experimental mini-HOWTO for Linux (Unix) to setup international
keyboards.
This xmodmap and kimap solutions will work for you in setting up any
international keyboard for (Debian, RedHat, Mandrake, Corel Linux)
Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and possibly every Unix that uses
Xfree86 and KDE. The advantage of this package is that it is not
architecture specific and will work on SPARK, MIPS and all other
systems. I don't want to say that other packages are architecture
independent, but I don't like writing garbage in the bash_profile and
XF86Config or possibly somewhere else. This was written by Juraj Sipos
(c) on 4/22/2000, [1]
[email protected]
INTRODUCTION
Imagine you use Linux or a BSD OS and want to write a business letter
to a person that has a foreign name with a slash or idiaresis. Danish
language uses signs like � and Portuguese like �. With this
information you can make your own international keyboard layout
without installing any additional packages. The following information
will help you set up German, Spanish, Italian, Slovak, Czech, Polish,
Slovenian, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, French, Finnish, Norwegian,
Estonian, Latvian, Swedish and other keyboards without additional
installing of national packages and without writing garbage to
bash_profile and XF86Config files. You can also alternatively look at
my homage at [2]
http://www.home.sk/www/man/bsd1.htm
to see pictures of various keyboards. In case you want to install
Greek, Hebrew or Russian language, follow my information and apply
changes pertinent to these languages (e.g., to install Greek fonts,
etc.).
The biggest problem with kikbd or international keyboard under KDE in
X Windows is that it doesn't work in Xfree86 that easily (you have to
install some national packages and write garbage with complicated
syntax to the above-mentioned files). A user expects a simple way for
configuring his or her keyboard for international settings. A simple
way is to start KDE, change the international keyboard settings and
immediately write in the language we chose (this will work for German
and other languages, but in Eastern European keyboards some letters
don't function). According to the KDE documentation it should work,
but it doesn't. After exploring many KDE resources on the net, I
didn't find a solution (except for the one that forces you to install
some national package). I know that some locale settings should be
included in my bash_profile or csh logic scripts, but after applying
these settings I couldn't change (and install) keyboards in FreeBSD
and it appeared like going through a darker forest compared to the
information I already had regarding localization of KDE and X Windows
under Xfree86.
Here are some solutions for installing international keyboard
layouts. The following information will help you set up any European
keyboard layout. The solution works for Xfree86 in 3.1 RELEASE in
FreeBSD (.Xmodmap solution), Corel Linux, Debian Linux, RedHat and
FreeBSD 3.3 RELEASE and 4.0 RELEASE (KDE *.kimap solution). I tested
it on those systems. Note: .Xmodmap solution works well with other
windows managers. Some Unixes override .Xmodmap setting when used with
KDE. If .Xmodmap doesn't work, change must be made to the KDE kimap
files in .../kikbd directory.
If .Xmodmap solution doesn't work in KDE, copy skz.kimap (at the end
of this article) to /usr/local/share/apps/kikbd, which is your KDE
keyboard directory. The problem with KDE is that after installing
another keyboard, you have no chance to use it as KDE documentation
doesn't clearly state how to define your locale settings in a
bash_profile. After I installed Slovak keyboard in KDE, I couldn't
write in Slovak or Czech, so I made few changes to skz.kimap file,
which are explained later in this file. After applying these changes,
no other changes are necessary - you don't need to write any special
commands to your bash_profile or XF86Config. BUT WHEN YOU INSTALL
ANOTHER KEYBOARD in START/SETTINGS/INPUT DEVICES/INTERNATIONAL
KEYBOARDS from your KDE menu, CHECK AUTOSTART. Then everything will
work fine. The difference between skz.kimap and sky.kimap (and
csz.kimap and csy.kimap) is that y,Y and z,Z are swapped, so with
skz.kimap or csz.kimap you will have z,Z instead of y,Y, but with
sky.kimap or csy.kimap, y,Y doesn't change its position on the IBM
English keyboard layout.
