Shan/Keyboard

Background Research

We found two pre-existing layouts. One from Microsoft and one from an independent developer.

Microsoft's one was available to windows user but I garnered a lot of complaints from users online. The main complaints were that it put common Shan characters in very inconvinient places which people did not like.

The one by an independent developer was only tested to be compatible with Windows 10. We were not able to open and test it. It was laid out in a logical manner and had very common Shan characters around the middle. However, it also had characters that we did not recognize as Shan or Burmese.

Keyboard Layout

Link to the github repo where you can install the keyboard: https://github.swarthmore.edu/Ling073-sp23/ling073-shn-keyboard

The keyboard is free to use by everyone.

~
`

႑
1

 

႒
2

႓
3

႔
4

႕
5

႖
6

႗
7

႘
8

႙
9

(

႐
0

)

_
-

+
=

       

ၹ
ၸ

 

ၻ
တ

ꧣ
ၼ

မ

ႅ
ႄ

ြ
ပ

ၿ

ၷ
ၵ

င

ဝ
သ

[
ၺ

]
ႁ

"
'

႟
ရ

        

ဵ
ေ

ှ
ျ

ီ
ိ

်

ႂ

ံ
့

ႈ

ု

ူ

း

႞
ႊ

           

ၾ
ၽ

ꧤ

ၻ
ထ

ꧠ
ၶ

ꩮ
လ

ႆ
ႇ

ွ

ႃ
ၢ

ယ

?
ဢ

၊
။

Justification

We based our layout on a keyboard by an independent development.

We did make some changes to it as listed below:

1. We removed the letters we did not recognised.

2. We moved the () to alt+9 and alt+0 instead of alt+8 and alt+9 so that it would be similar to the english keyboard which we are more familiar with.

3. After analysing the frequency of each character and the looking for patterns in the keyboard, we decided to move the ႅ character to shift+t instead of shift+f to make it match the pattern found in a.

4. After looking at usage we also swapped ွ and ဢ because of their frequency of use.

Installation

Linux 1. Go to the repo link above to get the .mim file 2. Install IBus 2. Create folder ~/.m17n.d/ 3. Place the .mim file into the folder ~/.m17n.d/