The K Desktop Environment

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3. National Keyboard

For each language or national keyboard KiKbd supports a keyboard map which can have up to four symbols per physical keyboard key. For example in the Russian keyboard you have four symbols for key 'Q': short i, capital short I, q, and capital Q. The first two symbols are the national character set - keyboard map symbols and the last two symbols are the alternate symbols. For typing Alternate symbols you have to setup a special key in the KiKbd configuration; for details on this topic, read the Personal Configuration section. Normally the first symbol is used when typing without any modifier keys pressed, the second symbol when you type with Shift held down, the third symbol when you type with the Alternate Switch key down, and the fourth symbol when you type with the Alternate Switch key and the Shift key, both down.

When these lines were written, there were more than twenty national keyboard definition files in the KiKbd distribution.

If a keyboard for your language is missing see section Creating a new National Keyboard.

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