How do I type a caron in LingfilSemitica keyboard

Keyman
1

I’m trying to help southern African users who need the ḓ character to type Venda. The instructions very clearly indicate:
A caron/circumflex toggling (◌̌/◌̂/◌̬/◌̭) is performed by ’◌̂’.
but I have no idea how to perform that. I have opened OnBoard to try to view the keyboard, and I have tried various combinations of ctrl, alt, shift and ^ to no avail.

Where can I find a guide for how to type the various combining marks for this keyboard?

2

I think this is the guide, but I don’t see a way to accomplish the characters you want:
https://help.keyman.com/keyboard/lingfilsemitica/3.6.0/lingfilsemiticahelp.htm#_Toc229546310

You could try the sil_ipa keyboard, but it isn’t designed for typing uppercase so isn’t useful as a keyboard for an orthography.

3

Yes, you’re correct. I think in the interval, I’ll probably just suggest using Espanso to provide the few non-standard characters needed.

Thanks.

4

I downloaded the keyboard, and after some experimentation realized it works once I know it is not using a US keyboard as the base.

The instructions say ă is entered by a then CTRL-Shift -.
Pressing Ctrl+Shift- again will then cycle through ȃa̯a̮
On my US keyboard, what the instructions mean by - is the key labeled / (bottom row-right most key).

5

You could consider creating a keyboard for Venda with Keyman Developer? It’d be a better experience all round for the users :slight_smile:

6

This could be true. However, without a consensus from the community I might just be muddying the waters further. For my use case, creating a keyboard is more work than the likely benefit. If the South African and Zimbabwean educational authorities decided upon a common layout for Venda, it would definitely be worthwhile to create a Keyman file for it.