Weird layout adventures

Very recently, a new keyboard layout caught my eye, it aims to be efficient to write french, english and also to code with it. This is pretty much my usecase, so I'm going to learn it. I've got a bit tired of bépo, which has some issues, especially for coding, and even worse with vim.

Install

Kalamine is a very cool tool to install new layout. The input is quite interesting, since it's an ascii representation of the keyboard, so it also serves as a visual aid.

Installing the layout is trivial with it. The one gotcha is that any upgrade to the xkb system will wipe out this new layout, but that doesn't happen very often.

As an aside, kalamine has a command to spawn a local server so you can try a layout in a browser locally, which is very cool.

IBUS

I use ibus to manage different layouts, also because it integrates with libpinyin to type chinese.

Atfer installing ergo-l, I could switch using setxkbmap fr -variant ergol, but the menu from ibus wouldn't list it. One need to add the following entry to /usr/share/ibus/component/simple.xml

<engine>
    <name>xkb:fr:ergol:fra</name>
    <language>fr</language>
    <license>WTFPL</license>
    <author>Fabien Cazenave</author>
    <layout>fr</layout>
    <layout_variant>ergol</layout_variant>
    <longname>French (Ergo-L)</longname>
    <description>French (Ergo-L)</description>
    <icon>ibus-keyboard</icon>
    <rank>1</rank>
</engine>

and after a restart of ibus, voilà !

Ergo-L

Also, FYI, this is the ergol layout (subject to some minor changes):

base: |
  ╭╌╌╌╌╌┰─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┰─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┰╌╌╌╌╌┬╌╌╌╌╌╮
  ┆ ~   ┃ ! ¡ │ « ‘ │ » ’ │ $ ¢ │ % ‰ ┃ ^   │ &   │ *   │ (   │ )   ┃ _ – ┆ + ± ┆
  ┆ `   ┃ 1 „ │ 2 “ │ 3 ” │ 4 £ │ 5 € ┃ 6 ¥ │ 7 ¤ │ 8 § │ 9 ¶ │ 0 ° ┃ / ÷ ┆ = ≠ ┆
  ╰╌╌╌╌╌╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┤
  ·     ┃ Q   │ C   │ O   │ P   │ W   ┃ J   │ M   │ D   │*¨   │ F   ┃ {   ┆ }   ┆
  ·     ┃   â │   ç │   œ │   ô │     ┃     │   µ │   _ │** ` │   ŭ ┃ [   ┆ ]   ┆
  ·     ┠─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┤
  ·     ┃ A   │ S   │ E   │ N   │ ; • ┃ L   │ R   │ T   │ I   │ U   ┃ "   ┆ |   ┆
  ·     ┃   à │   é │   è │   ê │ , · ┃     │     │   î │   û │   ù ┃ '   ┆ \   ┆
  ╭╌╌╌╌╌╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂╌╌╌╌╌┴╌╌╌╌╌╯
  ┆ >   ┃ Z   │ X   │ ? ¿ │ V   │ B   ┃ :   │ H   │ G   │ Y   │ K   ┃           ·
  ┆ <   ┃   æ │   ß │ - — │   ñ │     ┃ . … │     │     │     │     ┃           ·
  ╰╌╌╌╌╌┸─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┸─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┚ · · · · · ·

altgr: |
  ╭╌╌╌╌╌┰─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┰─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┰╌╌╌╌╌┬╌╌╌╌╌╮
  ┆     ┃   ¹ │   ² │   ³ │   ⁴ │   ⁵ ┃   ⁶ │   ⁷ │   ⁸ │   ⁹ │   ⁰ ┃     ┆     ┆
  ┆     ┃   ₁ │   ₂ │   ₃ │   ₄ │   ₅ ┃   ₆ │   ₇ │   ₈ │   ₉ │   ₀ ┃     ┆     ┆
  ╰╌╌╌╌╌╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┤
  ·     ┃     │   ≤ │   ≥ │  *¤ │   ‰ ┃  *^ │  *µ │   × │  *´ │  *` ┃     ┆     ┆
  ·     ┃   @ │   < │   > │   $ │   % ┃   ^ │   & │   * │   ' │   ` ┃     ┆     ┆
  ·     ┠─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┤
  ·     ┃     │   ⁽ │   ⁾ │     │   ≠ ┃  */ │   ± │   — │   ÷ │  *¨ ┃     ┆     ┆
  ·     ┃   { │   ( │   ) │   } │   = ┃   \ │   + │   - │   / │   " ┃     ┆     ┆
  ╭╌╌╌╌╌╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂╌╌╌╌╌┴╌╌╌╌╌╯
  ┆     ┃  *~ │     │     │   – │     ┃   ¦ │   ¬ │  *¸ │     │     ┃           ·
  ┆     ┃   ~ │   [ │   ] │   _ │   # ┃   | │   ! │   ; │   : │   ? ┃           ·
  ╰╌╌╌╌╌┸─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┸─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┚ · · · · · ·