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Esperanto Layout for Windows

by Ragtag, November 25, 2014

Messages: 31

Language: English

Ragtag (User's profile) November 25, 2014, 2:12:37 AM

Tired of having to use x after c, s, and g? When using flashcards are you tired of being marked wrong because you don't have access to these? My keyboard layout will solve this.
I have created an Esperanto layout for Windows for any interested people.

Things to note before you download:
1. My keyboard uses the English (UK) parent layout. So when you install it, if you don't already use English (UK), it will pop up in a language bar at the lower right hand corner of your screen if you use Windows 7. On Windows 8, you must restart (logging off may work too, unconfirmed) for the layout to pop up. If it does not, you may have not gone into the language bar settings and made it properly visible. That shouldn't ever be a problem, though.

2. Do not ever reinstall this without uninstalling completely. Delete every file of this if you want to uninstall. Otherwise, if you ever change a part of it (like changing the parent language from UK English to US English), it will not register with Windows and you will be left with an unchanged layout. You cannot fix this at this point except a complete whipe of every installed layout, and also recommended to reinstall the program or use a different Hard Drive (HDD) entirely for it. For this reason, avoid editing it, please.

Download:
Mediafire
After downloading, just click setup.exe Don't worry about the folders.

What it looks like (also included in the download; open with Keyboard Layout Editor by Microsoft):
Lowercase
Uppercase
Alt+Ctrl or Right Alt (AltGr)
Shift + AltGr
Ctrl (you can find dollar sign here)

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Inform me if the link ever goes down. Thank you.

P.S. If there's enough of a request for English (US) I will make a version for it which will make the dollar sign ($) primary rather than the Euro (€) sign.

Quick Tip: Set up your layout to be accessible instantly via hotkey. Do this by going to "Language Settings" and then "Advanced Options" in Windows 8. Under "Switching input methods", select "Change language bar hot keys". The rest should be obvious. Click "Change key sequence" and set it up how you want. Currently, Esperanto is Ctrl + 2 for me and English is Ctrl + 1.

I recommend using this because by setting it up correctly, you won't have to worry as much about which English you are using, and UK English is only be used as the parent language so that this layout can work.

Questions? Please post below. Dankon por via tempo.

Alkanadi (User's profile) November 25, 2014, 9:31:51 AM

Doesn't windows already have a built in keyboard for esperanto?

nornen (User's profile) November 25, 2014, 2:38:52 PM

Congratulations.
You, sir, are the first person on this forum who works with his operating system and not against it, while providing an input method for Esperanto letters to Microsoft users.

Ragtag (User's profile) November 25, 2014, 2:58:19 PM

Alkanadi:Doesn't windows already have a built in keyboard for esperanto?
No, unfortunately. As far as I can tell, they're not even considering it. The general attitude both Apple and Microsoft have to Esperanto seems to be that it's on the same level as Klingon and is thus not worth the time or money investing in. In all honesty, I can see where they'd think that considering the lack of publicity Esperanto has these days and the fact that anyone outside the community doesn't know it is growing.

With enough time, though, I believe that will change. Shifts in powers will make Esperanto a more prominent competitor in the world.

nornen:Congratulations.
You, sir, are the first person on this forum who works with his operating system and not against it, while providing an input method for Esperanto letters to Microsoft users.
Not sure if sarcasm or not (doesn't work well through text). Although I did search for posted layouts already, I only managed to get one thread in the English section. And it seems like the link was broken anyway.

I feel that this layout is quite easy to use, and I did take consideration for the letters it replaces to also be very easy to get to, should you need it. (which is why they are on AltGr).

nornen (User's profile) November 25, 2014, 3:18:10 PM

Ragtag:Not sure if sarcasm or not (doesn't work well through text). Although I did search for posted layouts already, I only managed to get one thread in the English section. And it seems like the link was broken anyway.
No sarcasm at all. These are my sincere congratulations for using the OS ability to set different keyboard layouts instead of coding and installing an application that runs on top of the OS and does the same thing.

