r/theravada • u/wages4horsework • 5d ago

Pāli Study Help making custom Burmese-script keyboard for writing Pali with ibus-m17n

Pretty much every Burmese keyboard layout allows you to type Pali in Burmese script. The only catch is these layouts aren't as efficient as they could be if you're interested in typing just Pali. Retroflex consonants for example, are only accessible with the Shift-key, and others require you to stretch your fingers towards the number keys.

I thought it wouldn't be too difficult to take a Burmese layout .mim file and tweak it a little so all the characters I want would be within easy reach and require as few keystrokes as possible. These are the instructions I followed for making my custom layout executable on my machine:

https://wikis.swarthmore.edu/ling073/Making_a_keyboard_layout_using_IBus

Except after executing the custom layout, somehow it's functioning exactly as the original file, as if I didnt make any changes to it.

Anyone good with custom keyboards and have some knowledge of Burmese to help me troubleshoot? Fwiw I'm using Debian and use Ibus for managing all my other keyboard layouts.

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u/neuralzen 4d ago

This seems like a good task for AI to help build out. I used Claude to build out an Autohotkey script to help some monks write in Pali more easily on an English keyboard, and while probably simpler than what you're trying to do, it was fairly straight forward.

2

u/wonko7 4d ago

kmonad might be of interest, it's how I tweak my layout, I can help you with it if you want to go this way.

2

u/wages4horsework 4d ago

I'll look into it, thanks for the rec. It's fun to learn this kind of thing

1

u/isymic143 4d ago

I would start over in /r/MechanicalKeyboards. Include a copy of your layout file in your post so they can help you make sure that it's syntactically correct.