No dvorak layout option

[Gwilym Kuiper]

I see many other keyboard layouts, but there isn't an option for the dvorak keyboard layout which I personally use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard

[TenLeftFingers (tenleftfingers)]

Now that bluetooth keyboards work will it would be a good time to include support for this.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Sylvia (iamsylvie)]

I've tried to start working on this on https://code.launchpad.net/~iamsylvie/ubuntu-keyboard/ubuntu-keyboard. However, I will need additional help, for the following reasons:

1. I do not actually have any device I can test this on yet.
2. I am completely new to Ubuntu development, Bazaar and the keyboard.
3. I do not know where to put the special characters.

Still, I hope this basic start will be useful for someone else who can finish support for this.

[Michael Sheldon (michael-sheldon)]

Hi Sylvia,

 Thanks for your interest in working on this, that looks like a great start! I'd suggest possibly holding on for a little while before dedicating too much time to it though, as the fix for this will actually depend on another feature being implemented first. Currently the layout and the language are tied together in the keyboard (so for example, you have an English layout, with English dictionary and prediction files all bundled together), we need to decouple this so the user can select a Dvorak layout (or a Colemak layout, or any other layout that they're interested in) and then separately select the language they'd like to use for prediction and spelling, otherwise we'd have to create a Dvorak package for every single language (which would take up a lot of disk space).

 There's a bug tracking that change here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-keyboard/+bug/1273275 I'll try and get it scheduled for me to work on in the near future so we can get this unblocked and move forward on your Dvorak layout.

Cheers,
 Mike

[TenLeftFingers (tenleftfingers)]

I see Dvorak and Colemak etc available since OTA-13. Can this bug be closed?

[Sylvia (iamsylvie)]

@TenLeftFingers: Where do you see this? Because I just updated to OTA-13 and I definitely can't find it.

[Sylvia (iamsylvie)]

Okay, I see it now, it's not in the normal keyboard settings but only in the notification area thingy keyboard settings. It also only supports English Dvorak, which directly ties it to the spelled language and thus is not a proper implementation.

[Sylvia (iamsylvie)]

It also doesn't even work, somehow.

[Michael Sheldon (michael-sheldon)]

The new Dvorak option in the keyboard indicator in OTA 13 is for external keyboards, not the OSK, so doesn't apply to this bug I'm afraid

[John Schroeder (jschroed)]

@iamsylvie, I have a device that I can test on. However, I am not able to build the ubuntu-keyboard project at this time on Ubuntu 16.04. (I might be able to with a VM of with 15.04.)

I think the special characters could either stay where they are or do the same move from a full-sized keyboard to dvorak layout (e.g. '[' to '/' and ']' to '=').