How it all works:
a) Copy the "Compose" file from /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/iso8859-2
to:
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1 directory (yes, iso8859-1, not
iso8859-2). Back up
the original "Compose" file if you want (alternatively, copy other
iso885*** Compose
file to iso8859-1 directory).
b) Put the included .Xmodmap file to your root directory (Slovak
language, or make your own
.Xmodmap file) (or possibly put your own *.kimap file to the kikbd
directory if Xmodmap
will not work)
c) Install ISO8859-2 fonts (or other pertinent fonts).
d) Disable every "Scroll lock" uncommented line in your XF86Config,
because our .Xmodmap
uses scroll lock to switch between keyboards.
e) Put the appropriate fontpath for your newly installed fonts in your
XF86Config file, if
necessary.
The .Xmodmap solution may be applied to all X keyboards except
Hebrew, I suppose (I'm joking). The .Xmodmap file overrides all
settings of keyboard layouts as defined in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/, where are symbols for many
international keyboards. The .Xmodmap solution will give you an
enhanced Slovak typewriter keyboard layout.
First, I must say that in my solution, different mapping is used for
.Xmodmap file (and kimap file) for some ISO definitions. This means
that the ISO definitions will either give you what they say they are
(aacute [�], eacute [�], etc.), or they will not give you what they
say they are (putting "threequarters" in your .Xmodmap file will give
not give you "3/4" but "z" with a caron above it). For example, "mu"
will give lcaron, "oslash" rcaron, etc. (Obviously, in other case you
need to install some national packages to use "lcaron" definition
instead of "mu"). Normally, you can not put "lcaron" to the .Xmodmap
file, because it will not give you lcaron; you must write "mu"
instead, or "guillemotright" for tcaron. I also tried hexadecimal
numbers and they work. However, other key definitions, for example,
adieresis (a with two dots above it), uacute (u with slash above it),
as well as dead_diaeresis do not require a substitution of other
definitions and work pretty well as they're defined everywhere (dead
key is a key you press, you hold it and nothing happens, but after
pressing another key you will get a special letter). The original
"Compose" file in .../iso8859-1 directory can be fully utilized for
Slovak or Czech keyboard layouts (Polish, Hungarian, Slovenian,
Croatian), but there is only one problem with the Slovak or Czech
keyboard (and other languages too) layout - dead_caron doesn't work.
That's why you have to copy the "Compose" file from the iso8859-2
directory to iso8859-1 directory, or alternatively, you can edit the
"Compose" file in iso8859-1 directory and put all references about
"dead_caron" from iso8859-2/Compose to iso8859-1/Compose file.
You can leave the Keyboard section in your XF86Config without much
change. Put (if it's not already there) the following in the
"Keyboard" section:
Section "Keyboard"
Protocol "Standard"
XkbRules "xfree86"
XkbModel "pc101"
XkbLayout "us"
Some X Windows managers and/or environments override .Xmodmap
settings, so if you use KDE and .Xmodmap doesn't work, use kikbd
keymap instead of .Xmodmap. (A sample kikbd kimap for the Slovak
language is included at the bottom of this file). The
Slovak/Czech/English keyboard layout is switched to by scroll lock
with .Xmodmap. You may use languages only with the applications that
have access to your ISO-8859-2 (or other fonts) fonts (this may not
work with StarOffice or with other applications that have their own
built-in fonts). StarOffice has its own fonts directory - afm fonts in
../xp3/fontmetrics/afm, and ps fonts in ../xp3/pssoftfonts, so you
must add the ISO8859-2 fonts directory to these directories (to tell
StarOffice to use these fonts too) and edit fonts.dir file and add the
symlinked fonts there. I can easily use any language in StarOffice.
Important note: If you want to exchange documents between StarOffice
or WordPerfect and MS Word, you must include the information about
windows 1250 encoding to the file you write (win1250 is similar to
iso8859-2, but it's a little bit different). There's a solution: use a
converter from iso8859-2 to win1250 (you can find one at my home page
at [3]
http://www.home.sk/www/man/bsd1.htm).
If you want to edit and make your own .Xmodmap keyboard layout
definitions, I'll explain one line of the .Xmodmap file to make clear
what you should do. This explanation can be used for all keycodes.
