xkb-layouts

Linux XKB files for custom ANSI and Colemak-DH ANSI layouts

Installation

Wayland

As far as I know, when using Wayland one can just copy rules and symbols into the ~/.config/xkb/ directory and it should work

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/xkb
$
$ cd xkb-layouts/
$ cp -r rules symbols  ~/.config/xkb/
$
$ tree ~/.config/xkb/

/home/user/.config/xkb/
├── rules
│   ├── evdev
│   └── evdev.xml
└── symbols
    ├── colemak_dh_ansi
    ├── custom_ansi
    ├── custom_colemak_dh_ansi
    ├── custom_rearrange
    └── custom_symbols

2 directories, 7 files

Then log out and log in for keyboard layouts to be reloaded and choose a layout from your system's "Keyboard Settings > Layouts"

X11

Copying files into ~/.config/xkb/ doesn't seem to work properly in X11, so we need to directly edit files from /usr/share/X11/xkb/ for changes to take place

NOTE: It requires sudo to edit files from /usr/share/X11/xkb/ and your changes can occasionally be overwritten by system updates

So copy symbols into /usr/share/X11/xkb/

$ cd xkb-layouts/
$ sudo cp -r symbols  /usr/share/X11/xkb/

Then we need to manually edit rules/evdev.lst and rules/evdev.xml from /usr/share/X11/xkb/ to add our custom layouts

# xed, vim or any other text editor
$ sudo xed /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.lst

Find the ! layout section in the file and add the following

  colemak_dh_ansi        Colemak-DH ANSI
  custom_ansi            (Custom) ANSI
  custom_colemak_dh_ansi (Custom) Colemak-DH ANSI

$ sudo xed /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.xml

Find the <layoutList> section in the file and add the following

    <layout>
      <configItem>
        <name>colemak_dh_ansi</name>
        <shortDescription>CMK</shortDescription>
        <description>Colemak-DH ANSI</description>
      </configItem>
    </layout>
    <layout>
      <configItem>
        <name>custom_ansi</name>
        <shortDescription>XA</shortDescription>
        <description>(Custom) ANSI</description>
      </configItem>
    </layout>
    <layout>
      <configItem>
        <name>custom_colemak_dh_ansi</name>
        <shortDescription>XCA</shortDescription>
        <description>(Custom) Colemak-DH ANSI</description>
      </configItem>
    </layout>

Then log out and log in for keyboard layouts to be reloaded and choose a layout from your system's "Keyboard Settings > Layouts"

Important Notes

In case you have added more than one keyboard layout in "Keyboard Settings > Layouts", your system can automatically enable the "Switching to another layout" shortcut in "Keyboard Settings > Layouts > Options"

That can cause your CapsLock not to function as Ctrl as defined by symbols/custom_rearrange. To fix that, disable or change the "Switching to another layout" shortcut

Also, the order you list your keyboard layouts preference affects the way symbols are combined into groups, so keep your custom layouts at the top

Mapping navigation keys on alphanumeric keys

I had previously mapped navigation keys on some alphanumeric keys using AltGr. However, that requires a custom version of /usr/share/X11/xkb/types/iso9995 for it to preserve Shift, so we can select text while holding Shift, and also takes space that could be used by international symbols

So I've removed that mapping and I'd recommend you to map navigation keys using your keyboard's Fn which is usually possible through a customization software developed by the manufacturer or open-source alternatives like QMK

Symbols for "(Custom) ANSI"

See symbols/custom_ansi

Symbols for "(Custom) Colemak-DH ANSI"

See symbols/custom_colemak_dh_ansi

Some useful commands

To see the resulting keyboard layout run xkbcomp -xkb $DISPLAY - and to print info about a specific layout run setxkbmap -layout layout-name-here -print

References

• https://who-t.blogspot.com/2020/02/user-specific-xkb-configuration-part-1.html
• https://who-t.blogspot.com/2020/07/user-specific-xkb-configuration-part-2.html
• https://who-t.blogspot.com/2020/08/user-specific-xkb-configuration-part-3.html
• https://who-t.blogspot.com/2020/09/user-specific-xkb-configuration-putting.html
• https://github.com/frgomes/hyena
• https://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/