Keyboardlayout

Using different Keyboard Layouts in KDE

Regardless whether you have a keyboard with German, US, British, or whatever layout, you can quickly switch between different Keyboard Layouts.

For example if you have a keyboard with a US layout, but want or need to use German Umlauts from time to time. In this case you might want to switch the keyboard layout to German for a while and then switch back to the US layout.

To be able to quickly switch between keyboard layouts in KDE, do the following:

• check that you have the system tray in your panel.
  
  The system tray contains a collection of small icons for the organizer, xchat, the clipboard etc:\\ if you do NOT have the system tray in the panel, do the following:

1. right click in the panel
2. select "Add Applet to Panel"
3. a selection window with many applets pops up
4. look for the applet "System Tray" (near the end of the list)
5. select "System Tray"
6. click on "Add to Panel"
7. the system tray is now available in your panel. Move it where you want to have it.

• now you need to enable keyboard layout switching support:

1. click on the "K" menu button in the panel
2. select "Settings" --> "Regional and Accessibility" --> "Keyboard Layout" (you need the "Settings" under the "Actions"-bar in the K-menu, not the one under the "All Applications"-bar)
3. a new window with the keyboard layout settings opens
4. click on "Enable keyboard layouts" if it is not already enabled
5. "Add" the layouts you want, e.g. "USA" and "Germany" (Manfred recommends to use the German layout in the "no dead keys" variant in order to be able to type characters like ~, `, ^ with a single key stroke.)
6. Select the tab "Switching Options"
7. click on "Show indicator for single layout" (if it is not already enabled)
8. click on "Show country flag" (if it is not already enabled)
9. click on "Apply"
10. click on "OK"

• you should now see a country flag (Germany, USA, ...) in the System tray
• you can now switch between keyboard layouts by simply clicking on the flag. The flag will change to the currently active layout.
• you should also be able to switch the layout with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+K

1. if not, you can change that by going to "Settings" --> "Regional and Accessibility" --> "Keyboard Shortcuts"
2. click on the last entry "Switch to Next Keyboard Layout" under the "Shortcut Schemes" - "Global Shortcuts" Tab
3. click on the Button below in the "Shortcut for Selected Action" area
4. Hit your shortcut
5. click on "Apply"