There are many, many programmers out there who don't work with the OS/API/language/DB but against it. A very common example can be found in web development: you often find 100% procedural code in PHP and ECMAscript (JS, javascript) even in places where object orientation would have saved a lot of blood. That's for instance is working against the language (PHP, ECMA) and not with it.
Writing an application that emulates a keystroke handler on top of your OS's keystroke handler is working against your OS. What you have done is working with your OS.

Ragtag (User's profile) November 25, 2014, 4:14:05 PM

nornen:
Ragtag:Not sure if sarcasm or not (doesn't work well through text). Although I did search for posted layouts already, I only managed to get one thread in the English section. And it seems like the link was broken anyway.
No sarcasm at all. These are my sincere congratulations for using the OS ability to set different keyboard layouts instead of coding and installing an application that runs on top of the OS and does the same thing.

There are many, many programmers out there who don't work with the OS/API/language/DB but against it. A very common example can be found in web development: you often find 100% procedural code in PHP and ECMAscript (JS, javascript) even in places where object orientation would have saved a lot of blood. That's for instance is working against the language (PHP, ECMA) and not with it.
Writing an application that emulates a keystroke handler on top of your OS's keystroke handler is working against your OS. What you have done is working with your OS.
Ah, I see. Well I'm happy to provide ridulo.gif

bartlett22183 (User's profile) November 25, 2014, 7:35:41 PM

If the task is merely to be able to type the Esperanto accented letters ĉĝĥĵŝŭĈĜĤĴŜŬ for English versions of Windows, there are already keyboard drivers available, such as Ek! (I'm not sure whether this is still available / supported) and Tajpi. Indeed, when I decided to compose this reply, I just went to my Windows (7) desktop and started Tajpi. I could immediately type the E-o accented letters with two trivial keystrokes each. To the best of my information, such utility programs are also freely available for Mac and Linux. Are you trying to reinvent the wheel?

kaŝperanto (User's profile) November 25, 2014, 8:35:19 PM

bartlett22183:If the task is merely to be able to type the Esperanto accented letters ĉĝĥĵŝŭĈĜĤĴŜŬ for English versions of Windows, there are already keyboard drivers available, such as Ek! (I'm not sure whether this is still available / supported) and Tajpi. Indeed, when I decided to compose this reply, I just went to my Windows (7) desktop and started Tajpi. I could immediately type the E-o accented letters with two trivial keystrokes each. To the best of my information, such utility programs are also freely available for Mac and Linux. Are you trying to reinvent the wheel?
I'm not familiar with those programs (primarily a Linux user here), but it sounds like this approach more directly uses the OS tools given by Microsoft (no additional software required).

A similar situation for me is recently I edited some registry keys to force Caps Lock to act like a Ctrl key. The Caps Lock key is a holdover from typewriter days and is a pointless waste of space on modern keyboards, ESPECIALLY for programmers or others who work with applications that use a lot of Ctrl key combos for commands. You can get software to remap this key, but doing it in the registry directly changes how Windows processes the key itself without needing to install any software at all.

Christa627 (User's profile) November 25, 2014, 9:46:40 PM

bartlett22183:If the task is merely to be able to type the Esperanto accented letters ĉĝĥĵŝŭĈĜĤĴŜŬ for English versions of Windows, there are already keyboard drivers available, such as Ek! (I'm not sure whether this is still available / supported) and Tajpi. Indeed, when I decided to compose this reply, I just went to my Windows (7) desktop and started Tajpi. I could immediately type the E-o accented letters with two trivial keystrokes each. To the best of my information, such utility programs are also freely available for Mac and Linux. Are you trying to reinvent the wheel?
I also use Tajpi and have no problem with it. I don't even have to activate it when I want to use it because I have it set to start up automatically. This only causes inconvenience when I type "ux" as in Linux or "gx" as in Ningxia; then I have to type "x" twice. And it would also be an slight issue if I was into typing "thx" all the time, but I'm not, and the other words I also don't type very often. The program is free, and not very big. But for some reason, when we were using a Win 8 computer to transfer files from a dying external hard drive to a new one, when it did my folder it quarantined the Tajpi file as a trojan malgajo.gif. Much to my brothers' great glee.

noelekim (User's profile) November 26, 2014, 2:43:04 AM

I just open traduku.net and type with x-substitutes on it. Nothing to download, nothing to install.

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