[SOLVED] Not all Dvorak Keybourd Layouts work!

Question

Hi everyone,
I hope this is the right place to ask that question.  I am using a Dvorak keyboard layout for about a year now.  However, as I am native German and I do use Emacs a lot, I adjusted the Classic Dvorak Keyboard with some additional features such as adding Umlauts to the layout, switching Control/Caps_Lock, Alt/Tab and making it easier to stroke certain sequences, like $/{, which often occur when typing maths.
The default Dvorak layout that comes with Arch Linux is the so-called Simplified Dvorak Layout.  I am more than happy to write my own layout-file, however, it doesn't seem to work the way I tried.  Here is what I did so far:
I found all the keyboard layouts, including the Dvorak Simplified one, in the following directory:
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/dvorak/dvorak.map.gz
As root:
cp /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/dvorak/dvorak.map.gz .
gunzip dvorak.map.gz
cp dvorak.map dvorak-prof.map
vim dvorak-prof.map  # Here I changed stuff, e.g.flipping Control/Caps_Lock
gzip dvorak-prof.map
cp dvorak-prof.map.gz /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/dvorak/
I did everything as root as to make sure that the resulting files dvorak.map and dvorak.map.gz have the same reading/writing-permissions as the original dvorak.map and dvorak.map.gz.
For testing I typed during a X-session:
bash-3.2# setxkbmap dvorak-prof
Error loading new keyboard description
New interestingly, I get the same error when loading any one of the other Dvorak layouts, apart from dvorak:
bash-3.2# setxkbmap dvorak-l
Error loading new keyboard description
bash-3.2# setxkbmap dvorak-r
Error loading new keyboard description
bash-3.2# setxkbmap ANSI-dvorak
Error loading new keyboard description
bash-3.2# setxkbmap dvorak
bash-3.2#
The last command being successful.  So, the failure of loading my modified layout file is not necessarily due to a failure in parsing the modified dvorak-prof.map, though I don't know how to check this.
So my question is: What's wrong with dvorak-l, dvorak-r, ANSI-dvorak and dvorak-prof?
Thanks for your help!
Cheers,
Thomas
Last edited by friedrich (2009-05-20 15:04:27)

Answer 1

Hi Thomas,
i am a native german too and some time ago i found the dvorak thing and was very fascinated.
Especially when i saw the one for programmers. However, i spent one day fiddling around with
keyboard layouts, googling about it etc.
At least i took another Approach.
In the file
/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/de
you can find the layout for germand dvorak, i adopted everything
to fit my needs. But what was not possible in there was to make
the "b" key on my keyboard act as Backspace so i called for xmodmap
and created a .xmodmap file in my home folder.
And while i was playing i decided to remap the escape function to the
the caps lock key and vice versa.
So everything i wanted was possible with that approach.
I start it all with:
setxkbmap -model pc105 -layout de -variant dvorak
xmodmap ~/.xmodmap
Here is the relevant part of the symbols/de file:
// German Dvorak keymap by Thorsten Staerk (www.staerk.de/thorsten)
// Have acute and grave as dead keys, tilde and circumflex alive as they are needed
// in many programming languages.
// to use this keymap, use a 105-key-keyboard and the command setxkbmap -model pc105 -layout dvorak -variant de
// source: http://www-lehre.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/~rfreund/dvorak.php
partial alphanumeric_keys
xkb_symbols "dvorak" {
include "us(dvorak)"
name[Group1]="Germany - Dvorak";
key <TLDE> { [ dollar, asciitilde ] };
key <AE01> { [ ampersand, percent ] };
key <AE02> { [ bracketleft, 7, apostrophe ] };
key <AE03> { [ braceleft, 5, bar ] };
key <AE04> { [ braceright, 3, less ] };
key <AE05> { [ parenleft, 1, greater ] };
key <AE06> { [ equal, 9, quotedbl ] };
key <AE07> { [ asterisk, 0 ] };
key <AE08> { [ parenright, 2 ] };
key <AE09> { [ plus, 4 ] };
key <AE10> { [ bracketright, 6 ] };
key <AE11> { [ exclam, 8, exclamdown ] };
key <AE12> { [ numbersign, grave, dead_grave ] };
key <AD01> { [ udiaeresis, Udiaeresis, apostrophe ] };
key <AD02> { [ comma, semicolon, less ] };
key <AD03> { [ period, colon, greater ] };
key <AD04> { [ p, P, quotedbl ] } ;
key <AD05> { [ y, Y, bar ] } ;
key <AD08> { [ c, C, copyright, Cacute ] };
key <AD09> { [ t, T, trademark ] };
key <AD10> { [ z, Z, zabovedot, Zabovedot ] };
key <AD11> { [ question, ssharp ] };
key <AD12> { [ slash, backslash, dead_acute ] };
key <AC01> { [ a, A, at, aogonek ] };
key <AC02> { [ o, O, asciicircum, Oacute ] };
key <AC03> { [ e, E, EuroSign, eogonek ] };
key <AC04> { [ i, I ] };
key <AC05> { [ u, U ] };
key <AC06> { [ h, H ] };
key <AC07> { [ d, D ] };
key <AC08> { [ r, R, registered ] };
key <AC09> { [ n, N, nacute, Nacute ] };
key <AC10> { [ s, S, sacute, Sacute] };
key <AC11> { [ l, L, lstroke, Lstroke ] };
key <AB01> { [ odiaeresis, Odiaeresis ] };
key <AB02> { [ q, Q, at ] };
key <AB06> { [ x, X ] };
key <AB07> { [ b, B ] };
key <AB08> { [ m, M, mu ] };
key <AB09> { [ w, W ] };
key <AB10> { [ v, V ] };
key <BKSL> { [ minus, underscore, hyphen, diaeresis] };
key <LSGT> { [ adiaeresis, Adiaeresis, bar ] };
include "level3(ralt_switch)"
And here goes my .xmodmap:
keycode 56 = BackSpace
keycode 9 = Caps_Lock
keycode 66 = Escape
keycode 27 = p P p P quotedbl
keycode 28 = y Y y Y bar
keycode 31 = c C c C copyright Cacute
keycode 32 = t T t T trademark
keycode 38 = a A a A at
keycode 39 = o O o O asciicircum
keycode 40 = e E e E EuroSign
keycode 45 = r R r R registered
keycode 52 = odiaeresis Odiaeresis Home Home Home
keycode 53 = q Q q Q End End End
keycode 54 = j J j J Prior Prior
keycode 55 = k K k K Next Next
clear Lock
add Lock = Caps_Lock
Some things are redundant, but i was to lazy to delete them.
Maybe this helps you to achieve what you want.
And i think you may have to adapt some keys to the correct
keycode, depending on your keyboard.
You can find the correct keycode with 'xev'.