IMG has always been customer driven and to address the growing usage of My-T-Soft and Build-A-Board, some updates and some overhauls were required at the "back-end" within the Build-A-Board.com accounts.

The My Boards tab has been addressed to allow Default boards to be assigned to individual platforms (so, for example, Windows can have a different default board vs. Android). Because of the inherent differences in platforms, this provides needed flexibility in customizing boards specific to a platform. In order to make My-T-Soft for Android work seamlessly with this change, a minor update to 2.20.32 was required, and this allows the automatic selection of the current keyboard to be the default, when "Get My Boards" is selected via the option in My-T-Soft Settings.

For those not familiar with the 2 categories in My Boards, the Favorite Keyboards section are boards that will be retrieved when Get My Boards is selected on a run-time platform, and Default Keyboards are boards that will retrieved and made the current selected and default keyboard (e.g. KEYBOARD.KBF) after the download process is completed. At the moment, there hasn't been a need or request to separate out favorite boards to specific platforms, and this is not currently on any to-do list. Since the cost of carrying a few extra boards is negligible, and you never know what situation may throw itself at you, always having your favorites, no matter the platform, seems to be the correct approach.

There are also some updates in My Projects, adding Windows, Android, and Linux as options to quickly select Default boards for these platforms, and also a similar change in the Board Browser tab for the publicly available boards. When you upload a Board Project from Build-A-Board to your account, it will appear in the My Projects tab. There are 3 scope options for each project - Private, Public, and Marketplace. Whenever a new project is uploaded to your account, it is Private. Only if you select Public will it be available in the Public browseable boards (i.e. Board Browser). Currently the Marketplace is not engaged, and a warning will be shown if you select this option (e.g. Board is public, but the Marketplace is not currently available). So for practical purposes, there is private and public, with most customers focusing on their own custom boards. Not yet available in the current release of Build-A-Board is "Get My Projects", and this is on the to-do list... However, there is a Download Project icon (black folder/green down arrow) that can be used to manually obtain the Project zip file, which can be dropped into the SOURCE folder / Project folder for use within Build-A-Board (i.e. you find yourself at a different system and want an uploaded project).

The License Manager tab has 2 new buttons - Manage Licenses and Manage Device Settings. The Manage Licenses allows you to update or name licenses so keeping track of deployed licenses can be easily managed. Note that IMG has many types of customers, with some being individuals, some being companies with a small number of deployments, and some are resellers using My-T-Soft on per project basis. For customers using Live, Enterprise, or OEM type licenses, this section does not apply. Also this option allows customers to update license status if a device is missing, damaged, or destroyed.

The Manage Device settings provides tools to manage device settings (currently only for the Android platform). Since certain settings are relevant across a large number of similar devices, but don't make sense as part of the actual board, My-T-Soft for Android has the ability to upload/download settings to your account. You also have the ability to set Account defaults. The logic is setup so that if a device requests settings, and that device has a set of saved settings, it will retrieve the current set of saved settings. If the device does not have settings, but the account has defaults, then the device (and any other device) will retrieve the account default settings. This provides a mechanism to standardize on custom settings for a family of devices by using the same Build-A-Board.com account for licensing.

As customers let us know their needs and requirements, updates and changes are rolled into the appropriate area. The vision of having a cloud based store for your favorite boards, with the ability to get a new device, install My-T-Soft, license, retrieve your boards (and settings), and be off and running is complete for major platforms. As time marches on, more & more refinements will be rolled into the system, and we welcome everyone along for the ride. Keyboards have been in use for over 160 years, and will continue to have important roles in all types of situations. Now, with the complete flexibility of customization, your own set of optimized boards are quickly & easily available on whatever device you are using today!