[HN Gopher] Show HN: My proposal for a new keyboard layout ___________________________________________________________________ Show HN: My proposal for a new keyboard layout Author : noname120 Score : 86 points Date : 2021-11-15 17:01 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (github.com) (TXT) w3m dump (github.com) | tom_ wrote: | The BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum used ASCII 0x60 for PS, the early | 1980s probably being about the last time you could design a | computer without caring what Americans thought. Maybe you could | sort-of follow that trend, by squeezing PS onto the ~` key | somewhere, and cover even more of Europe-the-continent with the | basic layout? | | (Why does the 102nd key (between left shift and Z) have another | copy of < and >? This is good in a sense, because the layout | works for both ANSI- and ISO-type keyboards. But it does seem a | bit redundant.) | | While as a longstanding US-Dvorak user, I would not contemplate | switching back to QWERTY, this layout does look very sensible. I | particularly like the US-style punctuation placement. (Far | superior, in my view! " in particular is very convenient.) | miguelrochefort wrote: | Interesting. Years ago, I made a very similar custom Dvorak | layout for French accents. The main benefit was that all vowels | are located on the left side of the middle row. | | With that said, I don't think I've typed a French accent on a | physical keyboard in almost a decade. For the most part (99%), | I've stopped reading and writing in French. On the rare occasions | I need to write French formally, I usually copy and paste the | accents missed by the spell checker. | argentinian wrote: | It's not the same idea because it doesn't try to make it look | like querty, but the colemak layout allows typing characters from | most languages with a modifier key and sometimes (for the less | common characters) a combo. In this link it illustrates this | https://colemak.com/Multilingual | | And linux (or at least Ubuntu) includes it by default. For | spanish and german it's great. | baby wrote: | > The official and widely spread keyboard layout in France is | AZERTY. Compared to QWERTY, it adds extra letters such as << e >> | and << c >>. Unfortunately a lot of characters are missing, for | example it's impossible to type << E >> or << C >>. It's also | impossible to type the French quotation marks (<< >>), and other | special characters such as << oe >> and << ae >>. French users | usually rely on autocorrect to fix the shortcomings of AZERTY, | which is unacceptable. | | I would argue that we should just get rid of accents on uppercase | letters, and that we should get rid of characters like oe and ae. | Also what is the point of having different quotation marks? Even | in english. Language gets simpler over time, let's just take a | shortcut. | version_five wrote: | If you were writing something formal for work, and were told to | just get rid of essential characters or punctuation in your | working language and adopt those of another language, do you | think your audience would be OK with that? | baby wrote: | I'm not talking about adopting those of another language, I'm | talking about L'Academie francaise changing the rules of the | language, like they've done multiple times to simplify the | language[1]. Do you find all these extra accents confusing? | Most French people do as well, and most people do not use | them correctly anyway (even in writing). It's not just French | people, my SO is Romanian and they have the same issue and | will often omit their special characters when writing. | | [1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectifications_orthographi | ques... | penjelly wrote: | i like the idea of using a keyboard layout thats more efficient | for typing common characters, less finger travel. But the thought | of having to relearn muscle memory and not being able to just | grab any old keyboard are both huge turnoffs for me. | | i assume for #2 i could programmatically remap keys with no | effect in input latency? which then would require merely changing | a few keycaps around... can anyone confirm if this would be the | case? | aiibe wrote: | Tested on Windows 10 with no issues. | | I use QWERTY for coding but sometimes need to document other | things in French. This is a pain killer. | noname120 wrote: | As a resident of France, the official and widespread keyboard | layout is AZERTY. | | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/KB_Franc... | (AZERTY layout screenshot) | | It looks similar to QWERTY, but some letters are swapped | around[1], and some extra characters are added so that we can | type in French easily -- well at least that was the intent. | | The big problem with this layout is that we can't type proper | French with it. A lot of characters are missing, for example you | can type << e >> but not << E >> which is its uppercase | counterpart. Same goes with << c >>, you need to remember to type | the unicode key code with Alt+128 to type << C >> otherwise you | need to cross fingers that the autocorrect will catch it. Oh and | those French quotation marks that I'm using? They are not | available on AZERTY either! Even though they are the ones that | should be used in French. | | Another problem is that I'm a programmer and QWERTY is | colloquially known as the programmers' Dvorak. Every piece of | software in the world and every shortcut is meant for the QWERTY | layout. Using another layout is the source of a lot of pain | because intuitive shortcuts become awkward, or simply don't work | at all and a lot of remapping is required. | | In a nutshell, AZERTY is the worst of both worlds -- the people | who designed it just wanted to see the world burn apparently. | | Due to this frustration I've been working on a keyboard layout | that does exactly the opposite: bring the best of both worlds. | This layout is called qwerty-fr. | | https://github.com/qwerty-fr/qwerty-fr/raw/master/qwerty-fr-... | (QWERTY-fr layout screenshot) | | It can look a bit overwhelming at first, but it's actually really | simple. It is a strict superset of QWERTY, which means that | anyone who knows QWERTY can type on this layout without even | knowing that it's not a real QWERTY layout. Additionally, all the | accentuated characters can be typed directly by combining the | right Alt and another key, contrary to what it looks this is | actually very convenient and doesn't slow down French typing | speed noticeably. | | It goes further, I've added special dead keys that make it super | easy to type greek and currencies (math is coming soon). Just do | AltGr + g (g for "greek") and the layout becomes: | | https://i.imgur.com/pCHipNH.png (Greek layout screenshot) | | You can then press any letter to type the corresponding greek | character -- for example "p" for "p". | | For currencies, press AltGr + Shift + 5, and the layout | becomes[3]: | | https://i.imgur.com/XH6gp6c.png (Currency layout screenshot) | | You can then just press the letter "y" for "Y=". Easy peasy. | | Next step is adding a math dead key[4], but that's for another | release. | | [1] Nobody knows why the A and Q were swapped, neither why the Z | and W were swapped. Also why on earth is there an entire key | exclusively dedicated to << 2 >>?! | | [2] EUR is on AltGr + 5, which makes it easy to remember. | | [3] This rendering of the currency layout is actually outdated, | I've switched the positions of the currencies to make them easier | to remember. For example, "p" now yields "PS". You can see the | current mapping here: https://github.com/qwerty-fr/qwerty- | fr/blob/aa44310587f574cb... | | [4] https://github.com/qwerty-fr/qwerty-fr/issues/11 | zokier wrote: | I did too create my own keyboard layout based on us-intl layout | because the local (fi/sv) native keyboard is pretty bad. I took | bit more liberties with the layout to be more of a compromise | (;:<> were moved around to make space for oa), but overall I'm | really happy with the result and recommend better keyboard | layouts to any non-US developers/power-users. | | US-intl layout: https://kbdlayout.info/KBDUSX/ | | Finnish layout: https://kbdlayout.info/KBDFI/ | | Note how all of ~[]{}\$@| are only accessible with altgr. | | My layout: | https://kbdlayout.info/06e90945-d036-4d0b-9627-7e840edf9b4e | simlevesque wrote: | As a francophone, I've always used Canadien Multilingue Standard, | it's perfect if your goal is to write english and french. | giaour wrote: | Seconded! I taught French in the US, and Canada multilingual | was the most ergonomic way to switch between languages without | switching keyboard layouts. | timost wrote: | I use linux UK international layout. Like AZERTY, it's an ISO | based layout: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_American_keyboards... | | It's not available on windows though, so I had to hack a lenovo | thinkpad external keyboard to make it compatible with QMK to be | able to work properly at my current job. | csdvrx wrote: | Given how everybody has a different answer (use the | Canadian/Spanish/Swiss keyboard, use the Compose key, go for | Colemak/Dvorak...) that seems to overlook how, like it or not, | the US Qwerty keyboard is _the_ standard for programmers, I think | you 're on to something! | | Good luck to you! | | One question though: the