Loadable Keyboard Layouts in Rockbox

Loadable keyboard layouts allow you to define which characters are used in the layout, in which order they are displayed and to use the UI font to display them. Any characters included in unicode can be used.

The Concept

The concept is quite simple. The keyboard works the same as before except the layout can now be defined. A string of unicode characters is taken from a KBD file and printed to a grid calculated to fit the current UI font. If all characters won't fit on one screen, then 'pages' will be created. Pages are changed either by a button (archos recorder and iriver) or by moving the cursor off the screen (ipod and ondio).

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

АБВГДЕЁЖЗИЙКЛМНОПРСТУФХЦЧШЩЪЫЬЭЮЯ

Greek

αβγδεζηθικλμνξοπρστυφχψως

ΑΒΓΔΕΖΗΘΙΚΛΜΝΞΟΠΡΣΤΥΦΧΨΩ

Hebrew

אבגדהוזחטיכלמנסעפצקרשתךםןףץ

Arabic

أبجدﻫوزحطيكلمنسعفصقرشتثخذضظغ

Korean

note: the vkeyboard will correctly combine the "Jamo" chars while typing)

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

opti2.kbd

English and spanish keyboard layout

This keyboard contains all letters and symbols needed for english and spanish. engspa.kbd