search

TheChilliPL / multilin

Multilingual keyboard layout for Windows
0 stars 0 forks source link

readme

Multilingual Keyboard Layout

A layout that makes it possible to write in multiple languages without switching between them. It also has a lot of useful symbols.

It was originally private for a few years, updated whenever I needed new symbols. I finally decided to make it public, and I'm planning to keep on using it as my daily keyboard layout.
If you think there's something missing, please feel free to make an issue, but I cannot promise a fast response. :sweat_smile:

Table of contents

Support

Languages

It only supports the Latin script and a lot of combining diacritics. Standard letters without diacritics are omitted for the sake of clarity.

By total speakers

Language Supported letters Missing letters Support
English Full
Spanish Áá, Éé, Íí, Ññ, Óó, Úú, Üü Full
French Àà, Ââ, Ææ, Çç, Éé, Èè, Êê, Ëë, Îî, Ïï, Ôô, Œœ, Ùù, Ûû, Üü, Ÿÿ Full
Portuguese Áá, Ââ, Ãã, Àà, Çç, Éé, Êê, Íí, Óó, Ôô, Õõ, Úú Full
Indonesian Full
German Ää, Öö, Üü, ẞß Full

Romanizations

Language Romanization Supported letters Missing letters Support
Japanese Hepburn Āā, Ēē, Īī, Ōō, Ūū Full

Full list

The full list of languages with the Latin script has to be finished.

Language Supported letters Missing letters Support
Acehnese Éé, Èè, Ëë, Ôô, Öö Full
Afar Full
Afrikaans Áá, Ää, Éé, Èè, Êê, Ëë, Íí, Îî, Ïï, Óó, Ôô, Öő, Úú, Ûû, Üü, Ýý Full
Albanian Ëë, Çç Full
Aragonese Áá, Éé, Íí, Óó, Úú, Üü Full
Asturian Ññ (Ḥḥ, Ḷḷ) Major Dialectal letters with underdots unsupported
Aymara Ää, Ïï, Üü Full
Azerbaijani Çç, Əə, Ğğ, İi, Öö, Şş, Üü Iı Partial Small dotless i unsupported
Bai Full
Banjarese Éé Full
Basque Çç, Üü, Ññ Full
Belarusian (Łacinka) Ćć, Čč, Łł, Ńń, Śś, Šš, Ŭŭ, Źź, Žž Full
Betawi Ññ, ʔ Full
Berber Čč Ḍḍ, Ɛɛ, Ǧǧ, Ɣɣ, Ḥḥ, Řř, Ṛṛ, Ṣṣ, Ṭṭ, Ẓẓ, ʷ Limited Underdot unsupported
Latin epsilon unsupported
Caron support limited
Labialization mark unsupported
Bislama Full
Boholano Full
Bosnian Ćć, Čč, Šš, Žž Đđ Partial Stroke unsupported
Breton Ââ, Êê, Îî, Ôô, Ûû, Ùù, Üü, Ññ Full
Catalan Àà, Éé, Èè, Íí, Ïï, Óó, Òò, Úú, Üü, Çç Full
Cebuano Full
Chamorro Ññ ʼ, Åå, Limited Modifier apostrophe letter unsupported
Overring unsupported
Cherokee Full
Cornish Full
Corsican Full
Croatian Ćć, Čč, Šš, Žž Đđ Partial Stroke unsupported
Cree â, ā, ð, ê, ē, î, ī, ñ, ô, ō, š, ý Full
Czech Áá, Čč, Éé, Íí, Óó, Úú, Ýý, Žž Ďď, Ňň, Řř, Šš, Ťť, Ůů Limited Caron support limited
Overring unsupported
Danish Ææ Øø, Åå Limited Stroke unsupported
Overring unsupported

[ to be continued ]

Special characters

[ to be continued ]

How to build and install

Pre-built binaries are planned to be provided in the future in the Releases section.

Then, you'll be able to download it and install it by following the steps in the Installation section.

