificial input

2. Predictive Sound Preloading

   • Learns typing patterns to predict which keys are likely to be pressed next
   • Preloads sound buffers for commonly typed sequences
   • Prioritizes frequently used keys for minimal latency

3. Multi-threaded Sound Processing

   • Dedicated sound processing thread to avoid UI blocking
   • Priority queue system to handle rapid keystroke sequences
   • Intelligent cleanup of stale sounds to minimize memory usage

4. SFML 3.0 Audio Integration

   • Uses the latest SFML 3.0 audio system for high-quality, low-latency sound
   • Properly implements sound buffer caching and reuse
   • Manages sound resource cleanup automatically

5. Dynamic Performance Tuning

   • Four optimization levels to balance between latency and resource usage
   • Automatically adjusts processing behavior based on typing speed
   • Smart rate limiting to prevent audio clipping during fast typing

• KeyboardHookManager: Captures and processes keyboard events
• SoundManager: Handles sound file loading and selection
• SFMLSoundPlayer: Manages sound playback and caching
• Application: Provides UI and coordinates other components

• Windows 10 or later
• CMake 3.14 or newer
• C++17 compatible compiler (e.g., Visual Studio 2019+, MinGW-w64)
• SFML 3.0 (not included)

1. Download SFML 3.0 from the official website
2. Extract the SFML package
3. Create a libs folder in the project root
4. Create an SFML folder inside the libs folder
5. Copy the contents of the SFML package into the libs/SFML folder
   • Ensure the folder structure looks like: libs/SFML/bin, libs/SFML/lib, etc.

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/aledlb8/keyboard-sounds.git
cd keyboard-sounds
build.bat

The executable will be created in the build folder (Release configuration). Required DLLs from SFML will be automatically copied to the build folder.

To run the application:

cd build
./keyboard-sounds

If you don't want to build from source, you can download the pre-built release packages from the Releases page.

1. Download the latest release ZIP
2. Extract to a folder of your choice
3. Run keyboard-sounds.exe

1. Check the sounds folder, you can add your custom ones without changing a single line of code!

The application offers four optimization levels that balance between performance and resource usage:

• Minimal: Better compatibility, less resource usage
• Low: Basic optimization with minimal preloading
• Medium: Balanced optimization (default)
• Maximum: Lowest possible latency, higher CPU/memory usage

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

• SFML for the excellent audio library
• All contributors and testers who helped improve this application