X Keyboard Configuration Database
The non-arch keyboard configuration database for X Window. The goal is to provide the consistent, well-structured, frequently released open source of X keyboard configuration data for X Window System implementations (free, open source and commercial). The project is targeted to XKB-based systems.
What is it for?
There are many X Window implementations which have very poor support for non-standard keyboards, national layouts and options.
Open Source X Window System implementations (xfree86, x.org) currently have non-synchronized XKB configuration databases: the bugs fixed in one repository are not reflected in the other, new configuration elements are added (in best case) separately and independently to both CVS trees - but usually only one tree gets them. Also, these implementations contain unbalanced and unstructured layout trees (very often one country/language have several layouts, each with its own set of variants).
Commercial X Window System implementations cannot support large variety of national layouts - usually, because of lack of resources. So users from "exotic" countries feel offended and frustrated - their environments are not complete.
The solution which would guarantee quality support for the keyboard configuration data is to have single repository which would serve as meta-project for X servers and OS distributions. X Keyboard Configuration Database is trying to be the one.
License
Development
For details, see here
Releases
0.1 - 25 May 2004, first version. Only single-group layouts are included (tested for compatibility with the multiple layouts feature). Each language/country has no more than one layout and any number of variants.
0.2 - 12 Jun 2004, second version. HOWTO.transition is added, xkbcomp symlink is supported, Maori layout is added, small fix for Brasilian layout is applied.
0.3 - 23 Jul 2004, HEAVILY restructured layout names, compatibility rules are introduced, intltool problem resolved (sorry, with warnings).
0.4 - 28 Sep 2004, A lot of fixes. More univeral EURO handling. New urdu layout. Improved handling for indicators.
0.5 - 02 Mar 2005, New layouts/models/options. Updated translations. Group names synchronization.
0.6 - August 2005, Many improvements.
0.7 - December 2005, New layouts/models/options. Reogranized symbols/inet.
0.8 - March 2006, New layouts, fixes.
0.9 - October 2006, New layouts, fixes.
1.0 - July 2007, Around 70 bugs from freedesktop.org bugzilla were fixed.
1.1 - September 2007, Around 30 bugs from freedesktop.org bugzilla were fixed. First time-based release.
1.2 - January 2008, Around 40 bugs from freedesktop.org bugzilla were fixed. Updated translation schema.
1.3 - May 2008, Around 40 bugs from freedesktop.org bugzilla were fixed. Dropped old rulesets sgi and sun. Added a lot of metadata, related to countries and languages.
Contributions to the project. Relations to X Window System implementations.
We kindly ask and encourage people contributing layouts to XFree86 and X.Org repositories to send patches to X Keyboard Configuration Database. We would highly appreciate X implementations using our codebase in their distributions (there was preliminary agreement with X.Org implementation maintainers).
Links
X Keyboard Extension (by Ivan U. Pascal)
The XKB Configuration Guide (by Kamil Toman, Ivan U. Pascal, XFree86 project)
An Unreliable Guide to XKB Configuration (by Doug Palmer)
Maintainers
- Ivan U. Pascal (comaintainer)
-- Main.SergeyUdaltsov - 21 Feb 2008