MacOS – Keyboard layout not usable in all programs

evernotekeyboardmacossparrowukelele

I have used Ukelele to create a keyboard layout file (foo.keylayout) that lives in ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts. I used a US english layout as a base and have added some keymappings that let me type æøå (Norwegian characters) by pressing the left alt/option key and the ', ; and [ keys, plus some other symbols I use often – all using the left alt/option key.

This works great in most programs, like this text area in Chrome, in Finder, Macvim, Terminal… almost everywhere.

But, in Evernote and Sparrow, these mappings do not work, and if I show the current layout in the menu, I see that it switches back to the US layout when I bring one of these programs to the front. It is not possible to switch to my own layout in the dropdown menu – it switches back to US again immediately.

Is it possible to fix this – or is this because of the technologies used by Evernote and Sparrow?

Best Answer

Things you could try:

  • Move the keyboard layout to /Library/Keyboard Layouts/. Keyboard layouts in the user library can't be selected in password dialogs or the login window.
  • Change the ID from Keyboard > Set Keyboard ID... in Ukelele.
  • Save the keyboard layout as a bundle instead of an XML file.

To apply changes to a keylayout file, you can for example run sudo touch /Library/Keyboard\ Layouts/ and log out and back in.

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