Moving a dead key

[George R.Ckrhushchev]

Hello everyone,

new to Ukelele and modifying an existing layout of an indian language. There is one key in f that makes a dot on top of the previous letter. Double tapping it after particular letters, it creates different unicode characters.

I moved that key to different location. It works for all letters. But double clicking after those particular letters doesn't create the required unicode charactes.

But it works with the old locations.

So my understanding is those dead key setup only work with the old key, but not transferred when I move it. 

How do I solve it?

Other question is where do I find the information about the dead keys and other combination keys? There are combination keys that work well, like certain 2 keys when pressed consecutively create completely different output. 

 but I have no clue as to how can I understand and modify them? 

Thanks.

( I DID read the f manual, but topic of dead key is bit of new to comprehend)

[Gé van Gasteren]

Hi George,

Let’s see if I can help you.

The PDF manual, available via Ukelele’s Help menu, includes a thorough introduction & discussion of dead keys, but I agree that at first, it can be a difficult concept to grasp.

Especially if you are typing in Indic fonts, where much more is going on than just the keyboard layout:

As you probably know, the f key on keyboard layouts for Indian languages produces a halant/virama, a character indicating removal of the previous character’s inherent vowel.

Depending on the used font and the previous character, typing the halant often triggers a substitution: the original character + the halant are replaced by a "vowel-less half character." 

It’s crucial to realize that this is not a function of the keyboard layout! 

Inside the font, there are instructions for macOS (or: the active application) how to substitute characters based on context. 

In practice, this means that you cannot change that behavior – except that you can insert a "non-joiner" between the two characters, effectively preventing them from being substituted.

When you type the f twice on your keyboard, or at least on the original you based it on, you probably insert that non-joiner character.

I say "probably" because it depends on the active keyboard layout.

Therefore, to be able for us to better understand your situation, please:

• ZIP your custom keyboard layout .bundle and attach it to a post here. 

Also please specify the Apple keyboard layout you based it on, in case that is not obvious from your layout.

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[Tom]

Are you talking about a Tamil keyboard based on Apple's Tamil 99?  Dead keyes are really not involved in this kind of layout.  Can you give a specific example of what is supposed to be produced by typing two F's (viramas) in succession?

[Gé van Gasteren]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2026 at 2:45 PM Tom <thge...@gmail.com> wrote:

Are you talking about a Tamil keyboard based on Apple's Tamil 99?  Dead keyes are really not involved in this kind of layout.  Can you give a specific example of what is supposed to be produced by typing two F's (viramas) in succession?

 

Tom, I’m unfamiliar with Indic scripts, so I didn’t recognize the OP’s depiction.

But after your question I thought to ask ChatGPT, which suggested that the description fits to the Malayalam – Inscript keyboard layout.

[Tom]

Malayalam virama makes a little "u" on top of the previous letter, like ക് , with the D key.  Tamil makes a dot with the F key, like க் 

[Kamal Mansour]

The virama (vowel suppressor) is not represented as a dead key on such keyboards. It is simply a non-spacing character that is combined/composed with the preceding consonantal letter according to font-embedded logic.

Kamal

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[Gé van Gasteren]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2026 at 6:00 PM 'Kamal Mansour' via Ukelele Users <ukelel...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

The virama (vowel suppressor) is not represented as a dead key on such keyboards. It is simply a non-spacing character that is combined/composed with the preceding consonantal letter according to font-embedded logic.

Kamal

 

Yes, I tried to explain to George that his problem isn’t necessarily related to the dead-key feature. 

I’m now curious to see what he will answer.

[Gé van Gasteren]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2026 at 4:43 PM Tom <thge...@gmail.com> wrote:

Malayalam virama makes a little "u" on top of the previous letter, like ക് , with the D key.  Tamil makes a dot with the F key, like க் 

Duh! 

You’re right, of course, and on second view, ChatGPT’s answer wasn’t even consistent with itself.

Now I’m really curious to see which keyboard layout George is working on!

Because his description made me think of the zero-width non-joiner in Devanagari (typing the f twice produces halant + ZWNJ) but on the Tamil 99 keyboard layout, I don’t find it.

From some experimenting, I get the impression that Tamil script doesn’t build ligatures/conjuncts – which would explain the ZWNJ’s absence.

[Tom]

I think you are probably right Gé.  Even though George is wrong about how the virama looks (its not a dot but a u shape), the double tap system he describes is what Apple Malayalam inscript uses to generate the "Chillus" versions of certain consonants, like ൻ   instead of ന്   .  It is done through a dead key system (there are 7 in the layout) instead of via font features.  So if he is talking about Malayalam, he will have to look at the details of the dead keys setup with Ukelele to see why moving the "F" key does not produce the desired result.

On Monday, April 13, 2026 at 6:23:17 AM UTC-7 Gé van Gasteren wrote:

[Gé van Gasteren]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2026 at 8:40 PM Tom <thge...@gmail.com> wrote:

I think you are probably right Gé.  Even though George is wrong about how the virama looks (its not a dot but a u shape), the double tap system he describes is what Apple Malayalam inscript uses to generate the "Chillus" versions of certain consonants, like ൻ   instead of ന്   .  It is done through a dead key system (there are 7 in the layout) instead of via font features.  So if he is talking about Malayalam, he will have to look at the details of the dead keys setup with Ukelele to see why moving the "F" key does not produce the desired result.

Thanks for that.

I still can’t quite wrap my head around what is happening when typing with Malayalam Inscript, script-wise, but yes, I see that there are 4 two-level dead keys (or maybe three-level), all with the "D key" as the second and third key.

Although it’s not very complicated in itself, it clearly won’t make things easier for George.

Just some notes for myself, written while probing the internal workings in Ukelele:

To "move the D key" one has to move the first-level ് four times, once for each of the four dead keys at the base level: ന ല ര ക. 

Additionally, one has to move the four second-level dead keys assigned to the D key ( ന് ല് ര് ക് ) – I think.

Even if George really means the F key, that was a limited but interesting peep into the Malayalam script’s workings!