copy-paste keys across layouts

[hobbes]

Hello,

I am trying to create a slightly modified Colemak, adding the dead keys of the english international keyboard, for easier french and german typing. Is there a way to copy-paste keys across layouts?

I am starting with the english-international keyboard layout and trying to cut-paste keys around to have a colemak at the end. But I need to overwrite one key at least. I want to copy-paste it from the unmodified english-international layout, but it doesn't work so far.

Cheers,

Cyprien

[Sorin Paliga]

Copy-paste works OK in UKELELE, but—as far as I understand correctly—you want to copy-paste the dead key, which I do not think it works in the way you seem to describe. Or you do not expose your case clearly. Or I do not understand what you mean.

If you want to import the dead keys from another keylayout, you have this specific function. 

On 25 Jan 2016, at 14:36, hobbes <cyprien...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[hobbes]

Hey Cattus,

I am trying to move around keys starting from the english international keyboard.

Now, to move around keys, I need at least one key “free”, thus I have to overwrite at least one (then I can move around keys until they all have the right position).

At the end, I would like to simply copy-paste this key from another layout, to be quicker (and because I am new at Ukele and will probably do something wrong while trying to recreate a key... there is so many modifier keys...). You see what I mean? Or maybe I am making my life too complicated and there is a much easier way to do it.

[Sorin Paliga]

Hi

If you are new, perhaps it would be best to read the documentation.

And/or open an existing keylayout and change it.

Perhaps I/we may understand better if you choose a case study: what existing keylayout you wish to change, and what precisely you wish to add, so it may become what you plan.

[Geke]

Hi Cyprien,

As a beginner, it’s best to start with a keyboard with the same or almost the same internal structure as what you want.
Then you can open your project layout along with one or two other keyboard layouts, and copy characters from those into your layout:

Double-click on a key (without or with modifier keys as needed) to show the assigned character in a text field.
It’s already highlighted, so you can do a Copy (Command-C) right away.
Then open the target key (again, with or without modifier key as needed) and paste/replace what is there now.

If you need an intermediate place to keep characters, you can open a TextEdit window and paste them in there for later use.

But first let’s clear up the situation:
What is the exact name of that "English international" keyboard layout you write about? The standard US or UK keyboard layouts all have good dead-key states for typing German and French accents and special letters.

[Tom]

On Monday, January 25, 2016 at 6:06:33 AM UTC-7, hobbes wrote:

I am trying to move around keys starting from the english international keyboard.

Do you mean the layout which is called "US International PC"? 

[hobbes]

I mean the “U.S. International - PC” layout, sorry.

I just want to know, when I have two layouts window open, open do I copy a key from one layout to another layout, that's it, nothing more. But I am getting a sense that it is not possible, it's only possible within a layout.

Anyway, thanks a lot.

[Sorin Paliga]

You can copy, of course, but you can copy after opening the char by a double click on it, and then go the small text window, which usually contains one char.

On 25 Jan 2016, at 18:40, hobbes <cyprien...@gmail.com> wrote:

I mean the “U.S. International - PC” layout, sorry.

I just want to know, when I have two layouts window open, open do I copy a key from one layout to another layout, that's it, nothing more. But I am getting a sense that it is not possible, it's only possible within a layout.

Anyway, thanks a lot.

[hobbes]

I meant copying the whole key like in “copy key” and “paste key”. But across layouts.

[Sorin Paliga]

That is exactly what I showed in the screenshot, how to copy-paste a key from one keylayout to another. 

On 25 Jan 2016, at 21:06, hobbes <cyprien...@gmail.com> wrote:

I meant copying the whole key like in “copy key” and “paste key”. But across layouts.

[hobbes]

Hello Cattus,

thanks for investing the time and trying to help me. I am probably not explaining clearly what I want to do. When you right click a key, there's the possibility to “copy key” in the contextual menu. This copies the whole physical key, including any output in combination with modifier keys.

I would like to then paste the key in another layout. Try it, it doesn't work: right click on a key, select “copy key”, then go to another layout window, right click on a key, they choose “paste key”.

As far as I understood your screenshot, you are copying the character, the output of the key, not the whole key (including output with the different modifier keys).

You see what I am trying to do?

[Sorin Paliga]

Now yes, but if this does not work, then you must choose what works. This function works within the same keylayout, and it is logical to be so, as different keylayouts may have different distribution of modifier keys. Nevertheless, copy-paste works in the way I showed. and the dead keys may be imported, if this is relevant. 

This may be an idea for John to implement, if possible. But, as said, copy-paste works across different keylayouts, but not in the way you wish.

[Geke]

Hi Cyprien,

You may have good reasons to base your layout on "U.S. International - PC", but it wouldn’t be my first choice.

Of course, I don’t know for what kind of users you are creating this custom keyboard, but if it’s for Mac users, I would suggest taking what’s most common for them, probably U.S. or ABC, or ABC extended maybe.

Op maandag 25 januari 2016 17:40:58 UTC+1 schreef hobbes:

[hobbes]

Hello Geke,

the keyboard is for me. I type 40% english, 40% german and 20% french (estimate). Thus I am looking for a keyboard where I can type é, à, ä, ö, ü with dead keys as much as possible.

I did this so far, which is far from perfect, since I still need shift for anything with a diaeresis (such as ä, ö, ü, ë), but it's better than standard Colemak for my use and it doesn't deviate too much. I am a little afraid of using a fully customised keyboard for my needs on one side and on the other I have no idea how I should go at it. French professional typists prefer Bépo, german ones Neo, but I think my category is far too small to get an official keyboard.

