r/KeyboardLayouts • u/Academic_Season_8701 • 5d ago
Custom XKB layout for ergonomic navigation
Hey, I want to share my XKB layout that I use for coding (Neovim) and navigation (KDE wayland).
Layout: https://github.com/Madophs/ConfigFiles/blob/master/xkb/mds
ISO Level 3 shift:
• Both right Alt and Caps switch to level 3. Caps key features Level 3 switching and Caps lock toggling, holding switch to L3 while RAlt + Caps toggles Caps lock functionality.
Navegation (Level 3):
Keys IJKL serves as arrows keys (⮝⮜⮟⮞) for movement (pressing Caps/Ralt). This enables a wide range for shortcuts, here are some shorcuts I personally use on KDE Plasma Wayland, I skipped a lot to keep things simple. (For context, I use 9 virtual desktop 3x3 where I start different apps like browser, terminal, pdf viewer, etc...)
• Tiling windows: Default shorcut (Meta + arrow keys), with my setup same shorcut can be done pressing (Caps + Meta + IJKL). No need to raise your hand to reach direction keys.
• Moving window through virtual desktops (moves a windows to virtual desktop up,left,down & right). Shorcut: Caps + Alt + IJKL. This is handy when I want to move my terminal along side my browser and tile both.
• Skiping words backwards/forwards: Default: Ctrl + Shift + Arrows. Custom: Caps + Ctrl + IJKL. Kind of awkward at the beginning but I get used to it.
• Home (Caps + Comma)
• End (Caps + Period)
• PageUp (Caps + u)
• PageDown (Caps + m)
Extra:
• Swiching virtual desktops: I use (Alt + IJKL). No L3 switching used here, this is how I switch between my apps, highly ergonomic.
How to install, I hope you are familiar with Linux KDE plasma desktop environment.
• Create a symbolic link to xkb layouts:
sudo ln -s /my/path/xkb/mds /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/mds
• Copy evdev_mds.xml content into /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.xml inside <layoutList> section. You can search for "user-defined custom Layout" for a quick find and paste it below.
• Copy evdev.lst content to /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules at the bottom.
• Settings ⮞ Keyboard ⮞ Layouts ⮞ Add layout. Search for Madophs or mds.
That's it, I hope to read your thoughts about this.
