Should it be base.extras.xml.in? Thanks!

I had of course thought about the question whether the IPA layout should be in the base.extras.xml.in. But not considering that the concrete layout is completely made ex nihilo by me, which does not weigh much because the choices for positioning the letters mainly follow similarities in the usual QWERTZ layout (QWERTZ and not QWERTY, because one is more likely to write /z/ than /y/ for phonetical transcriptions, in particular also for English), there is nothing exotic about it. I expected you to know about why the International Phonetic Alphabet and this layout are important for the world. In fact this layout has use for everyone in the world as the International Phonetic Alphabet has the purpose of enabling to write any spoken language whatsoever. Thus the potential userbase is more than two billions, i.e. all the computer users in the world. There is currently not even an equivalent alternative (until now everyone is stuck to virtual keyboards or SaaSS).
It is particularly salient that we should expect random people to be glad to find it. It would be tragic if users would not get the knowledge about the existence of the layout because they are not knowledgeable about the load-extra-items settings in their desktop environments. On the other hand the provision of a visible International Phonetic Alphabet keyboard layout would definitely be good advertisement for free desktops. It’s not a crackpot product, it’s rather discontenting to learn that nobody has yet cared to create a layout for the IPA, and the absence of it is quite a shame.

In short: I have not made this layout for ten people, I have made it for millions, and the millions have no equipotent alternative to using that layout. The millions shall see it thus. It will undergo a warm reception in base.xml.in.

Yes I know what IPA is and how universally and globally it is important. And I understand your good intention. But how many people do need IPA layout in real life? Not the ability to see those symbols on the screen but the ability to type in it? I guess that would be a tiny fraction of users. That is why I think it belongs to extras.

Created attachment 134471 [details] [review]
This patch adds an original keyboard layout for writing the International Phonetic Alphabet to the keyboard layout extras

I have appended the patch to the base.extras.xml.in. And obsoleted the old one because it has had syntax errors (the closing variant and variantList tags without opening ones), not adding a corrected version of the base.xml.in proposal, reasoning the following:
I think it more likely that there are people who want to exercise themselves with such a layout than there are people who would alternative layouts like Colemak or Dvorak as this opposes to some degree usage of the usual layouts while the given IPA layout is for a kind of different alphabet and in addition to this the IPA layout is for the whole world. I have never thought about the issue in the way that there are people who would like to have the ability to see the symbols and click on them instead of writing them on a keyboard and looking the keysyms up until they do not need to see. But remembering how many people are dependent on a system of hunting down characters with one finger and how much people are prone to carrying out tasks with the mouse where keyboard work would be more suited, I have possibly esteemed the populace to high. The layout may dwell hidden in the extra layouts. I don’t need to care so much about those random people, as they intentionally use desktop environments that hide them choices, as though it were a goal to see a minimal amount of options and hack the way to the more intricate options. We can lay the path to some charming surprise by laying an IPA keyboard layout to a place requiring extra tweaks to be visible.

Thank you very much for understanding! If you manage to demonstrate some substantial userbase later - I would be most happy to reconsider and move it from extras.

Your patch will be applied right after I make the release next week (we are in the string freeze now, the release is already quite overdue).

Created attachment 134720 [details] [review]
This patch adds an original keyboard layout for writing the International Phonetic Alphabet to the keyboard layout extras, and with U+0261.

I have noticed that some applications processing IPA need ɡ U+0261 LATIN SMALL LETTER SCRIPT G to work or that they spit out errors with the ASCII sign and that the IPA extensions sign is preferred to g U+0067 LATIN SMALL LETTER G for the single reason that the ASCII character might have two stories while the IPA extensions character should always have one story. In most fonts (which fonts used for screens have a two story g?) both signs look identical and the IPA does not dictate the codepoints to be used, this is why I had been beguiled into abstracting from the difference into using only the ASCII sign. I have still left it because all first-layer signs are ASCII-compatible, but I have added the IPA extensions sign on the sixth layer of its key, pushing out only a filler sign (₴ – yes, there is quite some room free in the layout).

Created attachment 136777 [details] [review]
This patch adds an original keyboard layout for writing the International Phonetic Alphabet to the keyboard layout extras

Just in time I have found a wrong character that I fix here. I had U029F instead of U028F on a place, and have fixed this. Maybe this makes it easier to merge, I don’t know, because I have based this patch on today’s repository.

committed, thank you!

Created attachment 138128 [details] [review]
Added symbols/trans to Makefile

I have found out that one needs to register new files to Makefile.am for them to be packaged. Therefore here a patch which does it with the new “symbols/trans” file.

Thank you, committed!