There is a updated version on how to make keyboard layouts available and especially safe against xkeyboard-config package upgrades. Please have a look at Custom Keyboard Layouts with xkb.

As a developer I prefer to use the us intl. keyboard layout as many symboles are positioned better than on the german keyboard layout. But on the other side I also have to write texts in german and I need to have access to all german umlauts and symboles. Unfortunately there is no layout that suited in all details to my daily needs. Here comes the ability to define a custom keyboard layout in account.

layout over variant

There are two ways of defining your keyboard arrangement.

  • The first one is to define a variant of an existing layout.
  • The second one is to define a custom layout with a custom variant.

I personally prefer the second way as I don’t need to modify an existing layout file. Which is in my opinion the better way to prevent unwanted switchbacks while updating the layout definition.

defining a variant

In my case I started to use the variant alt-intl for the us intl. keyboard layout. This variant already defines the german umlauts. But it does not define a key combo for e.g. the umlaut ß and also a key combo for the paragraph sign and cent sign was missing.

Let’s define a custom layout for the us intl. keyboard layout. Layouts are saved in the /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols directory. Here we create a new file in our case we named it usde.

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partial alphanumeric_keys
xkb_symbols "usde" {

   include "us(alt-intl)"

   key <TLDE> { [    grave,    asciitilde,    section,    plusminus    ] };
   key <AC02> { [    s,        S,             ssharp,     U1E9E        ] };
   key <AB03> { [    c,        C,             cent,       copyright    ] };

   include "level3(ralt_switch)"

};
  1. We define our layout within the xkb_symbols section.
  2. First of all we include the layout us(alt-intl) which works well for us so far and we don’t want to define all the keys again.
  3. We define the tilde key to work as backtick and tilde (/w shift). In combination with ralt we define the section key and the plusminus key (/w shift).
  4. We define the s key to work as sS and ß and upper umlaut ß (/w shift).
  5. We define the c key to work as cC and in combination with ralt the cent sign and the copyright sign (/w shift).
  6. Last we also include the level3(ralt_switch) section which defines the ralt key to switch between the altgr layer of defined keys.

Note: You can define the variant also in the symboles file for an existing layout e.g. us. But we think that it is better to define the variant in a separate file to be upgrade safe.

make your variant a layout

To make the recently defined variant a layout we have to define a new layout for xkb. Layouts and variants are defined in the /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.xml file. You need to add a <layout></layout> section within the <layoutList></layoutList> block.

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<layout>
  <configItem>
    <name>usde</name>
    <shortDescription>usde</shortDescription>
    <description>English (US, with german symbols)</description>
    <languageList>
      <iso639Id>eng</iso639Id>
    </languageList>
  </configItem>
</layout>
  1. We define a new layout with the name usde. The description will be shown in the configuration dialog.
  2. We also define a variant with the name usde. The description will also be shown in the configuration dialog.
  3. Bound the our usde layout to all languages with id eng. E.g. English (United Kindom) or Englich (United States).

Note: If you decided to define your variant within an existing file you need to create a new variant in the corresponding <layout></layout> block, e.g. us.

setup your keyboard

Now you can select your newly defined layout in the configuration dialog.

Select your keyboard layout

Note: It can be necessary to logout and relogin to make the layout available.

From now on you can use all the defined key combos as you would normally do.