Have you found the Big Bag for XKB yet? That's where I try to clarify everything. That, and the Github repo.

I've considered asking the xkb people to add my Big Bag to xkb-data, but haven't yet gotten to the point where I can make a proper pull request.

The Wide and Angle mods are geometries so they will affect Extend. Colemak-DH started as a purely "soft" mod but unfortunately now it's a bit of both since I want Ctrl+V to still be Paste both in the layout and Extend positions. So there's a special set of Extend Angle geometries to account for that. Modularity couldn't be maintained completely.

But at heart, the DH mod is still an option for Colemak. So it only changes the necessary keys around, in any layout. Best not use it with a non-Colemak layout then, hehe!

edited the us layout file

only prob is the caps lock backspace doesn't repeat

diff

halp

But oyo stated above that they don't want to sudo on /etc, with which I do sympathize. I've tried using the local directory option of setxkbmap without success earlier. But I recently heard of a trick someone used to make it work with a local dir: Pipe the print output from setxkbmap to xkbcomp. I'll look into that when I can.

I've had some trouble with key repeat in some distros when using Extend though. Fair warning.

It does, but as I remember it people had trouble actually running the layout from the local dir. It's been a while since I checked this though...

Hi, Xkb can read files from the home directory, but it needs to recompile/reread keyboard descriptions (via xkbcomp with -I option). I've tried and backspace does repeat (altough I prefer having caps as ctrl). I use a simple script that is run in ~/.xinitrc to ensure it reads my custom layout.

I've created a ~/.config/xkb directory that contains symbols/ and keymap/ directories. Run setxkbmap -layout "us(colemak)" && setxkbmap -print and save the output in ~/.config/xkb/keymap/custom.xkb. Then create a file in symbols/. Let's call it custom. Let everything be as it is, just remap the keys you want. In my case:

# ~/.config/xkb/symbols/custom
default partial
xkb_symbols "colemak" {
		include "us(colemak)"

			# Qwerty B to \
    key <AB05> { [            backslash,            bar,      dead_breve,       asciitilde ] };

		# TOP
    key <AD05> { [            b,            B,      dead_breve,       asciitilde ] };

		# HOM
    key <AC05> { [            g,            G,      dead_ogonek,       asciitilde ] };
    key <AC06> { [            k,            K,  dead_abovering,       asciitilde ] };

		# BOT
    key <LSGT> { [            z,            Z,       zabovedot,        Zabovedot ] };
    key <AB01> { [            x,            X, 	        zacute,           Zacute ] };
    key <AB02> { [            c,            C,          cacute,           Cacute ] };
    key <AB03> { [            d,            D,  dead_diaeresis,       asciitilde ] };
    key <AB04> { [            v,            V,      dead_hacek,       dead_caron ] };
    key <AB06> { [            m,            M,     dead_macron,       asciitilde ] };
    key <AB07> { [            h,            H,      dead_caron,       asciitilde ] };

    include "level3(ralt_switch)"

};

You can create a full layout, but I'm lazy so just included us(colemak) and rebound what I wanted. Let't go back and edit ~/.config/xkb/keymap/custom.xkb:

#~/.config/xkb/keymap/custom.xkb
xkb_keymap {
	xkb_keycodes  { include "evdev+aliases(qwerty)" };
	xkb_types     { include "complete"      };
	xkb_compat    { include "complete"      };
	#xkb_symbols   { include "pc+us(colemak)+inet(evdev)" }; # Generated via setxkbmap
	
	# Custom colemak
	xkb_symbols   { include "pc+custom(colemak)+inet(evdev)" };
	
	xkb_geometry  { include "pc(pc105)"     };
};

I have a pc105 (uk style) keyboard, so your output from setxkbmap might be different. Also, why custom(colemak)? colemak is the value of xkb_symbols in our file, custom is the name of the file.

My script that I run via "$HOME/.bin/xkb.sh" in my ~/.xinitrc:

#~/.bin/xkb.sh
#!/bin/sh
XKBDIR="$HOME/.config/xkb"
xkbcomp -synch -w3 -I$XKBDIR $XKBDIR/keymap/custom.xkb $DISPLAY &>/dev/null

(Remember to chmod +x the script). Tested only on Void Linux, but it shouldn't depend on a distro (as long as you run Xorg and not Wayland, of course). I think it should work with any directory, just change the value of $XKBDIR in this script as appropriate. The script can be run in the terminal to change the layout immediately (no need to restart Xorg, lol). Btw. setxkbmap doesn't have to be invoked. The layout should be loaded on its own.

EDIT: Changed the layout a bit, but I highly suggest using your own setup. I'm gonna make some other changes to it, but my goal is to fill my needs, e.g. I'm gonna use backslash as an extra super key.