Alternative Keyboard Layouts

Alternative Keyboard Layouts

If you want to turn a QWERTY keyboard into a DVORAK keyboard, or Workman, Colemak, any other layout du jour, or you want to create your own layout...

Two reasonable approaches are

1. Keyword: REWIRE each key
2. Use an alpha map Keyword: ALPHA_FROM, ALPHA_TO, ALPHA_END

Alpha maps are much nicer and quicker for this task, but the deciding question is:

Do you want your combos to change with the layout?

• If you want the Ctrl-C combo to stay where it is, even though DVORAK maps C to J, then you must use an Alpha map, and set OPTION LcontrolLwinBlocksAlphaMapping
• If you want the C to move for Ctrl-C, you could use either method
• If you want to C to move for your own shortcuts/Combos (MOD9 & C...), then you must use REWIRE

Depending on your what you need, you could also rewire C to J, then define a combo for Ctrl+J -> Ctrl+C. Lot of effort if you use many combos. Bit confusing, too.

(note: you could also define your layout with COMBO C [..^.] > key (J), but that way lies insanity).

I'd start with using Alpha maps. You can copy&paste the most popular ones (0.00001% of the population use it :) from the default capsicain.ini, near the bottom.

If you are still learning, it's probably best to have a standard keyboard on config_1 and your new layout on config_2. Or, if you have no shortcuts defined (you should, they're awesome), put the alt layout on config_1 and toggle it on/off with GLOBAL capsicainOnOffKey {KeyLabel}