For example, the line:
keycode 0x11 = 8 asterisk aacute 8
(note: keycode 0x11 is derived from xkeycaps utility)
says that the first pair, the default one, (number "8" and "asterisk")
will display number "8" when you press keycode 0x11 ("8"), will
display asterisk when a "shift" key is pressed. After pressing the
scroll lock, there's another definition: ISO_NEXT_GROUP, which means
that when you press the default "8" key, no "8" will be displayed, but
aacute ("�"), when you press the "shift" key, number "8" will be
displayed. So if you change "aacute" and "8", anything you put instead
of "aacute" and "8" will be displayed, for example:
keycode 0x11 = 8 asterisk semicolon colon
will give you "semicolon" and "colon" in your 0x11 keycode after
pressing the scroll lock. If you delete the ISO_NEXT_GROUP (the next
pair of definitions on the right), you will have only one group of
keyboard definitions ("8" and "asterisk"). Be careful when editing the
.Xmodmap file. You mustn't delete definitions that enable utilization
of the scroll lock unless you know what you are doing. These are the
lines such as:
keycode 0x4e = ISO_Next_Group
add mod5 = ISO_Next_Group
etc. You must also keep in mind that Unixes are case sensitive.
If you want to find out more about keycodes, install a package
"xkeycaps".
________________cut_here______________________________________________
____
! This is an `xmodmap' input file for PC 101 key #2 (FreeBSD/XFree86;
US)
! keyboards created by XKeyCaps, modified by Juraj Sipos on 8/17/1999.
! XKeyCaps 2.38 is Copyright (c) 1997 Jamie Zawinski
<
[email protected].
!
http://people.netscape.com/jwz/xkeycaps/ This is an .Xmodmap
solution for
! Slovak keyboard. You must have ISO-8859-2 fonts installed with a
! pointer in /etc/XF86Config
! NOTE: "!" is a comment. Some information follows but I deleted
! it as it is commented and not important.
! If you want to know what I deleted, start xkeycaps utility and
generate your
! own Xmodmap file.
! The "0 Ins" key generates KP_Insert and KP_0
! The ". Del" key generates KP_Delete and KP_Decimal
!#define XK_dead_semivoiced_sound 0xFE5F
!dead_iota, dead_voiced_sound, dead_belowdot, dead_tilde, dead_macron
keycode 0x09 = Escape
keycode 0x43 = F1 F11 F1 Multi_key
keycode 0x44 = F2 F12 F2 F12
keycode 0x45 = F3 F13 F3 F13 idiaeresis
keycode 0x46 = F4 F14 F4 F14 mu yen
keycode 0x47 = F5 F15 F5 F15 guillemotright guillemotleft
keycode 0x48 = F6 F16 F6 F16 ograve
keycode 0x49 = F7 F17 F7 dead_abovedot oacute
keycode 0x4A = F8 F18 F8 dead_breve acute
keycode 0x4B = F9 F19 F9 dead_cedilla ugrave
keycode 0x4C = F10 F20 F10 dead_ogonek
keycode 0x5F = F11 F21 dead_acute dead_caron
keycode 0x60 = F12 F22 dead_abovering dead_diaeresis
!keycode 0x6F = Print Execute dead_doubleacute dead_circumflex
keycode 0x6F = Print Execute dead_iota
keycode 0x4E = ISO_Next_Group
keycode 0x6E = Pause
keycode 0x31 = grave asciitilde semicolon dead_diaeresis
keycode 0x0A = 1 exclam plus 1
keycode 0x0B = 2 at mu 2
keycode 0x0C = 3 numbersign onesuperior 3
keycode 0x0D = 4 dollar egrave 4
keycode 0x0E = 5 percent 0x0bb 5
keycode 0x0F = 6 asciicircum threequarters 6
keycode 0x10 = 7 ampersand yacute 7
keycode 0x11 = 8 asterisk aacute 8
keycode 0x12 = 9 parenleft iacute 9
keycode 0x13 = 0 parenright eacute 0
keycode 0x14 = minus underscore equal percent
keycode 0x15 = equal plus dead_acute dead_caron
keycode 0x33 = backslash bar ograve parenright
keycode 0x16 = BackSpace
keycode 0x6A = Insert
keycode 0x61 = Home
keycode 0x63 = Prior
keycode 0x4D = Num_Lock Pointer_EnableKeys
keycode 0x70 = KP_Divide slash
keycode 0x3F = KP_Multiply asterisk
keycode 0x52 = KP_Subtract minus
keycode 0x17 = Tab ISO_Left_Tab
keycode 0x18 = q Q
keycode 0x19 = w W
keycode 0x1A = e E
keycode 0x1B = r R
keycode 0x1C = t T
keycode 0x1D = y Y z Z
keycode 0x1E = u U
keycode 0x1F = i I
keycode 0x20 = o O
