English example

[judocode]

Sorry I'm having trouble understanding how I can get this to work with English. It seems to require non-English chars and giving me UnsupportedChar on chars I want to use. Is there an example of how to use this with English? Thanks

[dariogoetz]

Have you tried using the standard_qwerty_ansi.yml keyboard config?

You can find the supported symbols in the base_layout.keys section. The first elements in those lists are the ones that you specify on the command line (however, only for those that have a false value in the section fixed_keys).

If you would like to modify the placement of other symbols, they would need to be edited in that keys section.

The standard keyboard config supposes a German neo layout and therefore requires you to type German umlauts and ß.

[judocode]

Oh okay thanks!

[FishOuttaWotah]

Not sure if OP managed to get it working, but I still got the same UnsupportedChar error using the default evaluation YML (with the similar_letter_groups section commented as per your 2022 Reddit thread here ), Oxey English ngrams and standard qwerty_ansi layout.

I ran the optimize_sa binary from Powershell:

.\target\release\optimize_sa -e .\config\evaluation\default.yml -n .\ngram\oxey_english.yml -l .\config\keyboard\standard_qwerty_ansi.yml

This was the error code encountered:

thread '<unnamed>' panicked at layout_optimization\layout_optimization_sa\src\optimization.rs:84:64:
called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: Invalid keyboard layout: Unsupported characters in provided layout (not in first level of `base_layout` and `fixed_keys` with value `false`): 'ßäöü'

Is there something else I missed in the configuration? LMK if you need any more supporting information from my end.

[dariogoetz]

Yes, in the "optimization case", this is a little ... subtle... (you may call it bad design :p)

You need to specify some form of base layout with the --fix-from parameter (because there is no layout string provided as in the "evaluation case"). Take a layout string that you would pass into the evaluate binary for your config (in particular without umlauts and ß) and place it behind the --fix-from parameter. If you fix any characters for the optimization (that shall not be moved around during optimization), their location will be taken from that layout string.

I hope, this helps. If you have further questions, just ask away :)

[FishOuttaWotah]

Thank you for the tip, the --fix-from parameter did the trick for me! Thanks again for the extensive work in the optimizer as well.

As a guide for others, this is what I've done:

1. In the layout YML, define the keys you want optimised in section base_layout::keys, and ensure that these locations have false values in section base_layout::fixed_keys.
2. List all characters that should be optimised in the --fix-from parameter when running the optimize_sa binary

The input I used looked like this:

.\target\release\optimize_sa.exe --fix-from "<all chars to optimise>"  -l .\config\keyboard\your_KB.yml -e .\config\evaluation\your_eval_params.yml -n.\ngrams\your_ngrams_dir