My keyboard just died :(, and other keyboard layout discussions
- Thread starter The_J
- Start date
^^^QWERTY progress!
Actually I for one learned how to use combination keys for diacritics twenty-odd years ago when I was -at the same time- learning how to write so it has always been a natural thing for me. It's actually weirder for me to try and find a key for a specific [base letter plus diacritic] character than to find the diacritic and combine them.
Sarin
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2013
- Messages
- 2,066
The problem is mostly the fact that it loses entire row of special characters. Some are available via right alt+key, but it's still a mess and I don't remember all combinations. It's really easier, in cases when I want stuff like ^&#, to simply alt+shift into English keyboard.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2006
- Messages
- 14,830
Get the Dvorak keyboard, the esperanto of keyboards. No one will want to borrow yours 
If you do decide to learn French and have reason to type in French, I recommend the Portuguese (Portugal) keyboard layout for writing in French. You press the accent key before typing the letter with the accent. Shift plus the key below backspace adds a circomflex, such as être. The key to the left of that adds the accent that goes up to the righ, such as élan. The accent that slants the other way is Shift plus the same key I used for élan. Déjà, for example. Right alt plus one more key to the left adds an ümlaut. I like the modifier system for accents and diacritics as opposed to the dedicated keys the French layout has.
The modifiers for the numbers keys are !, ", #, $, %, &, /, (, ), and =. Nothing too crazy. Right alt plus the top row gets you some more keys, namely @ for 2, £ for 3, § for 4, € for 5, and {[]} for 7 through 0.
Only downside is my U.S. English keyboard has a double width left shift key (which I do really like), which means that it does not have the greater than/less than signs in Portuguese. Although I can type double less than and double greater than with the key to the left of backspace, e.g. « and ».
I find the variations in keyboard layouts interesting. Not least the different widths and heights of keys. A lot of European keyboards (and some old U.S. ones) have a two-row Enter key that's taller on the higher row, for example, whereas the U.S. one is one row, and wider on what corresponds to the lower row on many European keyboards. And that less wide Portuguese left shift key? That would be tough to adjust to! I'd have to stretch my pinky finger considerably farther to capitalize, or move the whole hand or switch to primarily using right shift (I use left shift almost exclusively).
The modifiers for the numbers keys are !, ", #, $, %, &, /, (, ), and =. Nothing too crazy. Right alt plus the top row gets you some more keys, namely @ for 2, £ for 3, § for 4, € for 5, and {[]} for 7 through 0.
Only downside is my U.S. English keyboard has a double width left shift key (which I do really like), which means that it does not have the greater than/less than signs in Portuguese. Although I can type double less than and double greater than with the key to the left of backspace, e.g. « and ».
I find the variations in keyboard layouts interesting. Not least the different widths and heights of keys. A lot of European keyboards (and some old U.S. ones) have a two-row Enter key that's taller on the higher row, for example, whereas the U.S. one is one row, and wider on what corresponds to the lower row on many European keyboards. And that less wide Portuguese left shift key? That would be tough to adjust to! I'd have to stretch my pinky finger considerably farther to capitalize, or move the whole hand or switch to primarily using right shift (I use left shift almost exclusively).
I was regularly using a QWERTY layout a few years back, because it is a bit more practical for programming. But I switched back to QWERTZ, simply because it always a bit tricky to always get QWERTY keyboards and having to switch between layouts is always a bit annoying.
I simply can't be bothered to re-learn the whole thing.
For normal typing the 1-2 letters is not an issue, but it annoys the hell out of me while programming.
That actually makes a lot sense, I have to say.
Yes, my main gripe right now!
For normal typing the 1-2 letters is not an issue, but it annoys the hell out of me while programming.
That actually makes a lot sense, I have to say.
Yes, my main gripe right now!
Logitech Pop Keys review: A trendy mechanical keyboard with surprisingly great features
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/cnn-...view/index.html?iid=CNNUnderscoredHPcontainer
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/cnn-...view/index.html?iid=CNNUnderscoredHPcontainer
warpus
In pork I trust
I hate those keyboards that sound like mechanical typewriters, I like my keyboards to make a sound but not an annoying one. Yet there's people out there and even entire communities of people who will pay insane amounts of money for these clikety-clakety things.
It depends on what you get used to.
Story from Isaac Asimov's autobiography: Asimov had to go to the hospital for several days, and had a lot of trouble sleeping.
The solution turned out to be his wife taperecording several hours of typewriter sounds, bringing it to the hospital, and playing it by his bedside. He went to sleep with no problem.
warpus
In pork I trust
Yeah, I can appreciate that. I still don't understand mechanical keyboard culture conceptually. I understand it from a "hey I'll be a part of that because I enjoy it" pov. I joined a mech keyboard subreddit just to check it out occasionally and see if any of the keyboards they're into would appeal to me, and so far none of them have
As this is a derivative of the rants thread we can rant here, right?
I have just found out that setxkbmap run on a remote system affects the local one. I have a different fancy keyboard at work, so have a different setxkbmap command in my .bashrc file there. I just ssh'ed to my desktop at work and it broke my keyboard at home. Trial and error to get all the letters to switch back to the right one.
I have just found out that setxkbmap run on a remote system affects the local one. I have a different fancy keyboard at work, so have a different setxkbmap command in my .bashrc file there. I just ssh'ed to my desktop at work and it broke my keyboard at home. Trial and error to get all the letters to switch back to the right one.
That's... weird.
I had the broken and the functional keyboard connected at the same time for testing.
Turns out that capslock is a computer-side setting, not a keyboard-side setting. Means if I turned it on on one of the keyboards, the second one would also have it on. Doesn't apply to numlock though.
I had the broken and the functional keyboard connected at the same time for testing.
Turns out that capslock is a computer-side setting, not a keyboard-side setting. Means if I turned it on on one of the keyboards, the second one would also have it on. Doesn't apply to numlock though.
Broken_Erika
Nothing
Now this is a keyboard.
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
I know this will physically hurt people here but I used a flat rubber travel keyboard for nearly a decade. Couldn't find any replacement when it died. Going back to hard monstrous ''klackers'' made me feel like a caveman.
I need to take all my keys off and clean my keyboard. Food, cat hair and who knows what abound in all the nooks and crannies.
Uh-huh. I had one very similar, a long time ago.Now this is a keyboard.
Fun fact: If you leave your supper untended and the cat gets curious, samples it, then spits it out all over the keyboard, it's not easy getting spinach, feta cheese, green onions, and phyllo pastry flakes out of the keyboard.
And over the years I had it, I must have dug half a cat's worth of hair out of that thing...
WHy do keyboards have three different speech marks ("'`) but no degree symbol? I need a degree more often than I need two speech marks, let alone three, and when I do it is usually something dodgy like metaprogramming that probably should be done another way.
thetrooper
Misanthrope
- Joined
- May 24, 2004
- Messages
- 8,705
Keep the symbols in a word-file or whatever on your desktop and ctrl-c ctrl-x em when needed.
