The first step is to create a new keyboard layout with the New Based On… command from the File menu. Since the Yolngu keyboard layout is going to be largely the same as the standard English keyboard, we will choose to make start with the US Extended keyboard layout, which is supplied with Ukelele. To do this, we navigate to the Unicode folder inside the System Keyboards which was included on the Ukelele installation disk image.

Clicking Open will create a new keyboard layout which is a copy of the US Extended keyboard layout. The main window will appear with the new keyboard layout loaded. The way this window looks will depend on what hardware keyboard is attached to your Mac. The images used in this tutorial are those of a PowerBook G4 Aluminium.

If your keyboard looks different, and you want to follow the images exactly, you can choose this keyboard layout for display. Choose “Keyboard Type…” from the View menu, and select “PowerBook USB internal” from the popup button on the left, and “ANSI” from the popup button on the right, then click OK.

Naming the keyboard layout

The next task is to name the keyboard layout. This can be done at any time, but it’s a good idea to get used to giving a name when you create it, so that you don’t end up with several keyboard layouts all called “untitled”.

This step is quite simple. Choose “Set Keyboard Name…” from the Keyboard menu.

Now, type the name in the dialog box. In this case, we are going to call it “Yolngu”.

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