Dvorak Keymap

I’m new here, and I wasn’t sure how to go about getting this included in the SVN repository. So, here it is.

Unlike most people, I run a dvorak layout as my keyboard. Much to my dismay, when I loaded Haiku the first time, I was forced to dig out a qwerty keyboard from my drawer of long-unused parts. I looked around, and couldn’t find any way to switch to a dvorak layout. /etc/Keymaps/ had no such listing. So, I created one, and here it is.

It’s effectively just the American 101 layout with the main keyboard section switched around.

http://mrrc00.com/Haiku/Dvorak.keymap

mrrc00 wrote:
I'm new here, and I wasn't sure how to go about getting this included in the SVN repository. So, here it is.

Unlike most people, I run a dvorak layout as my keyboard. Much to my dismay, when I loaded Haiku the first time, I was forced to dig out a qwerty keyboard from my drawer of long-unused parts. I looked around, and couldn’t find any way to switch to a dvorak layout. /etc/Keymaps/ had no such listing. So, I created one, and here it is.

It’s effectively just the American 101 layout with the main keyboard section switched around.

http://mrrc00.com/Haiku/Dvorak.keymap

Cool…someone just asked about that the other day here in the forums:

http://www.haiku-os.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=6027#6027

In any case, I’ll check on #haiku and see if anyone has time to commit it, otherwise you can send it to the mailing list

umccullough wrote:
I'll check on #haiku and see if anyone has time to commit it, otherwise you can send it to the mailing list
I just commit it to Haiku SVN.

I’m not familiar with Dvorak layout. Is it an internationnal keyboard layout or does it needs to be adapted for each country specific layouts? Should I rename your to "Dvorak(US).keymap" to reflect this?
I find weird that this Dvorak.keymap file was so different from the swedish Svorak one (http://svn.berlios.de/viewcvs/haiku/haiku/trunk/src/data/etc/keymaps/Svorak.keymap)…

mrrc00, could you check it?

phoudoin wrote:
I just commit it to Haiku SVN.

I’m not familiar with Dvorak layout. Is it an internationnal keyboard layout or does it needs to be adapted for each country specific layouts? Should I rename your to "Dvorak(US).keymap" to reflect this?
I find weird that this Dvorak.keymap file was so different from the swedish Svorak one (http://svn.berlios.de/viewcvs/haiku/haiku/trunk/src/data/etc/keymaps/Svorak.keymap)…

mrrc00, could you check it?

I just had a look (was playing with it before the commit) — it is US only, various other languages adapt the layout slightly, or change the shifted (£/# etc) keys.

It does need a bit more work; if anyone is willing to use the images from here to add the shifted/afted keys, if not i’ll do that… ( Alternate Keyboards for Windows )

I’m glad to see somebody got around to making a Dvorak keymap for Haiku. Every time I was testing Haiku, I would just get Dvorak-jas ( http://www.bebits.com/app/740 ) from my Zeta partition and drag it over to my Haiku partition. It’ll be nice to not have to worry about bringing over the keymap anymore.

A question though…

Any chance of somebody making the two single-handed (right and left) Dvorak layouts? I’m just trying to learn left-handed Dvorak in addition to normal Dvorak, so this crossed my mind. I suppose I could do it, but maybe somebody else has started work on those layouts? I don’t want to duplicate anybody else’s work.

  • joe
phoudoin wrote:
I just commit it to Haiku SVN.

Thank you!

trasnam wrote:
Any chance of somebody making the two single-handed (right and left) Dvorak layouts? I'm just trying to learn left-handed Dvorak in addition to normal Dvorak, so this crossed my mind. I suppose I could do it, but maybe somebody else has started work on those layouts? I don't want to duplicate anybody else's work.

I’m not familiar with any dvorak layouts other than the modified US-101 layout I use. If you pointed me in the direction of some images showing what keys went where, I could make keymaps from those.

-edit: never mind. There was a link to images posted earlier.

Also, just throwing this out as a suggestion, how hard would it be to add the ability to create and edit keymap files to the Keymap Preference application. It just seems like something that could prove to be very useful in internationalization.

mrrc00,

If you get around to those two alternate Dvorak layouts, that will be nice. I believe they are mostly for people with disabilities, but I still wanted to give one or both a try. Most likely I’ll stick with normal Dvorak, but knowing a single-handed Dvorak could come in handy for when I’m typing and get a phone call. I hate cradling the phone between my head and shoulder while typing.

I don’t have Haiku running right now, but I think it allows you to do some light-duty editing of keymaps from within the preference application (via right-clicking and dragging and what not). I think maybe it wouldn’t work well for international layouts though, so an extension of the keymap preferences’ capabilities would be helpful in that case.

  • joe