French seem to enjoy using different | standards, for some reason. Besides the keyboard, I've also | noticed they have a lot of WIFI channel exclusions. | | I'm not saying it's good or bad, but do you think this might | impede the success of your project? | 908B64B197 wrote: | > Given how everybody has a different answer (use the | Canadian/Spanish/Swiss keyboard, use the Compose key, go for | Colemak/Dvorak...) | | I'd advise the author to go one step further and adopt the ANSI | layout instead of ISO. So you can just get the US version with | most of the keys already etched with the correct symbol, no | matter where you are in the world. | | > One question though: the French seem to enjoy using different | standards, for some reason. | | Not French, but here's an observation: the French world has | great engineering schools like the Polytechniques (Paris, | Montreal, Lausanne) or Mines. And the French government | historically had military procurement and R&D done inside the | country as well. They are, for instance, the only country | outside of the United States to have built and operate a | nuclear aircraft carrier. | csdvrx wrote: | > I'd advise the author to go one step further and adopt the | ANSI layout instead of ISO. So you can just get the US | version with most of the keys already etched with the correct | symbol, no matter where you are in the world. | | Totally. I once had to use a UK keyboard with this weird | vertical ISO enter key - it's a pain. | | I think I might live with a smaller space bar, as I got a | rare IBM SK-8835 keyboard in JP locale before I could source | a US one ( see: http://www.komotch2.com/junk/kj/sk8835lj.htm | ): the true dealbreaker was the ISO enter key. | | The carveout from the spacebar were actually pretty handy, to | map with AutoHotKey extra keys staying right by my thumbs :) | | > They are, for instance, the only country outside of the | United States to have built and operate a nuclear aircraft | carrier. | | I love that a lot of countries do a lot of things: we need | more alternatives to avoid duopolies (MIPS to avoid AMD64 vs | ARM64, Firefox OS to avoid Android vs iOS) | | And it's even better when the 3rd alternative offers unique | advantages! | | But using a different keyboard layout for no reason at all... | sorry, I don't get that. It makes life harder for everyone, | with 0 practical benefit. | | It's like if some country mandated a square USB-C connector: | breaking a standard, just for the pleasure of breaking it, to | make things more expansive, create more e-waste, etc. | 908B64B197 wrote: | > But using a different keyboard layout for no reason at | all... sorry, I don't get that. It makes life harder for | everyone, with 0 practical benefit. | | It originally appeared in the 19th century for typewriters, | so it's not exactly new. | tbassetto wrote: | > the French seem to enjoy using different standards | | I chuckled :). How dare they use the metric system and degree | Celsius? You got me curious about the WiFi channels though, but | it looks like there is nothing specific to France: | https://www.lairdconnect.com/support/faqs/what-channels-are-... | scottlamb wrote: | >> the French seem to enjoy using different standards | | > How dare they use the metric system and degree Celsius? | | Judgements about what they dare to do aside, isn't it fair to | call those French? The metric system is based on the meter, a | French unit. The International Prototype Kilogram (obsoleted | only recently) was stored in France. While Celsius wasn't | invented in France, a Frenchman flipped the scale | (originally, freezing was 100 and boiling was 0). etc. | | Not Invented Here syndrome doesn't mean that what you do | invent here can't be good, that you can't sometimes get the | rest of the world to agree with you, or that you abandon | anything that's successful. | mrweasel wrote: | I don't think you're right about the US layout being standard | for programmers. It might be in some countries, but I've meet | maybe two Danish prograamers that uses US layout. | | The weird part about this layout is that you can use it for | English, French, German and Swedish (maybe more), but leave out | exactly one Danish characther making it useless for Danish. Why | leave even add ae and o if you leave out a? | jonsen wrote: | I don't think we've met. I'm Danish. I use the US keyboard | layout. | elros wrote: | No idea about o but ae is used (very rarely, to be fair) in | French. Famously, it's used in the name Laetitia. We enjoy | having characters that are important but comparatively rare, | such as u, which has a key of its own in the French keyboard | even though it is used in a