More context to readme?

[Iizuki]

Hey!

I found this repo off a search engine after once again getting totally frustrated by xkb, wondering that surely there has to be an alternative to this ancient crap? How can it be so difficult to use a custom keymap... :(

This repo seems promising, but for an odd wanderer the readme leaves quite a bit of questions:

• What's the status here? Can it be used/tried already? How?
• Is this part of some bigger project?
• Is it releated to some new (wayland) standards/protocols?
• Do you need help? What kind?

[rano-oss]

It can be tried already, there are some inconsistencies in the current composer. If you see the actions tab there are several tests there. It is mostly edge cases that fail, but a normal keyboard where level and state keys match it will work just fine.
It is not part of any bigger project I got tired of xkb and decided to make my own implementation so I can understand what a new format needs. I was thinking of suggesting WKB as an addition to for keymaps in wayland, but I need to finish ironining out all bugs such that I can see I have an overview over all the needed features.
For help, well I would like some testing in a real world application. But just fixing e.g the errors in the composing test would help.

[rano-oss]

If you wanna give me a pr for a better project readme I'll take that too ;)

[Iizuki]

Sorry, I feel like I'm still missing the big picture what this (or xkb) exactly does, apart from defining a configuration format. What do you mean by composer here?

If you wanna give me a pr for a better project readme I'll take that too ;)

This I believe I should muster after wrapping my head around this myself first ^^

I got tired of xkb and decided to make my own implementation

😁

[rano-oss]

The way I see it xkb is mostly used for one thing these days. You have a keyboard scancode from evdev, and it needs to be represented as a key lets say "a". You feed the scancode to xkb and it gives you "a".
Composing is used for things like if you type ^+a = â. Basically building special characters.
What is your usecase?

[Iizuki]

Interesting, thanks.

I'm just an alt layout typist. My experience is that if your layout isn't already bundled in with the distro, it's just a pain to make changes or add a completely new one.

It's way easier to just use a programmable keyboard and make all the changes there in QMK/ZMK firmware. Sometimes I'm stuck with a laptop or a "dumb keeb" though.