And custom keyboard mapping which makes it possible to type parens without pressing Shift is complete idiocy, because you won't be able to work with anyone's machine.

—yosefk

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Keyboard mappings for Linux using Xkb.

This repository contains keyboard layouts which are based on an ISO (European) 105 key Qwerty layout, more specifically the Norwegian layout (no). The two main layout variations are “programming” (meant for writing English and programming) and “Norwegian” (meant for writing Norwegian, not great for programming).

These layouts are Qwerty in the sense that no letters are changed around. But the customizations are still quite drastic. The goal of these layouts is not to make a new arrangement of letters that is better optimized for speed or ergonomics of writing prose (based on alternating hands, letter frequencies, etc.), like layouts like Dvorak and Colemaks tries to do. Instead, the goal of these layouts could be contrasted by describing them as customizing the fringes of the layouts, such as the Caps Lock key and the numeric row. See xkb-tree/symbols/twin-dexter for details.

Software needed

The Xkb utilities setxkbmap and xkbcomp are needed for scripts/keyboard-setup.

If you have the Nix package manager as well as the Nix shell, you can run nix-shell --pure while in this directory in order to set up a shell from which you can run the scripts/keyboard-setup.

Layouts

There are two layouts:

• a main (base) layout for writing English and programming (twin-dexter(pr)); and
• a Norwegian variant (twin-dexter(no)) which simply maps the three Norwegian letters to the usual keys and maps the Norwegian quotemarks to what is the English double quotemarks on the main layout.

Usage

The main layout is invoked as twin-dexter(pr):

scripts/keyboard-setup "twin-dexter(pr)"

While the Norwegian variant is invoked as twin-dexter(no):

scripts/keyboard-setup "twin-dexter(no)"

Tools

The following are useful tools for working with Xkb and keyboard layouts on Linux.

• xkbcomp: “compile a XKB keyboard description to a keymap suitable for loadkeys”. Use this when the mapping won’t compile and you want better error messages. Remember to use a relative path to the file if you want to try to compile a mapping in the current directory.

• setxkbmap: “set the keyboard using the X Keyboard Extension”.

• man xkeyboard-config: “XKB data description files”. Really useful to find ready-made options like “swap Ctrl and Caps Lock”.

• xkbprint: “print an XKB keyboard description”. Print a PostScript file of a keyboard mapping. The easiest way to use seems to be to print the current keyboard by using an “X display specification”: xkbprint :0 output.ps. You should be able to open the PostScript file in a PDF viewer.

• xkbset: utility to set user preferences like “stickykeys” (“latch” in Xkb terminology), mousekeys, and so on. This might be a useful complement to setxkbmap since it seems that setting latch options is pretty limited with setxkbmap, at least according to man xkeyboard-config. (Source)

• xkbwatch: reports the changes to the Xkb states. This might be useful if you want some visual indication of things like the lock- or lach-state of the various shifts, for example.

• gkbd-keyboard-display: display a keyboard layout from the command line. Much more convenient than using xkbprint if you simply want to quickly find out what some standard layout looks like. Example usage: display the us layout with gkbd-keyboard-display -l us. (Source.)

  Note: you might want to run setxkbmap -option "" <layout> before running this command in order to reset any options. I’ve run into some confusing behavior in which the mappings from the keyboard that I was currently using seemed to bleed into the visual description, although it had nothing to do with that layout. More concretely, I ran gkbd-keyboard-display -l 'us(intl)' which showed some mappings that are not supposed to be on that layout.

• Run xset q in order to see a lot information about the current state/settings. The most interesting part is probably the indicators which show the modifiers that are currently locked.

• xmodmap -pm prints the modifiers and what keys they are mapped to. For example:

  $ xmodmap -pm
  xmodmap:  up to 4 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses):
  
  shift       Shift_L (0x32),  Shift_R (0x3e)
  lock
  control     Control_L (0x25),  Control_R (0x69)
  mod1        Alt_L (0x85),  Alt_R (0x87),  Meta_L (0xcd)
  mod2        Hyper_R (0x33),  Hyper_L (0x42),  Num_Lock (0x4d),  Hyper_L (0xcf)
  mod3        ISO_Level5_Shift (0xcb)
  mod4        Super_L (0x40),  Super_R (0x6c),  Super_L (0xce)
  mod5        ISO_Level3_Shift (0x5c)
  

Files

• Keyboard mappings for the system is located in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols.
• Compose mappings for X: /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose.
• Keysymbol definitions are in: /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h. There you can find what keys and symbols (characters) are named, for example XK_Home (home key) and XK_ampersand (&).

Finding files on NixOS

The above listed files are not stored in the usual places on NixOS. You can use a utility like Find to search for them in the /nix/store/ directory tree:

cd /nix/store
find -name 'keysymdef.h'

This should give you several results.

License

The MIT license; see LICENSE.md.