deskthority

I've just been reviewing my order for the train wreck that is the Doubleshot Replacements Round 4 group buy and thinking how much simpler life would be if group buy organisers didn't have to cater for all the various different national keyboard layouts out there. I've never understood why almost every Western European country seems to have its own unique keyboard layout even though we share mostly the same alphabet. To make matter worse, most of the changes seem to be completely arbitrary and pointless. for example, UK users need to have access to the same characters found on a standard US keyboard plus the £ symbol. The logical solution would have been to keep the US layout and allow users to access £ either by pressing Alt Gr, or by putting the £ symbol on the extra key provided by the ISO standard. But instead, the £ symbol was put in the # position and several other characters were moved around for no apparent reason. The UK layout is almost the same as the US one, but just different enough to cause problems when ordering keycaps.

I'm thinking that group buys would become a lot simpler (and potentially cheaper) if we could all get behind the US international layout. It's basically the standard US layout but with the non-English Western European characters accessed by pressing Alt Gr (link). It's obviously based on the ANSI layout but I see no reason why it couldn't be used on an ISO keyboard. You'd just need to find a use for the extra key next to left shift.

As you might have guessed, I really like the layout. But I'm looking at this from a UK perspective, and as I've already mentioned, the UK layout is very similar to the US one anyway. I'm wondering what people here from other European countries think of the layout. Is it acceptable to you, or are there aspects of the layout that are a deal breaker?

Yes, there are several people here.

I don't use it (yet). I might end up switching, but with my life being the train wreck it is a the moment, I have put off any layout experimentation until I finish my studies.

Your study of mechanical keyboards, thesis "Cherry"?

grasshopper wrote:[...] standard US layout but with the non-English Western European characters accessed by pressing Alt Gr [...]. I'm wondering what people here from other European countries think of the layout. Is it acceptable to you, or are there aspects of the layout that are a deal breaker?

You seem not to know that accentuated characters like é in French or ü in Turkish are not just occasional alterations of the basic character, but fully-fledged characters. é is much more common in a French text (almost 2%, like ü in Turkish) than q or z in an English text (both less than 1%). If one were to have press AltGr every time one has to access them, it would very significantly complicate and slow down the typing process.

Guess why every country has its own layout

I made that decision a while ago. My first mech was a UK layout but my boards at home all use US layout for the very reason you are talking about. It does not make too much difference to my efficiency but has made buying new caps a lot easier - I've been able to buy a couple of new sets without having to worry too much about missing keys etc. The only problem that I have now is that I want to buy some older sets and they are all DE layout!

Yeah, I switched over to US international recently. I often need access to French and German special characters (é, à, ô, ü, ä, ß etc.) and US international gives me all that relatively easy.
For me, US International is a good compromise: You can have pretty much every keyboard you desire and can easily get replacement keycaps, but you're still able to do all the special characters you need for other languages.

I use 7BIT layout!


It is based on US ANSI and Japanese layout (space bar width) with a strong influence from the Lisp Symbolics culture (tons of modifiers).

i use US International or standard ansi while coding (damn dead characters )

byFd wrote:i use US International or standard ansi while coding (damn dead characters )

Indeed, that's something I forgot to mention. The US international layout is very convenient for coders because almost every computer language uses the symbols found on a standard US keyboard. The only exception I can think of is APL.

I agree that the dead keys are irritating especially if you rarely need to use accents. However, if you use Linux there's an alternative version of the layout available called USA international (AltGr dead keys) that only activates the dead keys when AltGr is pressed.

I use Neo. Might not work for everyone, as it's optimized for German, but with 6 Layers I have all the Characters I want. Even the icelandic ð and þ using compose. I love compose!

And the 3rd layer is just perfect for coding! Look at dem {}()[]<>!

Nobody mentioned Colemak or Dvorak yet. The minority has rights too, you know!

Just take in mind that no layout is perfect, and the compromise found in US International certainly isn't.

Did i heard Bépo ?