Also, I want to still be able to use other computers, thus I am a bit scared of using a heavily customised layout (is it going to make me totally handicapped on qwerty keyboards then?). Less than 5% of my typing happens on another computer, and I type exclusively english when I use a computer which is not mine, this is 99% of the time for work and Colemak seems to have a quite widespread adoption, in comparison to Bépo and Neo.

I would be very happy to hear your thoughts on this, as I haven't started yet anything serious and can still change my strategy. Most of all if any of you has experience in switching keyboard layouts on a regular basis (I intend to avoid this, but I'd be interested to know if it is rare, or even impossible, to the contrary of switching between spoken languages for example).

[hobbes]

Forgot to attache screenshots of course.

[Gé van Gasteren]

Hi Cyprien,

I used to switch a lot between English and German layouts, I mean the standard QWERTY and QWERTZ ones, and it wasn’t a big problem, even for punctuation. Somehow, the hands can switch mode along with the head. But it took some time, of course, and the less-used keys like + @ etc. took much longer to learn.

You know that you can switch between layouts with a keystroke combination, don’t you? It’s not very comfortably set up on the Mac, as one has to remove or change the shortcut for Sherlock first, but after that’s done, it works nicely.

Still, recently I got tired of switching keyboard layouts—or maybe rather of always having to check which keyboard is active before starting to type. So I built in a dead-key sequence for the German letters into a QWERTY layout, using the extra key (§) on ISO keyboards followed by ' ; [ to get ä ö ü. Note that ' ; [ are the keys where those letters are on the QWERTZ layout—this way I don’t forget their places, which is useful for when I’m typing on other computers.

But let’s talk about your keyboard layout:

For your situation, I think US International is indeed a good layout to start with.
(I don't like having to type quote+space for every quote and apostrophe, but I guess one gets used to that, too.)
For French, I think it’s a good solution as is, but for German you really need something easier. And as you don’t type German on other computers, you’re basically free to put the special characters anywhere. One idea is to assign ä ö ü to the [ ] \ keys and Ä Ö Ü to the matching { } | keys.

Then you have to think where to put  [ ] \ { } | of course. If you don't use typographic quotes, you could have [ ] etc. on the same keys as before but move them to the levels with Option. For example [ would then be Option-[ and { would be Shift-Option-[
If you do use typographic quotes and want to keep them where they are, you could move [ ] \ { } | to the CapsLock level. For example [ would then be CapsLock down + [ and { would be CapsLock down + Shift-[

The ß is on Option-s, which you may want to move to Option-d to fit in with Colemak.

It all depends on you, thanks to Ukelele :)

[John Brownie]

A quick message before I go out of internet coverage for a month.

Cut and paste of keys is within a document. It could possibly be
extended, but you would need to have the same modifier combinations and
any dead key states referenced by the key you want to paste, so checking
is non-trivial.

One way to handle the issue would be to copy a key to a code that isn't
used, such as 200 (anything over 127 and below 512 should work), then do
that in the end. Of course, it's often possible to do what you want with
a succession of key swaps, but working out the sequence can be tricky.

John
--
John Brownie, john_b...@sil.org or j.br...@sil.org.pg
Summer Institute of Linguistics, Ukarumpa, Eastern Highlands Province,
Papua New Guinea
Mussau-Emira language, Mussau Island, New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea

[Geke]

Cyprien: what John writes is about parking a key (or keys) to an unused code within the same keyboard layout file, so that you can free up some working space. Later, after some shuffling around of other keys, you can go that code, Copy (maybe better: Cut) that key again and paste it into the real place where it should be.
To go to an unused & unshown code, choose the option Select Key By Code... from the Keyboard menu. There’s no visual feedback, so it’s good to keep track of what you’re doing on a notepad or something.

John: The command currently reads "Copy Cey" but that can wait :o)
Not a bad idea, to be offline for some time...

[Geke]

Correction: you can get feedback while working with codes not shown on the keyboard using the menu option Keyboard / Edit Key...
This is good stuff, John; I’m learning!

[hobbes]

Hello,

thanks a lot for all the feedback. I created my “colemak international” keyboard without the code trick of John, but thanks a lot anyway. For the next one reading this thread:

• select/highlight key with cursor by clicking on it
  
• select menu “Keyboard > Swap Keys By Code...”. The left field will be prepopulated with the key code of the currently selected key.
  
• choose something between 127 and 512, such as 200, remember it, and enter it in the field on the right. Let say that was the key with the “a”. Now this key is empty on your layout.
  
• when finished with swapping keys around, there will be one empty key left: highlight it, select “Swap Keys by Code...”, and input 200 (or whatever you chose earlier) in the field on the right. 
• Now the empty key should have “a” in it (or whatever it was that you moved out originally)

Next step for me: creating a rulemak to learn russian =)

Cheers,

Cyprien

[Gé van Gasteren]

Congratulations!

For Russian, maybe it’s better to stick to the standard layout?
(On the Mac, I use the variant called "Russian - PC".)
The keys seem to be layed out for quick typing, at least more so than QWERTY for English.
Also, I don’t think any "Rulemak"-like layouts are commonly available on other computers.
 
Another layout already available on the Mac, "Russian Phonetic", is a poor conversion for people used to the QWERTY layout, so I don’t think you’d like it.

I say "poor conversion", because it mixes up similarity of sound and similarity of letter shape, and of course there’s many more Cyrillic letters than Latin ones.

One more point: when one uses both the QWERTY and the Russian Phonetic layout, a common problem is that one starts to type in the wrong layout without noticing it, as common letters like the Cyrillic а look exactly like their Latin counterparts. When using QWERTY and the standard Russian layout, this can happen only when you start typing with c / с.

So if you would make a Colemak-like version for Russian, you’d have the same problem.

Just my 2¢…

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