KTouch

KTouch A program for learning touch typing on a keyboard quickly and correctly.

General Information

KTouch is a program for learning touch typing. Every finger has its place on the keyboard with associated keys to press. Starting with only a few keys to remember you will advance through different training levels where additional keys are introduced. Because you no longer need to search for the keys on the keyboard you will be able to type quickly and accurately.

How to Add a Keyboard Layout to KTouch

KTouch comes with a number of pre-installed keyboard files. You can simply select the keyboard from the list in the main menu that matches your own keyboard layout. If you can't find a matching keyboard layout, you can either port an old one or make one from scratch. KTouch includes a dialog to make it easy for you.

If your keyboard layout is not in the KTouch -> Settings -> Keyboard Layouts list, it might have existed in early versions but have not been ported to the KDE SC 4.x version. Have a look there http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdeedu/ktouch/keyboards/old_and_contributed/ to see if your keyboard is in this list, with the extension .keyboard. If so, you'll need to port it to the .keyboard.xml version. Read on, and I'll explain how to do that.

Download the .keyboard file from the link above. Open KTouch and go to the File -> Edit Keyboard Layout... menu. You'll get a dialog. Choose here "Open a Keyboard File" and browse to find the .keyboard file you downloaded; click Ok. The old keyboard file is loaded in the keyboard editor and all you need now to do is check if the layout is correct.You might need to add some characters on some keys.

The KTouch Keyboard Editor first lists the Keyboard Identification Data which is the name of the keyboard file. The title is the name that will show in the menu and will be translated. The keyboard itself is drawn at the bottom and you need to click on the keys you want to modify to enable the Key Property section. Each key has four parts: top left, bottom left, top right and bottom right. Add the letter or characters that would fit there.

On the top right section of the dialog you can save your keyboard and it'll get the .keyboard.xml extension. You can then send it to the kde-edu mailing so it'll get included in the next KTouch release!