single word, "ou" (meaning | where), to differentiate it from "ou" (meaning or). I've | always felt the key might as well say "ou" on it :-) | noname120 wrote: | Thank you! :) | | The fact that most people ask "Why shouldn't I use alternative | <x> instead?" means that I need to improve my README file to | show better why QWERTY-fr is truly different from all the other | keyboard layouts, and what makes it stick out! | | Colloquially, I already planned to update the website[1] with a | tutorial guiding the user step by step through the philosophy. | Hopefully this will help users understand its value | proposition! | | [1] https://qwerty-fr.org | | -- | | With regards to the different standards, I agree that French | people tend to reinvent the wheel. I have nothing against that | but the big issue is that they _never_ look well at the | previous attempts, which leads to crappy alternative standards. | This project aims to reinvent the wheel but in a good way! | | I plan to get this keyboard layout standardized by a | standardization organization once it's stable. It should help | adoption because I could then convince OS maintainers to add it | as an available layout. :) | laurent123456 wrote: | > With regards to the different standards, I agree that | French people tend to reinvent the wheel. I have nothing | against that but the big issue is that they never look well | at the previous attempts | | Well not everything as to be from America and in English | language. Different attempts are made in different countries | and it's true that US attempts tend to stick, not necessarily | because they are superior, but because of the general US | influence. | | It's true that AZERTY is an annoying layout but only because | everything is made as if the only existing layout was QWERTY. | csdvrx wrote: | > I agree that French people tend to reinvent the wheel. | | If their wheel is better, why not? | | > I have nothing against that but the big issue is that they | never look well at the previous attempts, which leads to | crappy alternative standards. This project aims to reinvent | the wheel but in a good way! | | Great answer, I totally agree!! | | I wish you a lot of luck, as I'm a bit irked to have to | provide support for weird keyboards! (I hope someone from | Germany will do as you did so QWERTZ can also die :-) | | > I plan to get this keyboard layout standardized by a | standardization organization once it's stable. | | Even better! Using standards is a great way to work around | many issues. | | One last thing: if I may suggest, you should replace the | default picture by one with fewer characters: the german b, | the spanish N, and the scandinavian character (oslash, ae) | may be nice to have, but they may play against you: French | users may see them as irrelevant, and cluttering the | keyboard. | | Trim everything you can, to only have as little extra | characters as necessary to support french. | | For similar reasons, you may want to unify the blue and the | red overlays. I've figured out that the right Alt did toggle | the blue overlay, but I still don't understand how to get the | red one. | | Given that blue and red do not coexist on any key, merging | the red keys into the blue overlay may be for the better: you | want what you offer to be extremely clear and simple to | understand | noname120 wrote: | > One last thing: if I may suggest, you should replace the | default picture by one with fewer characters: the german b, | the spanish N, and the scandinavian character (oslash, ae) | may be nice to have, but they may play against you: French | users may see them as irrelevant, and cluttering the | keyboard. | | This is a very good suggestion! I should definitely show a | simplified screenshot, and only introduce the extra | characters in an advanced section. This should make it look | less overwhelming. | | > For similar reasons, you may want to unify the blue and | the red overlays. I've figured out that the right Alt did | toggle the blue overlay, but I still don't understand how | to get the red one. | | For other readers, you're referring to https://qwerty- | fr.org/. Blue means that it's accessible with AltGr, and | red means that the key is a dead key. | | In a nutshell: | | - Lower left corner: no modifier. | | - Upper left corner: Shift. | | - Lower right corner: AltGr. | | - Upper right corner: AltGr + Shift. | | I agree that this is confusing, especially since the | keyboard widget doesn't highlight the layer when you press | e.g. AltGr + Shift so it's hard to know what's going to | happen. | scastiel wrote: | Have you tried the Canadian-French layout? It's pretty much what | you were looking for ;) | noname120 wrote: | I find the Canadian-French layout[1] to be pretty hard to | learn, because the placement of characters is confusing. For | example: | | - +- is on key 1 (?) | | - 2 is on key 8 (?!) | | - can't directly type eeee, aaa, uuu, iii[2]. | | - EUR is not available (big oops for a French keyboard layout). | | - oe and ae are not available either. | | - no support for no-break space and narrow no-break space (they | are mandatory in French around punctuation). | | QWERTY-fr aims to be super easy to learn if you know QWERTY | thanks to its logical philosophy -- you can read about it | here[3]. | | What do you think? :) | | [1] http://kbdlayout.info/KBDCA/ | | [2] You need to press a dead key first, which is awkward and | slow. The fact that dead keys are placed seemingly randomly | makes it even worse. | | [3] https://github.com/qwerty-fr/qwerty-fr#-philosophy-overview | leblancfg wrote: | Here's a link to the MacOS version layout for alt-codes, | which I believe handles all your points except the last: | https://i.stack.imgur.com/v1ZLm.png | noname120 wrote: | Thank you for the clarification. If I understand correctly, | one needs to press two keys to print << E >>. Do you agree? | | If it's right, I believe that it only invalidates point #4. | FrancoisBosun wrote: | Shift + /, when using fr-CA, does return E. Is that what | you meant with "two keys". For oe or OE, I use Option+Q | or Option+Shift+Q (Mac Big Sur). | DocTomoe wrote: | You seem to be trying to solve a problem that could easily be | solved by using a Compose key: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key | abrowne wrote: | I recently switched from compose key to this layout (and | suggested to the developer to update the Linux release ;-) and | it is much nicer to type eg AltGr+a for a instead of Compose+` | then a. (I keep compose on PrtSc for extra characters like | arrows.) | Zealotux wrote: | As a French, I consider the Spanish (Spain) keyboard to be the | ultimate layout, that one doesn't look bad but way too bloated. | noname120 wrote: | Contrary to QWERTY-fr, you can't type accentuated letters | directly with the Spanish layout[1]. I find that it | considerably lowers my speed when typing French. | | I agree that QWERTY-fr looks bloated on the first look, but the | position of keys actually make sense so it is super easy to | learn. I recommend you to read the philosophy[2] behind this | keyboard layout. | | What do you think? | | [1] https://www.goodtyping.com/teclatESP.png | | [2] https://github.com/qwerty-fr/qwerty-fr#-philosophy-overview | hadrien01 wrote: | Same here. I've been using the Spanish layout for fifteen years | now, and it's so natural to use with a QWERTY layout and | diacritics even on uppercase. | Foobar8568 wrote: | Swiss layout is the best layout for French speakers | noname120 wrote: | Can you type << C >> and << E >> with the Swiss layout[1]? What | about the French quotation marks (<< >>)? | | [1] https://www.goodtyping.com/teclatSWI.htm | Tagbert wrote: | Does anyone make a small auxiliary keyboard, similar to a | freestanding numpad, that can be programmed for various | characters and functions? I would love to be able to setup a | custom keyboard for special characters that I need repeatedly but | don't want to have to force them onto the regular keyboard. | frederikvs wrote: | Search the web for "macropad", you should find what you need. | If you go for something QMK-based, you can program it any way | you want. | djbeadle wrote: | I believe you're looking for a "macropad". I recently bought | this one from Adafruit and while not life changing it is pretty | nifty especially combined with BetterTouchTool. | | https://www.adafruit.com/product/5128 | andrewstuart wrote: | I wish all keyboards had dedicated cut/copy/paste buttons. | bloopernova wrote: | Get yourself a macro pad. I have a KeebIO BDN9 rev2: | https://keeb.io/collections/frontpage/products/bdn9-rev-2-3x... | - It requires some soldering, but there's other versions and | types of macropad that don't need assembling. | | Here's mine, top left: https://imgur.com/gallery/Pa51o8c | | (apologies, that was the image I had immediately available) | Top row is volume, Emacs save (ctrl-x ctrl-s), scroll/zoom | Middle row is layer change, Meta-x (command palette in Emacs), | Ctrl-g (quit/escape in Emacs) Bottom row is Meta, Super, | Esc-c (in my zsh, it runs "fd --type directory" in the fzf | tool, which lets me type a few characters of a directory to cd | to it, however deep it is) | | Macro pads can be controlled by QMK firmware (which I use) | which is reconfigured by editing c code. There's also VIA | firmware which is also very