keycode 0x21 = p P
keycode 0x22 = bracketleft braceleft acute slash
keycode 0x23 = bracketright braceright diaeresis parenleft
keycode 0x24 = Return
keycode 0x6B = Delete
keycode 0x67 = End
keycode 0x69 = Next
keycode 0x4F = KP_Home 7 KP_Home
keycode 0x50 = KP_Up 8
keycode 0x51 = KP_Prior 9
keycode 0x56 = KP_Add plus
keycode 0x42 = Caps_Lock
keycode 0x26 = a A
keycode 0x27 = s S
keycode 0x28 = d D
keycode 0x29 = f F
keycode 0x2A = g G
keycode 0x2B = h H
keycode 0x2C = j J
keycode 0x2D = k K
keycode 0x2E = l L
keycode 0x2F = semicolon colon ocircumflex quotedbl
keycode 0x30 = apostrophe quotedbl section exclam
keycode 0x53 = KP_Left 4
keycode 0x54 = KP_Begin 5
keycode 0x55 = KP_Right 6
keycode 0x32 = Shift_L ISO_Next_Group
keycode 0x34 = z Z y Y
keycode 0x35 = x X
keycode 0x36 = c C
keycode 0x37 = v V
keycode 0x38 = b B
keycode 0x39 = n N
keycode 0x3A = m M
keycode 0x3B = comma less comma question
keycode 0x3C = period greater period colon
keycode 0x3D = slash question minus underscore
keycode 0x3E = Shift_R
keycode 0x62 = Up
keycode 0x57 = KP_End 1
keycode 0x58 = KP_Down 2
keycode 0x59 = KP_Next 3
keycode 0x6C = KP_Enter Return
keycode 0x25 = Control_L ISO_Next_Group
!keycode 0x40 = Alt_L Meta_L
keycode 0x40 = Meta_L Alt_L
keycode 0x41 = space
keycode 0x71 = Alt_R Meta_R
keycode 0x6D = Control_R
keycode 0x64 = Left
keycode 0x68 = Down
keycode 0x66 = Right
keycode 0x5A = KP_Insert 0
keycode 0x5B = KP_Delete period
!keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
!keysym F12 = Multi_key
clear Shift
!clear Lock
clear Control
clear Mod1
clear Mod2
clear Mod3
clear Mod4
clear Mod5
add Shift = Shift_L Shift_R
add Control = Control_L Control_R
!add Mod1 = Alt_L Alt_R
add Mod1 = Meta_L Alt_R
add Mod2 = Num_Lock
add Mod5 = ISO_Next_Group
!add Mod1 =
!add Mod2 = Alt_R Alt_L Mode_switch
keycode 0x73 = ISO_Next_Group
keycode 0x74 = dead_acute dead_diaeresis
keycode 0x75 = dead_caron dead_abovering
_____________cut_here_________________________________________________
_________
# KDE skz.kimap Config File, modified by Juraj Sipos
# name this file as skz.kimap and copy it to KDE .../kikbd directory
[International Keyboard]
Label=Skz
Locale=sk
# *** here was some info I deleted.
[KeyboardMap]
CapsSymbols=q,w,e,r,t,y,u,i,o,p,a,s,d,f,g,h,j,k,l,z,x,c,v,b,n,m
keysym0=1,plus,1,exclam,,
keysym1=2,mu,2,at,,
keysym2=3,onesuperior,3,numbersign,,
keysym3=4,egrave,4,dollar,,
keysym4=5,0x0bb,5,percent,,
keysym5=6,threequarters,6,asciicircum,,
keysym6=7,yacute,7,ampersand,,
keysym7=8,aacute,8,asterisk,,
keysym8=9,iacute,9,parenleft,,
keysym9=0,eacute,0,parenright,,
keysym10=minus,equal,percent,minus,underscore,
keysym11=grave,dead_diaeresis,dead_circumflex,grave,asciitilde,
keysym12=equal,dead_acute,dead_caron,equal,plus,
keysym13=bracketleft,uacute,slash,bracketleft,braceleft,
keysym14=bracketright,adiaeresis,parenleft,bracketright,braceright,
keysym15=semicolon,ocircumflex,quotedbl,semicolon,colon,
keysym21=y,z,Z,,,
keysym22=z,y,Y,,,
# I changed some keysyms above (as "mu" instead of "lcaron") and added
the following lines
keycode43=51,ograve,parenright,backslash,bar,
keycode40=48,section,exclam,apostrophe,quotedbl,
keycode51=59,comma,question,less,comma,
keycode52=60,period,colon,period,greater,
keycode53=61,minus,underscore,slash,question,
____cut_here__________________________________________________________
_________________
(The numbers of keycodes are derived from the "xkeycaps" utility)
The purpose of the following info is to help you build any .Xmodmap
keyboard layout with iso8859-2 or other character sets. If you're
going to use other languages than the Central European ones, find a
pertinent table for your ISO*** character set on Internet. The
gdkkeysyms.h file is in (RedHat) /usr/include/gdk/gdkkeysyms.h and it
contains all the special names we're using here (it also contains
names of Greek characters).
