Where the Settings Live

Documentation / Contents - On-Screen Keyboard

• Overview of the On-Screen Keyboard
  • The Four Boards
  • One Keyboard Per Screen
• Bringing Up the Keyboard
  • The Show Key
  • The FindIt Gesture
  • The Taskbar Button and the Systray Icon
  • Putting It Away
• Typing With the Keyboard
  • Shift and Other Modifiers
  • Why Your Own Keyboard Still Works
  • Moving and Resizing the Board
• The Face Menu
• The Indicator Strip
• The Power Keys
• Word and Phrase Suggestions
• Layout, Size, and Placement
  • Keyboard Layout
  • Size
  • Where It Appears
• Setting Preferences
  • The Layout Page
  • The Appearance Page
  • The Behavior Page
  • The Session Page
  • The Typing Page
  • Defaults and Close
• Making the Keyboard Easier to Use
  • High-Contrast Colors
  • Hover to Press
  • A Bigger Board
• Keys and Shortcuts
• Where the Settings Live
• Copyright Information

Where the Settings Live

Everything the preferences panel sets is written to one plain text file, one setting per line, with "#" starting a comment. You never have to edit it, and you can if you want to.

~/.cyanotype/cyosk.conf  your settings
CYOSK_CONF               env variable: use this file instead
share/cyosk/cyosk.conf   the shipped defaults

The panel writes your file; the shipped file underneath it is not touched.

Layouts

Named layouts are files under the program's share directory:

share/cyosk/layouts/    the shipped layouts

A layout can be named on the cyosk command line, either by name or by path.

Making a Hand Edit Take Effect

The running keyboard re-reads its settings on request. The preferences panel does this for you every time you move a control, so the two never disagree. If you edit the file yourself, tell the running keyboard to re-read it:

cyosk --refresh

Sending the running keyboard a hangup signal has the same effect.

What Is Not in This File

• The show key. It belongs to the window manager and lives in ~/.cyanotype/keys.conf, which the Menu & Shortcuts editor writes. See Keys and Shortcuts.
• The colour scheme. The keyboard follows the desktop scheme unless you have chosen a high-contrast pair; the scheme itself is set elsewhere. See Making the Keyboard Easier to Use.
• Whether the keyboard starts at login. The setting is recorded here, but the session start-up script is what acts on it, so it takes effect at your next login.