I wish I could design a keyboard layout of my own (specifying symbols for each the key to be entered in case it is pressed alone, with Shift or with AltGr) and set it up among all the other layouts in my XUbuntu 11.04 system. How to do this?
1 Answer
Ubuntu 10.10
I use a local keyboard with US and Thai layout.
The us
layout is ok for me, but I like to have some
additional german characters like äöü ÄÖÜ
This can easy be implemented with xmodmap
, but if
you switch to the second layout, you will observe
some strange results.
I found a good solution: create and use your custom keyboard!
/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/
choose your nearest preference, in my caseus
and save it with a new name:us-de
delete anything, which you don't need, and change, what ever you like. My file for
us-de
:default xkb_symbols "basic" { name[Group1]= "ASCII with german"; // Alphanumeric section key <TLDE> { [ grave, asciitilde ] }; key <AE01> { [ 1, exclam ] }; key <AE02> { [ 2, at, twosuperior ] }; key <AE03> { [ 3, numbersign, threesuperior ] }; key <AE04> { [ 4, dollar, onequarter ] }; key <AE05> { [ 5, percent, onehalf ] }; key <AE06> { [ 6, asciicircum, threequarters ] }; key <AE07> { [ 7, ampersand ] }; key <AE08> { [ 8, asterisk, oneeighth ] }; key <AE09> { [ 9, parenleft ] }; key <AE10> { [ 0, parenright, degree ] }; key <AE11> { [ minus, underscore ] }; key <AE12> { [ equal, plus ] }; key <AD01> { [ q, Q ] }; key <AD02> { [ w, W ] }; key <AD03> { [ e, E, EuroSign, cent ] }; key <AD04> { [ r, R ] }; key <AD05> { [ t, T ] }; key <AD06> { [ y, Y ] }; key <AD07> { [ u, U, udiaeresis, Udiaeresis ] }; key <AD08> { [ i, I ] }; key <AD09> { [ o, O, odiaeresis, Odiaeresis ] }; key <AD10> { [ p, P ] }; key <AD11> { [ bracketleft, braceleft ] }; key <AD12> { [ bracketright, braceright ] }; key <AC01> { [ a, A, adiaeresis, Adiaeresis ] }; key <AC02> { [ s, S ] }; key <AC03> { [ d, D ] }; key <AC04> { [ f, F ] }; key <AC05> { [ g, G ] }; key <AC06> { [ h, H ] }; key <AC07> { [ j, J ] }; key <AC08> { [ k, K ] }; key <AC09> { [ l, L ] }; key <AC10> { [ semicolon, colon ] }; key <AC11> { [ apostrophe, quotedbl ] }; key <AB01> { [ z, Z ] }; key <AB02> { [ x, X ] }; key <AB03> { [ c, C ] }; key <AB04> { [ v, V ] }; key <AB05> { [ b, B ] }; key <AB06> { [ n, N ] }; key <AB07> { [ m, M, mu ] }; key <AB08> { [ comma, less ] }; key <AB09> { [ period, greater ] }; key <AB10> { [ slash, question ] }; key <BKSL> { [ backslash, bar ] }; key <CAPS> { [ VoidSymbol ] }; // End alphanumeric section include "level3(ralt_switch)" };
/usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.xml
Modifyevdev.xml
so your custom keyboard will be recognised: search for</layoutList>
and add the following just before</layoutList>
:<layout> <configItem> <name>us-de</name> <!-- a) --> <shortDescription>US-DE</shortDescription> <!-- b) --> <description>ASCII with german</description> <!-- c) --> <languageList><iso639Id>eng</iso639Id></languageList> <!-- d) --> </configItem> </layout>
- a)
us-de
is the filename of the new keyboard layout inX11/xkb/symbols
- b)
US-DE
this will appear eg. in the indicator applet - c)
ASCII with german
must coincide with the text at the begin of your file:
name[Group1]= "ASCII with german"
; This text will also appear as comment under "Layouts" - d) if you choose "eng" your layout will be shown in System->Preferences->Keyboard->tab Layouts->Add->By Language->English under "Variants"
- a)
log out and log in again, and check System->Preferences->Keyboard->tab Layouts->Add->By Language->English if you can find your custom layout, happy! You are ready to go! Select your first and second layou here. Add a keyboard switcher applet here under "options" you can also disable the CapsLock key.
the default keyboard will annoy you and sometime reappear... If you like to get rid of this, edit
/var/cache/gdm/$USER/dmrc
and place anything existing as your new default:Layout=us-de
then reboot.
Based on a post on UbuntuForums.com by Andy Meier at December 28th, 2010.
-
thank you so much for this post... i have been searching for so long!– DanyelNov 11, 2013 at 15:27
-
Instead of provide only a link, you should write the useful parts here.– LucioMay 10, 2014 at 16:06
-
Just a little update on this. I was changing my italian keyboard to add
ə
and I have had some troubles. This was because if you want to change for instancekey <AE03> { [ 3, numbersign, threesuperior ] };
, you should replace the character - for instancenumbersign
- with the proper code point, that in my case isU0269
. So the final entry will be:key <AE03> { [ 3, U0269, threesuperior ] };
Now I can typeə
just clickingShift+3
Apr 30, 2021 at 8:08