Loadable Keyboard Layouts

The Concept

The concept is quite simple: The keyboard works the same as before except the character layout can now be defined and the user font will be used display them instead of the system font. All Unicode characters are valid. A string of characters is taken from a KBD file and printed to a grid calculated to fit the current user font. If all characters won't fit on one screen, then separate 'pages' will be created. Pages are changed either by a button if your device has one defined (see your player's manual) or by moving the cursor off the screen to the left or right.

Creating KBD Files

In order to define your own layout, you must create a kbd file. This is just a UTF-8 encoded text file with the extension 'kbd'. Create a new file in any UTF-8 capable text editor and insert the characters you would like in your layout. These can be any characters you like, but note that if your font does not support them, the default glyph will be displayed instead. The keyboard code will automatically skip newlines, so feel free to use several lines, if you like. When you are done, save the file as UTF-8 and give it the extension 'kbd'.

Here follows a list of samples you can used to easily copy&paste together your own keyboard layout:

ASCII

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Cyrillic

АБВГДЕЁЖЗИЙКЛМНОПРСТУФХЦЧШЩЪЫЬЭЮЯ

Greek

ΑΒΓΔΕΖΗΘΙΚΛΜΝΞΟΠΡΣΤΥΦΧΨΩ

Hebrew

Arabic

Korean

ㄱㄲㄳㄴㄵㄶㄷㄸㄹㄺㄻㄼㄽㄾㄿㅀㅁㅂㅃㅄㅅㅆㅇㅈㅉㅊㅋㅌㅍㅎㅏㅐㅑㅒㅓㅔㅕㅖㅗㅘㅙㅚㅛㅜㅝㅞㅟㅠㅡㅢㅣ

Using KBD Files

To load a new keyboard layout, simply 'play' the kbd file from the file browser. If you want the new layout to be loaded on each boot, put it into your .rockbox folder.

That's it!

KBD Files to Download

OPTI II

For a background to the theory of the Opti layout, look at this: http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/zhai/papers/ZhaiHunterSmithHCIGalley.pdf

English and Spanish

This keyboard contains all letters and symbols needed for English and Spanish. engspa.kbd