ELK: Cross platform key layout and font program

[Dan Harvey]

I am pleased to announce release of the ELK application (Extended Linguistic Keyboards). This project is an extension of ACORNS (Acquisition of Restored Native Speech), which is freeware software designed to support tribal efforts to support revitalization of language and culture. Its web-site is http://cs.sou.edu/~harveyd/elk 

The motivation for ELK is to enable language teachers to post language lessons to the Web or distribute them on CDs where language students do not have to install custom fonts or keyboard layouts. Unfortunately, there is not a standard mechanism for implementing keyboard layouts that works consistently on all computer platforms. For example, MAC computers use the .keylayout format which does not quite conform to the XML standard. Windows has an application MSKLC, but it creates relational database files that are compiled into a dynamic link library (DLL). Linux systems have a series of text files that work together to solve the problem. There are also other approaches, some commercial and some open source. As stated above, none of these work on all systems in a consistent manner.

ELK runs on any platform, and as such it allows users to create .keylayout files on any system. ACORNS uses this format to embed keyboard layouts into its applications. The project also provides an application interface that is usable by developers to provide similar capabilities in their software. ELK additionally includes a windows-based program (ElkKeyboards) that intercepts key strokes and applies .keylayout specifications to them.  ELK provides another useful and simple mechanism to create a .ttf fonts by dragging and dropping glyphs from a source .ttf file onto a virtual keyboard and clicking the save option.

This project provides the framework for platform-independent XML-based keyboard layout handling.  The software is open-source that can be downloaded and inspected. We welcome suggestions and developer contributions.

Regards,
Dan Harvey
Professor of Computer Science
Southern Oregon University
harveyd at sou.edu
http://cs.sou.edu/~harveyd