diff --git a/docs/_summary.md b/docs/_summary.md index 0e82ab4f0..b3553b428 100644 --- a/docs/_summary.md +++ b/docs/_summary.md @@ -55,6 +55,7 @@ * Simple Keycodes * [Full List](keycodes.md) * [Basic Keycodes](keycodes_basic.md) + * [Language-Specific Keycodes](reference_keymap_extras.md) * [Modifier Keys](feature_advanced_keycodes.md) * [Quantum Keycodes](quantum_keycodes.md) diff --git a/docs/reference_keymap_extras.md b/docs/reference_keymap_extras.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4f2139249 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/reference_keymap_extras.md @@ -0,0 +1,79 @@ +# Language-specific Keycodes + +Keyboards are able to support a wide range of languages. However, they do not send the actual characters produced by pressing their keys - instead, they send numerical codes. In the USB HID spec, these are called "usages", although they are more often referred to as "scancodes" or "keycodes" when in the context of keyboards. +Less than 256 usages are defined in the HID Keyboard/Keypad usage page, and some of those do nothing on modern operating systems. So, how is this language support achieved? + +In a nutshell, the operating system maps the usages it receives to the appropriate character based on the user's configured keyboard layout. For example, when a Swedish person presses the key with the `å` character printed on it, the keyboard is *actually* sending the keycode for `[`. + +Obviously, this could get confusing, so QMK provides language-specific keycode aliases for many keyboard layouts. These won't do much on their own - you still have to set the matching keyboard layout in your OS settings. Think of them more as keycap labels for your keymap. + +To use these, simply `#include` the corresponding [header file](https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/tree/master/quantum/keymap_extras) in your `keymap.c`, and add the keycodes defined in them in place of the `KC_` prefixed ones: + +|Layout |Header | +|---------------------------|--------------------------------| +|Canadian Multilingual (CSA)|`keymap_canadian_multilingual.h`| +|Croatian |`keymap_croatian.h` | +|Czech |`keymap_czech.h` | +|Danish |`keymap_danish.h` | +|Dutch (Belgium) |`keymap_belgian.h` | +|English (Ireland) |`keymap_irish.h` | +|English (UK) |`keymap_uk.h` | +|English (US International) |`keymap_us_international.h` | +|Estonian |`keymap_estonian.h` | +|Finnish |`keymap_finnish.h` | +|French |`keymap_french.h` | +|French (BÉPO) |`keymap_bepo.h` | +|French (Switzerland) |`keymap_fr_ch.h` | +|French (macOS, ISO) |`keymap_french_osx.h` | +|German |`keymap_german.h` | +|German (Switzerland) |`keymap_german_ch.h` | +|German (macOS) |`keymap_german_osx.h` | +|German (Neo2)* |`keymap_neo2.h` | +|Greek* |`keymap_greek.h` | +|Hungarian |`keymap_hungarian.h` | +|Icelandic |`keymap_icelandic.h` | +|Italian |`keymap_italian.h` | +|Italian (macOS, ANSI) |`keymap_italian_osx_ansi.h` | +|Italian (macOS, ISO) |`keymap_italian_osx_iso.h` | +|Japanese |`keymap_jp.h` | +|Korean |`keymap_korean.h` | +|Latvian |`keymap_latvian.h` | +|Lithuanian (ĄŽERTY) |`keymap_lithuanian_azerty.h` | +|Lithuanian (QWERTY) |`keymap_lithuanian_qwerty.h` | +|Norwegian |`keymap_norwegian.h` | +|Polish |`keymap_polish.h` | +|Portuguese |`keymap_portuguese.h` | +|Portuguese (Brazil) |`keymap_br_abnt2.h` | +|Romanian |`keymap_romanian.h` | +|Russian* |`keymap_russian.h` | +|Serbian* |`keymap_serbian.h` | +|Serbian (Latin) |`keymap_serbian_latin.h` | +|Slovak |`keymap_slovak.h` | +|Slovenian |`keymap_slovenian.h` | +|Spanish |`keymap_spanish.h` | +|Spanish (Dvorak) |`keymap_spanish_dvorak.h` | +|Swedish |`keymap_swedish.h` | +|Turkish (F) |`keymap_turkish_f.h` | +|Turkish (Q) |`keymap_turkish_q.h` | + +There are also a few which are not quite language-specific, but useful if you are not using a QWERTY layout: + +|Layout |Header | +|-------------------|------------------------| +|Colemak |`keymap_colemak.h` | +|Dvorak |`keymap_dvorak.h` | +|Dvorak (Programmer)|`keymap_dvp.h` | +|Norman |`keymap_norman.h` | +|Plover* |`keymap_plover.h` | +|Plover (Dvorak)* |`keymap_plover_dvorak.h`| +|Steno* |`keymap_steno.h` | +|Workman |`keymap_workman.h` | +|Workman (ZXCVM) |`keymap_workman_zxcvm.h`| + +## Sendstring Support + +By default, `SEND_STRING()` assumes a US ANSI keyboard layout is set. If you are using a different layout, you can also `#include "sendstring_*.h"` (as above) in your keymap to override the lookup tables used for mapping ASCII characters to keycodes. + +An important thing to note here is that `SEND_STRING()` only operates on [ASCII text](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#Character_set). This means that you cannot pass it a string containing Unicode characters - this unfortunately includes accented characters that may be present in your desired layout. +Many layouts make certain characters, such as Grave or Tilde, available only as [dead keys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_key), so you must add a space immediately after it in the string you want to send, to prevent it from potentially combining with the next character. +Certain other layouts have no Sendstring header as they do not use a Latin-derived alphabet (for example Greek and Russian), and thus there is no way to input most of the ASCII character set. These are marked above with a `*`.