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141 lines
4.3 KiB
Markdown
141 lines
4.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Swap the `ı` and `i` key on your keyboard for faster modal editing
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description: How to swap the ı and i key on your Turkish keyboard on Linux.
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tags:
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- localisation
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- modal-editors
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---
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If you have ever used a Turkish-Q keyboard in combination with a modal editor
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before, you might have noticed that the `i` key is pretty far off to the side:
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This blog post will guide you on how to swap the `ı` key with the `i` key (but
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not the `I` and `İ` keys). This will be a great change if you write primarily in
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English but need the Turkish symbols sometimes.
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> There is `tr(us)` in the `xkeyboard_config` package that does something
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> similar to this:
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>
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> ```cpp
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> // The basic Turkish layout with "i" and "ı" swapped.
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> // Originally by Ali Riza KESKIN <parduscix@yandex.ru>, 2021.
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> partial
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> xkb_symbols "us" {
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>
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> include "tr(basic)"
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>
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> name[Group1]="Turkish (i and ı swapped)";
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>
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> key <AC11> { type[group1] = "FOUR_LEVEL_SEMIALPHABETIC",
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> [ i, I, paragraph, none ]};
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> key <AD08> { type[group1] = "FOUR_LEVEL_SEMIALPHABETIC",
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> [ idotless, Iabovedot, apostrophe, dead_caron ]};
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> };
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> ```
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>
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> However, this only swaps the uppercase letters, so the `i` key is unchanged
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> but the uppercase of that key is `I` like in English. However, this is usually
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> not desired as this still reduces your typing speed (as the `iI` key is too
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> far).
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Let's create our own layout that does something similar but swaps the lowercase
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letters instead. Here is the code for that:
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```cpp
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default partial
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xkb_symbols "basic" {
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include "tr(basic)"
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name[Group1]="Turkish (i and ı swapped correctly)";
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key <AC11> { type[group1] = "FOUR_LEVEL_SEMIALPHABETIC",
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[ idotless, Iabovedot, paragraph , none ]};
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key <AD08> { type[group1] = "FOUR_LEVEL_SEMIALPHABETIC",
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[ i , I , apostrophe, dead_caron ]};
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};
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```
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The `default` key is needed because we are going to make this a standalone file.
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Save this to `~/.config/xkb/symbols/tr-swapped-i` and you can tell your WM/DE to
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use the `tr-swapped-i` XKB layout.
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In Hyprland (The WM I use) you can do it like this:
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```py
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# In ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf
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input {
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kb_layout = "tr-swapped-i"
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}
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```
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That should swap the `ı` and `i` keys on your WM/DE successfully. However, we
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are not done yet.
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The TTY (swap to TTY 2 by doing `CTRL-ALT-F2`) still doesn't use this layout,
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which is a problem. And it seems that the format the TTY uses is a little
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different. Looking at the `kbd` package, it uses a format called `.map`.
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Here is a `.map` file that overrides the `trq` layout and swaps the `ı` and `i`
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keys:
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```py
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include "/usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/trq.map"
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keycode 23 = i
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altgr keycode 23 = +icircumflex
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altgr shift keycode 23 = +Icircumflex
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keycode 40 = +dotlessi +Idotabove
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```
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Save it to the directory where you store your maps.
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Note that the path `/usr/share/keymaps` might differ based on your distro. You
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can check what it is it by doing `man loadkeys` and scrolling to the bottom.
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After that, consult your distro's docs on how to change the system keyboard
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locale.
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This is how it is done on NixOS:
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```nix
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{ pkgs, ... }: {
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console.keyMap = pkgs.writeText "trq-swapped-i.map" ''
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include "${pkgs.kbd}/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/trq.map"
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keycode 23 = i
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altgr keycode 23 = +icircumflex
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altgr shift keycode 23 = +Icircumflex
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keycode 40 = +dotlessi +Idotabove
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'';
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}
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```
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And this is how it is done on Arch:
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```sh
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cat << :end
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include "/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/trq.map"
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keycode 23 = i
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altgr keycode 23 = +icircumflex
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altgr shift keycode 23 = +Icircumflex
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keycode 40 = +dotlessi +Idotabove
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:end > /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/trq-swapped-i.map
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localectl set-keymap --no-convert tr-swapped-i
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```
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After that, your TTY should also use this locale.
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Gotta love having to mess with deep parts of your system because the Turkish-Q
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layout did the big mistake of reusing the `i` key as `ı`!
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At least I'll type and edit faster now...
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[Here is the commit where I implemented this, might be worth a look if you use NixOS.](https://github.com/RGBCube/NCC/commit/6d18066eb5ccefa4539205f3d6721e4a8ff8b97e)
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