Search crafting setup using waywall

This section goes over creating a keyboard layout for search crafting using waywall and xkb, similar to using Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator on Windows.

Creating a layout

• First, create the ~/.config/xkb/symbols directory by running mkdir -p ~/.config/xkb/symbols.
• Create a file in this directory touch ~/.config/xkb/symbols/mc, and open it in a text editor nano ~/.config/xkb/symbols/mc.
• Paste the following example layout into this file:

default partial alphanumeric_keys
xkb_symbols "basic" {
    name[Group1] = "Minecraft";
 
    key <TLDE> { [ plus, plus ] }; // ~ > +
    key <AE01> { [ 8, 8 ] }; // 1 > 8
    key <AE02> { [ 4, 4 ] }; // 2 > 4
    key <AE03> { [ Armenian_nu, Armenian_NU ] }; // 3 > ն
    key <AE04> { [ Armenian_gim, Armenian_GIM ] }; // 4 > գ
    key <AE05> { [ Armenian_tche, Armenian_TCHE ] }; // 5 > ճ

    key <AD01> { [ Armenian_yech, Armenian_YECH ] }; // q > ե
    key <AD02> { [ Armenian_tyun, Armenian_TYUN ] }; // w > տ
    key <AD03> { [ Armenian_pe, Armenian_PE ] }; // e > պ
    key <AD04> { [ Armenian_se, Armenian_SE ] }; // r > ս

    key <CAPS> { [ Armenian_vo, Armenian_VO ] }; // capslock > ո
    key <AC01> { [ Armenian_re, Armenian_RE ] }; // a > ր
    key <AC02> { [ Armenian_vyun, Armenian_VYUN ] }; // s > ւ
    key <AC03> { [ Armenian_hi, Armenian_HI ] }; // d > յ
    key <AC04> { [ Armenian_cha, Armenian_CHA ] }; // f > չ

    key <AB01> { [ Armenian_ini, Armenian_INI ] }; // z > ի
    key <AB02> { [ Armenian_ayb, Armenian_AYB ] }; // x > ա
    key <AB03> { [ Armenian_ken, Armenian_KEN ] }; // c > կ
    key <AB04> { [ Armenian_za, Armenian_ZA ] }; // v > զ

    key <LALT> { [ Armenian_dza, Armenian_DZA ] }; // alt > ձ
};

• Let's break down how the layout file works.
• In the above example, the comment code on the right (the text after the //) shows which key is being mapped to what character.

key <AD03> { [ Armenian_pe, Armenian_PE ] }; // e > պ

• This line remaps lowercase e to the պ character, and uppercase E to the Պ character.
  • key <AD03> refers to the e key.
    • Most of the common keys remapped for search crafting (i.e. keys close to the WASD cluster) are listed in the above example layout, you can add keys further on the right by simply copying the key before it and increasing the number accordingly.
    • Some keys (i.e. TLDE, CAPS, LALT in the above example) are named much more clearly.
  • Armenian_pe refers to the պ character.
  • Armenian_PE refers to the Պ character.
  • Here is the list of valid names for characters.
    • To find the matching name, first try searching for the character in the list with Ctrl+F, otherwise find a proper name for the character and attempt to search for that instead (for the Armenian layout above, the Wikipedia page for the Armenian alphabet was especially useful).

Using the layout in waywall

• After creating your layout, open your waywall config file in a text editor (nano ~/.config/waywall/init.lua).
• Go to the config.input table and edit the layout option to "mc".

• Essentially, the ~/.config/xkb/symbols folder is checked for a file named "mc", and switches to that layout if it's found.
• If you want to have multiple layouts to swap between easily, copy your existing layout file in ~/.config/xkb/symbols and give it a distinct name, then edit init.lua accordingly.