Ukelele 3.6b3

[John Brownie]

I’ve just uploaded a new beta of Ukelele. This includes the following changes:

• Reworked the system for representing keyboards in the XML files so that they are not in the old “flipped” coordinates, but have the origin at the bottom left.
  
• The name of an imported keyboard type now appears correctly in the status bar.
  
• Adjusted the position of the function keys in the PowerBook Subnotebook keyboards so that they don’t overlap.
  
• If you try to open a keyboard layout in one of the installed keyboard layout folders, Ukelele will attempt to to uninstall it and open it from the working folder (as specified in the Organiser). You will still need to install it manually after editing it.
  
• Made some improvements to the code supporting the Organiser, so that it correctly notices when files are moved without using the Organiser itself.
  
• Implemented a new “Fit window” scale for the Zoom button. This changes the scale so that the keyboard fits in the current window. To make things clearer, “Fit width” is now called “Fit screen”, making the window as wide as the current screen.
  

There may well be some rough edges, particularly opening already-installed keyboard layouts, as there are many possible scenarios, and I can’t test them all myself.

As usual, it is available via software update and at https://software.sil.org/ukelele/.

I’ve attached a revised version of Gé’s Packard Bell 9201 keyboard type which will work with this version.

John

[Gé van Gasteren]

Wow, thanks a lot!

And just done before the weekend starts :-)

Have a nice one!

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[Gé van Gasteren]

1. The “Fit Window” option works wonderfully, thanks a lot!

2. It seems Ukelele 3.6b3 swaps the vertical coordinates around when it imports a custom keyboard view’s .plist file (see attached screenshot).

The effect is that, to create one’s own custom keyboard view, one can’t just copy an existing definition from Ukelele’s .plist file and modify a few things here and there; one has to compensate for the swapping.

Generally, this can be done relatively simply by swapping two pairs of vertical coordinates: 2/162 and 42/122. Only the Return key needs special treatment, maybe also the Enter key on the numeric pad with its double height.

I did have some problems with the latter and also with the minus key there (keycode 78) but those may have been self-created, as my editing process was rather chaotic.

Anyway: After some tinkering, I now have a new version of my Packard Bell keyboard view that works with 3.6b3 – and proudly displays its name in the editing window! :-)

[John Brownie]

On 5 May 2025 at 12:46:27, Gé van Gasteren <gevang...@gmail.com> wrote:

1. The “Fit Window” option works wonderfully, thanks a lot!

I had never even considered this as a possibility until you mentioned that you wanted it, and it was an easy thing to add.

2. It seems Ukelele 3.6b3 swaps the vertical coordinates around when it imports a custom keyboard view’s .plist file (see attached screenshot).

That is due to the swap I made in 3.6b3. In earlier versions, all the keyboard types were based on the original KCAP resources used in the classic Mac system, which worked with the origin in the top left of the screen. At some point (maybe around Mac OX X 10.4 Tiger) these disappeared from the system, and I created my own versions of them as binary files which essentially kept the resource format. In recent times, I converted these to an XML-based format, but didn’t convert the coordinate system, so that one step in creating the on-screen keyboard was to flip each key within the bounding rectangle. Since that was causing me trouble, and to make it easier to create your own keyboard types, I switched all of these XML files to have the coordinate system based on the lower left as part of the changes for 3.6b3.

So the point is that I should have made it clearer that these changes affected the way a user creates a keyboard type. The file within the Ukelele bundle has the files in the right format, so they can be used as the basis of a new keyboard type.

Anyway, I’m glad that you got it working!

John

[Gé van Gasteren]

On Tue, May 6, 2025 at 9:02 AM 'John Brownie' via Ukelele Users <ukelel...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

That is due to the swap I made in 3.6b3.

 

Right, now I get it:

It’s straightforward to base custom keyboard types for Ukelele 3.6b3 on the definitions in the 3.6b3 keyboardtypes.plist, but not on those in the 3.6b2 keyboardtypes.plist.

I kind of remember having read that you had converted the built-in keyboard types, but obviously it hadn’t registered properly!