[Wayland-bugs] [Bug 99011] XKB_FIXED_LAYOUT for ergodox?

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99011

            Bug ID: 99011
           Summary: XKB_FIXED_LAYOUT for ergodox?
           Product: Wayland
           Version: unspecified
          Hardware: Other
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: medium
         Component: libinput
          Assignee: wayland-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
          Reporter: camalot at picnicpark.org

I saw Peter's post about the new XKB_FIXED_LAYOUT here:

http://who-t.blogspot.com/2016/12/new-udev-property-xkbfixedlayout-for.html

It got me wondering whether it would be appropriate to apply this to highly
programmable keyboards like the Ergodox, Kinesis, etc.  Usually the user of
these devices programs the layout they want into the device.  In my example,
I'm currently using an Ergodox programmed with a modified colemak layout.  This
produces the correct results when the Gnome keyboard layout is the standard
"English (US)" and with the standard layout on Mac OS/X, Windows, etc.  I like
it this way because I can just plug in the keyboard anywhere and have the setup
I want.

However, since I've gotten used to colemak, when I'm typing on my laptop's
built-in keyboard I switch the Gnome layout to "English (Colemak)".  I'm
frequently confused when I put the laptop in the dock and then I got the wrong
characters when I press keys on the Ergodox. It's especially confusing because
usually I'm typing into a lock screen where I can't see the actual characters
being generated. After a few failed password attempts I realize that I'm
probably in the wrong keyboard layout and switch it and everything is fine.

This is a long way of saying that if the ergodox had XKB_FIXED_LAYOUT set to
"English (US)" or whatever, I wouldn't have this problem. I could just leave
the laptop set on "English (Colemak)" and my laptop keyboard and my Ergodox
would both work as expected.  I think this would be really cool, but I suppose
there is a possibility out there that someone has programmed a keyboard like
the Ergodox to expect the host computer has a some other layout, in which case
this change could frustrate them. In general I think that is fairly unlikely
since the programming systems for these keyboards don't generally make that
easy, but you never know...

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