flexible. Other manufacturers will | have their own proprietary systems. | stavros wrote: | Hmm, why is the Greek layout not the same as the el keyboard | layout? I know it's geared towards the French language, but it | seems needlessly complicated to map the Greek letters differently | from the Greek layout... | speedgoose wrote: | I personally use the bepo layout which, to me, feels better than | qwerty or azerty layouts. Have you tried to use the bepo layout? | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%89PO | https://bepo.fr/wiki/Accueil | noname120 wrote: | Yes I did! I actually used to have bepo as my primary keyboard | layout. | | My main problem with it is that it only optimizes French, and | it (implicitly) deoptimizes everything else. For example "W" is | awkwardly placed at the very edge of the keyboard, which makes | typing English pretty annoying. Keyboard shortcuts are pretty | inconvenient as well. | | Imho bepo is great if you write pages of raw text every day in | French -- for example journalists and writers. But apart from | this it's not pragmatic for other usages -- and I want my | keyboard layout to be good enough everywhere, not just at | typing French. | athenot wrote: | I switched from AZERTY to QWERTY and can type French nearly as | fast. On the Mac, doing Ee, Ee, Ii, Oo, Ou, Ii, etc is not | noticeably slower. | airstrike wrote: | How about just using Qwerty + US International? | | aeaecaeoaeiui AEAECAE... | | You can even do <<>> with Alt Gr+[ and ] and EUR with Alt Gr+5 | JeanSebTr wrote: | Yes! As a French Canadian, that's my preferred layout. | | Its advantage is that it uses dead keys to add diacritic. | | For instance (Alt Gr+i then [normal vowel key]) will give | ioea... You just have to know the diacritic position and press | the normal letter to apply it. | aloisdg wrote: | This is what I do to. | 3np wrote: | aka us-altgr-intl. Sounds to me like the author may not be | aware of it, as it addresses all their major motivations | davidinosauro wrote: | Are you referring to "US International with AltGr dead keys"? | I use it too for programming, English text and sporadic | Italian text -- so I'm not annoyed by the dead keys unless I | actively look for them. | | FWIW, growing up in Italy I have the same complaint as the OP | about not being able to type E in the italian keyboard -- it | comes up somewhat often in prose. | | My only complaint is that I occasionally write to colleagues | named Pawel or Michal which are not typable | axegon_ wrote: | This is actually a pretty good idea. I speak 2 languages besides | English so this covers one of them completely. Sure, it doesn't | cover Cyrillic, which is the second most frequently used but even | so, this would completely eliminate the necessity to switch | between English and Spanish whenever needed. Cyrillic annoyingly | can't be solved easily but I guess it's still a good deal. I'm | willing to re-map my keyboard and give it a shot and see if that | would make sense as a daily driver. | shimonabi wrote: | As someone who started to learn French just a few years ago, I | was really shocked that you couldn't easily type certain | characters on a standard French keyboard. | | I discovered the "voluntary" AZERTY Z71-300 standard since then | and I've been using it since on Windows. | | https://norme-azerty.fr/ | yosito wrote: | I found the AZERTY Wikipedia page to be interesting as well | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY | iKnowKungFoo wrote: | I read that as "QWERTY For Real". :) | noname120 wrote: | I chuckled haha :) | 1_player wrote: | What about EurKey? https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu/ | | It's preinstalled on Linux, and available for macOS and Windows | as well. I feel a keyboard based on the US layout which far too | often is considered a standard (better for coding and buggy | software and games), with dead keys and diacritics is a fantastic | idea. | | I have migrated all my machines to use it instead of the custom | layouts or the US one that's very restrictive when you need to | write accents. | abrowne wrote: | > EurKey? https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu/ | | > It's preinstalled on Linux | | Note that at least on Ubuntu/Debian, the included version is | older and a bit different. Not unusable or anything, but not | the same as on the website. | JeremyTheo wrote: | I wanted to post the same. I am German and I am using it for my | daily tasks. It combines the easy to program US layout with | easy access to German Umlauts A, O, U, ss. | | Highly recommended. No idea though for any other languages | other than German. | fowlie wrote: | It works very well