Martin227 seems to be busy with something monumental here:
http://deskthority.net/w/index.php?titl ... rd_layouts

I've been using: us(altgr-intl) on Linux (US international without dead keys) ... very nice indeed

I am also using the us-international layout since about a decade now. Could not imagine going back. As a downside I really struggle with German keyboards by now and kinda forgot how to type on them.

i've been using a slightly modified us international for a couple of years now.
Not long enough for me to struggle when using other peoples keyboards, but they sure struggle typing on mine :>

Using ISO/DE everyday since I started in the early 90's. I tried the ANSI/US layout several years back on a borrowed KB from a friend of mine but just didn't like it. It's not that it's hard to adapt but I just don't like the layout.

sixty wrote:I am also using the us-international layout since about a decade now. Could not imagine going back. As a downside I really struggle with German keyboards by now and kinda forgot how to type on them.

Same, I switched just about one year ago, now I have some problems with Italian layout.

I just like the Jreturn, seems a better shape for the little finger. However the UK layout is so similar I should just make the switch, I am doing two phantoms, UK + US layout.

Joke aside, i tried but in French there are a lot of accents (i mean éàùè) and it's a real hassle to type on US international layout. I have tried for 7 days, way less time than bépo (a specific french layout) but enough to get bored.
I could have had much more interesting sets of keycaps, unfortunately

US keyboard layout is standard in the Netherlands. A Dutch layout does exist, but nobody ever used it. Most international computer suppliers know this by now and ship US keyboard layout to the Netherlands by default.

The Dutch were always a PRACTICAL people.

Germans on the other hand....

Are you sure that would have helped?

I've just been reviewing my order for the train wreck that is the Doubleshot Replacements Round 4 group buy and thinking how much simpler life would be if group buy organisers didn't have to cater for all the various different national keyboard layouts out there.

Regular US International uses deadkeys, which in my book are the tool of the devil. The open source desktops have an excellent "US English (Alt-Gr dead keys)" layout which is what the OP has described, I think. I believe someone rolled their own equivalent for Windows and put it on Geekhack. This was quite some time ago, and I dont really use Windows these days, so I have no idea where it is.

daedalus wrote:Regular US International uses deadkeys, which in my book are the tool of the devil. The open source desktops have an excellent "US English (Alt-Gr dead keys)" layout which is what the OP has described, I think. I believe someone rolled their own equivalent for Windows and put it on Geekhack. This was quite some time ago, and I dont really use Windows these days, so I have no idea where it is.

I think you refer to The Solutor's ANSI layout, you can find it in the wiki at geekhack but the download link is broken.

You can build your own layout with this tool: Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator

sixty wrote:I am also using the us-international layout since about a decade now. Could not imagine going back. As a downside I really struggle with German keyboards by now and kinda forgot how to type on them.

The one thing I love about German keyboards is that quotation marks are in the same place as in the UK layout. I have tried, but just can't wrap my head around not using shift+2 for dialogue.

xbb wrote:

daedalus wrote:Regular US International uses deadkeys, which in my book are the tool of the devil. The open source desktops have an excellent "US English (Alt-Gr dead keys)" layout which is what the OP has described, I think. I believe someone rolled their own equivalent for Windows and put it on Geekhack. This was quite some time ago, and I dont really use Windows these days, so I have no idea where it is.

I think you refer to The Solutor's ANSI layout, you can find it in the wiki at geekhack but the download link is broken.

You can build your own layout with this tool: Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator

Someone did it before Solutor, although now that I remember, Solutor made one too.

I have also realized that the ISO layout sucks when you like group buys, hah. Haven't looked into us-ansi very much though, but from the looks of it, I foresee a heck of a lot alt shifting (windows command for changing language).

Fred wrote:I have also realized that the ISO layout sucks when you like group buys, hah. Haven't looked into us-ansi very much though, but from the looks of it, I foresee a heck of a lot alt shifting (windows command for changing language).

This is what I do.
I alt shift between classic ANSI for Dutch and English while using AZERTY for French.

ISO for the win
i cant really use ansi us int coz of that small shit "enter" key
big ass "enter" looks perfect to me
guys, dont let americans take over us, ISO>ANSI

ajx wrote:7BIT for the win
...
guys, dont let americans take over us, 7BIT>ISO>ANSI

fixed!