The XO keyboard has a number of special keys and keycap symbols. The functions of these are discussed in more detail in the Human Interface Guidelines for Input Systems].
- the Search key has a magnifying glass and activates Journal search;
- the Bulletin Board key has two overlapping rectangles and is to toggle display of the shared visual clipboard (not yet implemented);
- the Frame key has an open rectangle on it and toggles the Frame;
- the Language key found on some keyboards has two types of letters and switches between different alphabets;
- the Grab keys have hands on them and turn the trackpad into a scrolling device;
- the View Source key has a gear on it , is accessed as Fn-Space, and displays activity or system source;
- the membrane keyboard progressive slider has no defined use and is to be available for activities to bind. (ticket #10534 currently affects this.)
- brightness down (or F9), decreases the display backlight, with Alt turns the backlight off, with Ctrl toggles monochrome,
- brightness up (or F10), increases the display backlight, with Alt turns the backlight fully on,
- volume down (or F11), decreases the speaker and headphone volume,
- volume up (or F12), increases the speaker and headphone volume.
If you are trying to locate a key used on an conventional computer that seems to be "missing" on an XO membrane keyboard, the following table may help you:
|conventional key||XO membrane keyboard|
|Esc||a white × inside a black disc|
|F1||the Neighborhood View key|
|F2||the Group View key|
|F3||the Home View key|
|F4||the Activity View key|
There is no Caps Lock key.
There are other controls on the XO that are not on the keyboard: the direction pad, game controls, screen rotation, and power button. They are described in the manual.
Languages other than English
OLPC keyboard layouts
Changing the language of the keyboard is independent of changing the language currently displayed. The language currently displayed can be changed by using the Language section of the Sugar Control Panel.
Membrane keyboard layouts
English (US international); Spanish (Latin America); Portuguese (Brazilian); Amharic (Ethiopic); Arabic; Nigerian (Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba); French; Thai; Urdu; Cyrillic (Russian); Turkish; Nepali; Mongolian; Kazakh; Devanagari; Uzbek; Pashto; Dari; Armenian; Khmer; Pulaar; Italian; Kreyòl; German; Chinese (Simplified); OLPC AZERTY
Non-membrane keyboard layouts
Blank Keyboard Artwork
Artwork defining the inner dimensions of the membrane keyboard is available here: keyboard-blank.svg
To see what languages are currently supported, go to Manufacturing Data#Keyboards.
You can also click on the link to each language to find out how to configure the keyboard layout. For activity localization, see Sugar Control Panel.
If the characters do not display correctly, you might need to install language-specific font(s). Drop the ttf file into /usr/share/fonts and rerun fc-cache.
Typing Non-English characters
Many common characters can be typed directly as well by using the AltGr key in combination with other keys. For example, on the US keyboard:
- AltGr+c to type cedilla (ç);
- AltGr+n to type n with a tilde (ñ);
- a followed by AltGr+4 to type a with an accent acute (á);
- e followed by AltGr+3 to type e with an accent grave (è).
Many (but not all) activities also let you enter Unicode directly: Hold down the Ctrl+Shift keys while you type u followed by the 4-digit code point for the character you want, e.g., Ctrl+Shift+u03A9 to type the Greek capital letter Omega (Ω). (You need to hold the Ctrl and Shift keys while you type all five characters.)