for Norwegian too. | ReleaseCandidat wrote: | > What about EurKey? https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu/ | | Not much 'euro', eastern europe is missing as a whole. E.g. | polish L, czech r, slovak o, ... Either use dead keys for all | diacritics or somehow add them all to the third and forth | layer. | xupybd wrote: | I was about to say why do we need another layout but this appears | to solve real problems that I've never encountered as an English | speaker. | tpfour wrote: | Try the Canadian Multilingual French layout on a standard QWERTY | keyboard. | | a is \ | | e is ' | | e is / | | c is ] | | accent grave is right-alt+[+letter | | and | | "specials" are right-alt+num (+-@PSC/$?!{}[]) but for any glyph | used in programming, I usually switch back to US keyboard using | alt+caps-lock. Ca fonctionne tres bien pour moi! | emilecantin wrote: | On a ISO layout (with the inverted-L "enter" key), you also get | u between left shift and z. | | Accolades ({}) and brackets ([]) are on alt-7-8 and alt-9-0. A | bit annoying to type, but manageable. At least it's somewhat | logical (pairs are next to one another). | | What's nice is that this is the default French layout for Apple | computers in Canada, so you can order one with the correct keys | printed on it: | https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/product/MK2C3LL/A/magic-keyboa... | xcambar wrote: | As a french and a developer and a resident of Germany, I have a | lot of special characters to write :p | | I found my peace using qwerty + compose key to make cedilla, | accents, umlauts and more. | Freak_NL wrote: | Same here. I'm Dutch, but write English (obviously) and | occasionally German and a little Frisian (for place and street | names on OpenStreetMap). Once you get used to the compose key | all keyboards sold with the basic US layout suddenly just work | fine, which incidentally -- as a programmer -- suits me just | fine. | | Any new layout is basically dead on arrival except for a few | keyboard geeks. Commercial viability (as in, keyboards sold | with that layout and correct keycaps) is essentially zero | unless a government mandates its use. The latter is not likely | in countries like France. | | Making the compose-key (usually assigned to the right alt) more | popular and better supported is probably the most effective way | of enabling the input of letters like E, --, oe, A, c, ss, and | EUR on desktop operating systems. | oezi wrote: | I wonder why CAPS isn't used more as a compose key. It is | easier to reach than Alt+gr. | colanderman wrote: | I miss using Linux as my daily driver because its compose key | support was unsurpassed. Easy to set up and to add sequences if | the mood strikes you. Beyond simple accent marks, it could | handle arrows, basic smileys, and even the Greek letter pi. | | Meanwhile on macOS Big Sur, Karabiner seems to no longer work | correctly (and was a royal pain to set up besides), the US | International layout doesn't include a proper compose key (it | just turns all punctuation keys into dead keys), and the dead | keys don't even make all basic combinations (e.g. Polish "c" or | Esperanto "c"). | | Seriously, Apple had to go out of their way to screw this up! | Just tack the Unicode modifier character (e.g. U+0301) onto the | end and run Unicode normalization! I get that you don't want | this when you have dead keys doubling as normal keys, but | dedicated dead keys (e.g. Alt+E) should just _always_ create | the character you 're asking of them. | | Just let me set one of my modifier keys to a proper extensible | compose key!! | lkuty wrote: | I am french speaking person and a programmer. I switched a year | ago to qwerty and wish I had done so decades ago because the | shortcuts in programs are conceived for qwert keyboards. I use | karabiner and goku under macOS to produce accented characters. | It is sufficiently fast to be usable. | timeon wrote: | > you can type << e >> but not << E >> | | There are QWERTY (and QWERTZ) keyboard that could do that. Like | Czech or Slovak one. | Oddskar wrote: | Looks interesting. Definitely a step up from AZERTY which when | I've looked at it seems to have been put together by someone who | insists on holding French programmers back. | | This still puts a lot of emphasis on right-most part, which makes | this quite unbalanced for programmers I think. | | Personally I would never go back to any layout that doesn't have | a numpad and all special chars a programmer needs without moving | the fingers 1 row up or down. | | Once one gets used to this everything else seems archaic. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-11-15 23:01 UTC)