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#1 2021-05-01 22:55:14

dsalewski
Member
From: Kaarst, Germany
Registered: 2013-01-11
Posts: 5
Website

Send different keys to applications in Dvorak, Neo2, KOY

Hello out there,

recently I stumbled across newer developments in keyboard layouts. As most of You will know the most common keyboard layouts are not really optimized from an ergonomic point of view. I would really like to take a fresh start and learn another keyboard layout. In my case it is "KOY", which is optimized for german, but there will be similar developments for other languages, too.

Now, here's my problem: If it was just for switching the layout to KOY and spending a couple of evenings in KTouch I'd be just fine, since the layout itself, though lesser known compared to QWERTY, QWERTZ or even DVORAK is part of Arch Linux out of the box.

But unfortunately I have to make a living - stupid life constraints. My employer uses Windows 10 as it's desktop OS for all employees. And since it is a very large corporation it is simply not possible to switch keyboard layouts there, not to speak of installing additional software like autohotkey scripts or the like.

The ultimate solution - quitting and starting my own business where I can use Linux - must wait for the time being. So for the moment I'm  trying to find a solution without becoming entrepreneur.

And that is where Corona might come to the rescue. Most of us are working at home right now, with our own computers, dialing in into our daily jobs via Citrix. Chances are things will stay that way when things go back to normal. In any case I'd be able to take my private laptop with me, even when being called back into the office.

My question therefor is: Would it be possible to "map" keystrokes on keyboard layout "LOCAL" to keystrokes on keyboard layout "CORP" in a way so that pressing KOY-Q (which is located at QWERTY-X) would translate into QWERTY-Q (which is located at KOY-K) for just the Citrix application? This way my company would think I'm the godfather of typing speed in QWERTZ while I'd be actually happily hacking away on KOY.

Anyone with pointers into the right directions?

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#2 2021-05-02 13:23:39

WorMzy
Forum Moderator
From: Scotland
Registered: 2010-06-16
Posts: 11,786
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Re: Send different keys to applications in Dvorak, Neo2, KOY

Plasma allows you to change keyboard layouts per-app by setting the switching policy from Global (default) to Application (or even Window).

https://docs.kde.org/stable5/en/plasma- … youts.html

I suspect other DEs and possibly even stand-alone WMs have similar capabilities.


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#3 2021-05-02 14:17:01

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,974

Re: Send different keys to applications in Dvorak, Neo2, KOY

My question therefor is: Would it be possible to "map" keystrokes on keyboard layout "LOCAL" to keystrokes on keyboard layout "CORP" in a way so that pressing KOY-Q (which is located at QWERTY-X) would translate into QWERTY-Q (which is located at KOY-K) for just the Citrix application? This way my company would think I'm the godfather of typing speed in QWERTZ while I'd be actually happily hacking away on KOY.

Afaiu he wants to use KOY all over the place but windows doesn't play ball.
It's not that he would like to use different layouts for different clients/windows.

If there's a hypervisor involved, one would -likely- have to map the scancodes in the hypervisor kernel (module) - which I assume isn't accessible to the OP (because windows is already locked down)

Otherwise the input should™ actually be agnostic of the given hardware (because the clients and anything remote receives the symbols from the hosting window, ) - ie. this should™ justwork™ w/o any further adjustments (which it apparently does not?)

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#4 2021-05-05 07:17:37

dsalewski
Member
From: Kaarst, Germany
Registered: 2013-01-11
Posts: 5
Website

Re: Send different keys to applications in Dvorak, Neo2, KOY

WorMzy wrote:

Plasma allows you to change keyboard layouts per-app by setting the switching policy from Global (default) to Application (or even Window).

Hi WorMzy, I didn't know that. It's actually not what I was looking for - in that respect seth is closer to what I want to accomplish. But nevertheless thank you for this information.

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#5 2021-05-05 07:30:24

dsalewski
Member
From: Kaarst, Germany
Registered: 2013-01-11
Posts: 5
Website

Re: Send different keys to applications in Dvorak, Neo2, KOY

seth wrote:

Afaiu he wants to use KOY all over the place but windows doesn't play ball.
It's not that he would like to use different layouts for different clients/windows.

Exactly!

seth wrote:

If there's a hypervisor involved, one would -likely- have to map the scancodes in the hypervisor kernel (module) - which I assume isn't accessible to the OP (because windows is already locked down)

Now here's probably a chance. My very security oriented company forces me to first install Windows locally due to security reasons mad, with an up-to-date virus scanner. Only after that I'm allowed to dial in.

So what I did is: I installed Windows 10 in qemu/kvm (virtmanager) on Arch. From my locally installed VM I dial into the remote machine, which is locked down.

If I understand you correctly there might be a way to make my locally installed Windows-VM think, that I pressed "Q" (on QWERTZ) when I actually pressed "Q" (on KOY) by simply smile mapping the scancodes in the hypervisor kernel module. Do You have an idea where I could start to search for informations on how to do that?

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#6 2021-05-05 11:08:42

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,974

Re: Send different keys to applications in Dvorak, Neo2, KOY

"qemu -k koy" and add the layout to /usr/share/qemu/keymaps/koy ?
(That's a wild guess and I've no idea whether this works)

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