Hi all,

This is my first time using this forum, so sorry if I'm posting this to wrong place or such a tool already exists.

I'm a programmer and I'm using custom layouts for programming purposes for several years now. For example, I'm mapping symbols like [, {, ], }, <, > to different keys.

Currently I'm implementing this by modifying some files in

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/usr/share/X11/xkb

(like editing

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rules/evdev.xml

and adding a custom layout file to

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symbols/

etc.).

I was wondering if writing a tool for that purpose makes sense(let's call it `klayout` in this post).

Upon startup, klayout shows all layouts installed on the system. When a layout is selected, a keyboard is shown on the screen, with symbols are written on the keys.(this keyboard image should reflect current hardware -- I don't know if this is really possible. Keyboards with different layouts have different key layouts and I think the tool needs to show that properly)

There should be options 1) Duplicate layout(for giving it a new name) 2) Edit layout(to edit the layout). When in editing mode, user can assign different keys to buttons shown in the image. There should also be triggers for shift, caps lock, ctrl, alt, alt gr etc. so that user can map something to Ctrl + F1, for example.

What are you thinking about this? Do you think such a tool would be useful for others too? Or do we already have a tool that works like this?

Thanks in advance.

At this time, no tool for Xmodmap or keyboard layout editing exists, so I suspect it could be quite helpful - especially for those who need to make a change but don't understand the layout file format.