Prerequisites

You need to have MSKLC 1.4 installed. You can download it from here.
Tested only on Windows 11, but should work on Windows 10 and earlier as well. MSKLC is a quite archaic piece of software, but Microsoft doesn't seem to have any plans to update it, so it'll have to do.

Building

Building the layout using MSKLC

  1. Clone the repository.
  2. Open the multilingual.klc file using MSKLC.
  3. Go to Project→Build DLL and Setup Package.
  4. Follow the on-screen instructions.
  5. It should eventually get exported to the directory showed in the dialog box. By default, it's Documents\multilin.

:warning: Warning: Building will fail if the layout is already installed. You need to uninstall it first using the provided steps to build it.

:warning: Warning: Building the layout using MSKLC will fail if the appdata directory is not set to the default path. In this case, you have to build the layout manually using the method below.

Building the layout manually

MSKLC provides several CLI tools in its /bin/i386 directory. To build the layout manually, you need to use the kbdutool tool.

kbdutool.exe -wu <layout path>

where -w displays extended warnings, -u forces Unicode support.

It builds the DLL for x86 by default (or if you pass the -x flag). You can override this behavior by using -i for IA64, -m for AMD64, -o for WOW64, or you can use -s to generate C source files without building them.

Installation

Installation through the provided binaries

  1. Go to the directory with the binaries. It should contain setup.exe, several .msi files, and directories with .dll files.
  2. The easiest method to install the layout is to run setup.exe and follow the on-screen instructions. Alternatively, you can run the .msi file manually, for your architecture. Manual installation with .dll files is possible, but not recommended.
  3. After the installation is complete, you need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

:warning: Warning: Installation will fail if the layout is already installed. You need to uninstall it first using the provided steps to update it.

:warning: Warning: Installation binaries provided by MSKLC seem to not work correctly if the appdata directory is not set to the default path. In this case, you have to install the layout manually using the .dll files.

Installation manually

  1. Copy the .dll file appropriate for your architecture to the C:\Windows\System32 directory.
  2. Open the registry editor by pressing Win+R and typing regedit.
  3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layouts.
  4. Add a new 8-character key with a unique hexadecimal name. The first four characters can be anything (MSKLC uses a000, then a001, etc.), and the last four characters should correspond to the language ID (e.g., 0409 for English).
  5. Add a string value Layout Text with the name of the layout (e.g., Multilingual).
  6. Add a string value Layout File with the name of the .dll file (e.g., multilin.dll). There's no need to specify the full path, as it has to be in the C:\Windows\System32.
  7. Add a string value Layout Display Name referring to a specific string in the .dll file, like @multilin.dll,-1000, where multilin.dll is the name of the .dll file.
  8. Add a string value Layout Id with the layout ID. It has to be unique across all layouts. On modern Windows installations, 00c0 seems to be working.
  9. Restart your PC in order to reload the system libraries.
  10. Go to Settings→Time & Language→Language & Region and add the layout.

:warning: Warning: For some reason, too high layout IDs (e.g., a000) seems to cause the layout to not be selectable and crash Explorer when trying to choose it. It should be checked, whether there's a limit or if it must be consecutive.

Usage

  1. Go to Settings→Time & Language→Language & Region.
  2. Under the Language section, click on the three dots next to the language you want to add the layout to. Alternatively, you can click on Add a language and add the language you want to add the layout to.
  3. Click on Language options.
  4. Under the Keyboards section, click on Add a keyboard.
  5. Look for Multilingual and click on it.
  6. Optionally, you can remove the default keyboard layout for the language by clicking on the three dots and clicking on Remove.
  7. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
  8. You should now be able to switch to the layout by pressing Win+Space and use it.

Uninstalling

Uninstalling the layout through Programs and Features

  1. Go to Settings→Apps→Installed apps.
  2. Look for Multilingual on the list or search for it using the search box.
  3. Click on the three dots next to it and click on Uninstall.
  4. Follow the on-screen instructions.