UNIX
ISO-8859-2 (ISO Latin2) character set
octal hex (you can use it for other languages too)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
First, try to see if definitions will give you (after installing
pertinent fonts and keyboard in X) what they say they are. If they
will not give you what they say they are (some keycodes will be
unfunctional), then you must make a substitution. Definitions which
will not give you what they say they are can be traced by their visual
shape in Western Latin 1 encoding. For example, if you load a Slovak
website, do not use ISO8859-2 character set encoding for viewing, but
Western ISO8859-1 encoding for viewing. Thus you will see bad fonts
with letters like � and so on. You will see what you must substitute.
But if you don't know what "�" is called in ISO terminology, find and
download an appropriate character set table for ISO-8859-1. It must be
somewhere on the net. The symbols on your right (for example, mu
[micro], which is �, will give you lcaron instead of �) will give you
what's on their left. NOTE: vowel *acute signs require no
substitution, therefore I omitted iacute (�), aacute (�), etc.
0243 0xa3 /Lslash � (Explanation: writing the name of � ["pound"
in our case]
to Xmodmap or kimap file will give you Lslash.
But Lslash can be
obtained by a dead_caron - you press a
dead_caron and L). The sign
on the right, if put in Xmodmap or kimap
files, will
print you the character which is on its left
0245 0xa5 /Lcaron � Thus, writing "yen" to kimap or Xmodmap file
will give us Lcaron
0251 0xa9 /Scaron � copyright (will give us Scaron)
0253 0xab /Tcaron � guillemotleft (will give us Tcaron)
0256 0xae /Zcaron � registered
0265 0xb5 /lcaron � mu
0271 0xb9 /scaron � onesuperior
0273 0xbb /tcaron � guillemotright
0276 0xbe /zcaron � threequarters
0306 0xc6 /Cacute � find out yourself
0312 0xca /Eogonek � find out yourself
0313 0xcb /Edieresis � Edieresis
0314 0xcc /Ecaron � find out yourself
0317 0xcf /Dcaron � find out yourself
0321 0xd1 /Nacute � Ograve
0322 0xd2 /Ncaron � find out yourself
0324 0xd4 /Ocircumflex � Ocircumflex
0325 0xd5 /Ohungarumlaut � find out yourself
0330 0xd8 /Rcaron � find out yourself
0331 0xd9 /Uring � find out yourself
0333 0xdb /Uhungarumlaut �
0336 0xde /Tcedilla �
0343 0xe3 /abreve �
0345 0xe5 /lacute �
0346 0xe6 /cacute �
0350 0xe8 /ccaron � egrave
0352 0xea /eogonek �
0354 0xec /ecaron �
0357 0xef /dcaron �
0361 0xf1 /nacute � ntilde
0362 0xf2 /ncaron �
0365 0xf5 /ohungarumlaut �
0370 0xf8 /rcaron �
0371 0xf9 /uring �
0373 0xfb /uhungarumlaut �
0376 0xfe /tcedilla �
0377 0xff /dotaccent �
You may experiment to find out which definitions will give you which
characters, it shouldn't be difficult. This is just a hint on how to
start. I didn't go on to investigate further definitions because I
have my Slovak and Czech keyboards and I'm not, for now, interested to
use other keyboards. Look at my homage and build your own keyboard.
Enjoy.
Juraj Sips
References
1. mailto:
[email protected]
2.
http://www.home.sk/www/man/bsd1.htm
3.
http://www.home.sk/www/man/bsd1.htm
