King Kong is a keyboard layout for Quikscript that incorporates some of the design decisions of Sebeolsik 390 and Final into a keyboard designed for Anglophones. It generates code points in the Private Use Area — from U+E650 to U+E67E.

Want to just look at it? Visit https://adiabatic.github.io/king-kong/. You’re probably more interested in the MacBook layout at the bottom than you are in the Ergodox EZ layout at the top. A couple keys are switched between the two layouts.

• The more common letters (·It, ·No, ·Utter, etc.) are placed in easier-to-type positions. Infrequently-used letters like ·J’ai and ·Jay require reaching.
• Vowels are in the middle, consonants are on the edges.
• Numbers are in a 3×3 grid on the right side of the keyboard; hold Shift to type them.
• there are dedicated keys for the following:
  • “ and ”
  • ‘ and ’
  • …
  • – (en dash)
  • — (em dash)
• The punctuation from ⇧1 (!) to ⇧7 (&) has been moved down and to the right, and are on the shifted Z through M keys.
• ·Llan and ·Loch are ⌥L and ⌥X, respectively. ·Ax and ·Exam are on ⌥Q and ⌥1.

Zeroth, you’ll want to figure out if you want to install just the .keylayout file or the bundle.

The bundle:

• has a cool distinctive icon (instead of the stock keyboard icon)
• makes a white-on-blue “A” icon show up sometimes when you go to type in a text box (not unlike when you start Dictation and a white-on-blue microphone icon shows up)

The raw .keylayout has neither of these things.

To actually install either the .keylayout file or the bundle:

1. Download a zipfile of the repository and double-click on it to extract it.
2. Open another Finder window.
3. from the Go menu, select Go to Folder… (⇧⌘G)
4. Type ~/Library and press Enter.
5. Create a new folder called Keyboard Layouts if one doesn’t exist already.

And either…

6. Copy King Kong.keylayout to the Keyboard Layouts folder in ~/Library/.

or…

6. Copy King Kong.bundle to the Keyboard Layouts folder in ~/Library/.

(if you’d like, you can also install King Kong in /Library/Keyboard Layouts, where it’ll be available to all users.)

1. Open System Settings.
2. Scroll down on the left until you get to Keyboard. Click on it.
3. Scroll down to the Text Input section. In the Input Sources list item, you’ll see something like Input Sources: U.S. [Edit…]. Click on the Edit button.
4. Click on the plus sign on the bottom left of the modal window.
5. In the search box on the bottom left, type “King”. “King Kong” should appear in the menu on the right. Or you can scroll down to the bottom of the list and choose Others. King Kong should be in that list.
6. Click on King Kong and then click on Add.

Toggle between your usual layout and King Kong by clicking on the menu bar entry. If your setup is like mine, you’ll have an A on a solid background for the U.S. layout and a keyboard icon for King Kong.

You should, by default, be able to cycle forward through all your keyboard layouts with ⌃␣ (Control-space). You can adjust this in System Settings.

In order for OS X to rescan your .keylayout files, the timestamp on the Keyboard Layouts directory must change. The easiest way to do this is:

1. Delete the .keylayout file in your Keyboard Layouts directory of choice.
2. Copy your new .keylayout file to either ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts/ or /Library/Keyboard Layouts/.

Simply overwriting the file won’t update the directory.

The included Makefile does this for ~/Library/.

1. Download the installer .zip and extract it somewhere. Your Downloads folder works fine for this.
2. Run setup.exe.

Some people have reported that MSKLC-generated setup files don’t work in some versions of Windows 8. It works fine on my machine (64-bit on x64).

To toggle between your normal layout and King Kong, press Ctrl-Shift. In Windows 8.1 on my machine, “ENG US” will be displayed on the Taskbar when QWERTY is being used, and just “ENG” will be displayed when King Kong is enabled.

·Ax, ·Exam, ·Llan, and ·Loch are on AltGr (hold ctrl and alt simultaneously).

I recommend uninstalling old versions of King Kong before updating. You can uninstall it in Programs and Features; it’s listed as “King Kong (PUA)”.

• This keyboard layout isn’t designed to create pre-ligated code points. Use a font that does that.

• Ctrl-shortcuts (C-a, C-e, C-k) don’t work reliably in macOS, either in BBEdit or when you’re using Caps Lock as a Ctrl key.

This layout is maintained in Ukelele for the macOS layout, and the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4 for the Windows version.

• Moved ·Low (and ·Llan) to L, swapping with ·Tea on ;. I kept pressing L when I wanted ·Low.
• Moved ·Pea to P, swapping with ·Vie on [. I kept pressing P when I wanted ·Pea.
• Moved ·Ax, ·Exam, ·Llan, and ·Loch to sensible places on the option key.
• Added Ergodox variant.

Prefer to type in Shavian instead? Have a look at King Shaw.