Wymysorys Pro Keyboard

• Wymysorys pro keyboard layout for Linux systems
• Author: Robert Borges
• Date: 20190304
• Version 1.0
• license: CC BY-SA

About

This is a keyboard layout created for working with Wymsorys where one regularly needs the ȧ & Ȧ (U+0027, U+0226) characters. Wymysorys uses most special characters from Polish, but also letters like ö, which at the time I started working with the language wasn't in my Polish keyboard. So for single words, I found myself switching between English and Polish keyboard layouts, while still needing to open up the character pallet for the ȧ. Since this is an overwhelming pain in the ass, I created a layout for the (macOS) computer I was using at the time. After migrating laptops and starting with a new OS, I needed a suitable keyboard. So I made one.

The original macOS layout was initially inspired by Bartek Chromik's layout for windows machines, as we were both using Macs, I designed a layout for macOS by altering the Polish pro layout. This layout grew from that one, but it has evolved some. Nevertheless, this layout should be suitable for writing most European languages with a Latin orthography, but is certain to meet all your Wymysorys, Polish, and English needs.

Here's the layout:

Installation

These are the steps I followed to install the keyboard on Linux Mint 19.1. There will probably be some differences in different distributions. It requires moving the layout file to the appropriate folder and editing three of the system files in the rules folder. I have included these files in the rules folder in this repo. If you're on Mint 19.1 and don't plan any other customizations to the keyboard layouts, you could rename/replace your system files with these, but please, for goodness sake, back up your sys files first in case sth goes wrong.

1. Install the "English (US, intl, with dead keys)" layout via the Keyboard settings.

2. Move the wym_pro layout file into your layouts folder. For me it's /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols.

3. Edit the evdev.xml file. For me it was in the /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules folder. The following code block has to be added to the end of the <layoutsList>.

    <layout>
      <configItem>
        <name> wym_pro </name>
        <shortDescription> Wymysorys Pro </shortDescription>
        <description> Wymysorys Pro </description>
        <languageList>
          <iso639Id> wym </iso639Id>
        </languageList>
      </configItem>
      <variantList/>
    </layout>
   

4. Edit the xorg.xml file. This should be in the same folder as evdev.xml. Add the following codeblock to the end of the <layoutsList>.

    <layout>
      <configItem>
        <name> wym_pro </name>
        <shortDescription> Wymysorys Pro </shortDescription>
        <description> Wymysorys Pro </description>
       </configItem>
     </layout>
   

5. Edit the xorg.lst file, in the same folder as the last two. Find the list that starts with ! layout and append with

    wym_pro    Wymysorys Pro
   

6. Reboot, add the Wymysorys Pro keyboard layout in system settings>keyboards, and select it for use. It should be working right away, but maybe log out & in again if not.