I have downloaded a new font set with Private Use Area Unicode Characters from ALPHABETUM UNICODE. Font for ancient scripts. The font is called Alphabetum and focuses on Ancient Languages. This is useful for teachers of Latin and Greek but other ancient languages and scripts, too, from Old English to Cuneiform.
I have the trial version, “Alpha-TEST”, but I can still see the full font set (with some watermarks) in my Windows character map. Within Keyman Developer I have changed its Character Map to the same font, Alpha-TEST. But I cannot find the characters I need - and I have spent a long time looking.
I realise that a font is not the same as a character map - but the font creator recommends Keyman Developer for the creation of tailored keyboards using his font set. So I am surprised that this isn’t more straightforward. An example is “U+E4B7: Private Use” - which should be “small letter e with breve over macron” (or some such). It is in the Alpha-TEST character map in Windows, but not in the same in Keyman.
The Keyman Developer character map does not currently support the Private Use Area. However, you can certainly use PUA characters in your keyboard without any problem. I suggest that you use the Unicode character values, e.g. U+E4B7 in your keyboard source rather than using the characters themselves, so for (a very basic) example:
+ [K_E] > U+E4B7 c small letter e with breve over macron
This way the keyboard source would be readable even if the Alpha-TEST font is not selected in the text editor.
Not basic enough for me, I’m afraid. I do not know what “+ [K_E] >” means. Nor do I know what you mean by “in your keyboard source” means. I have only just come across Keyman and watched one Youtube tutorial - so I am a total novice. All I know is that the Keyman character map for Alphabetum lacks the PUA characters visible in the Windows character map for Alphabetum. Despite your kind email I do not know what my next steps are. If you can point me to a tutorial somewhere, I’ll gladly work through that.
We have some keyboard develpoment tutorials online at Developing Keyboards. Hope these help! Feel free to ask questions here once you’ve worked through the tutorials!
