Language poll

What language is your native language?


  • Total voters
    114

French people can not use ´ for é ? Why not ` to manually input àè? The same for üöä with ¨. Maybe I lost something but we have 390 threads about keyboard and I am a little lost long time ago

Yes, that is possible, but it is less efficient since you have to press two keys for one letter. German keyboards have dedicated keys for üöä, French keyboards have dedicated keys for éèàç, and there's a good reason for that: in French, the letter é is more frequent than v, h, g, f, b, q, j, x, z, y, k, w (source), so if all those letters have a dedicated key, then why not é?


In German it is a bit less important to have efficient access üäöß, since those are not that frequent (but still more frequent than j, y, x, q; source).


It's a bit arbitrary where to draw the line in these things. For example, in many languages, J is not that common (e.g. in English, J is used 10 times less frequently than the É in French), and since J is in a sense just an I with a hook-below diacritic, so you could also ask: can't English people just use   ̡ + I  for J ? ;)

(to be clear: that was a joke, just to make my point)
Thanks for the explanation. The thing here is that, if we are limited on options/space, we must make some limitations/abrevations on the Keyboard :( . As spanish I am pretty used to use the ´ key (a great percent of spanish words have an ´ on it).
 
this " ` " is very important on Linux, it should be included regardless of nationality
 
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this " ` " is very important on Linux, it should be included regardless of nationality
They're talking about diacritics, not the ` itself, but diacritic based off of `.

If `~ are embedded at the Fn layer, then it can't itself be used as a diacritic on the same key.

It comes down to a trade off.

(This `~ on it's own key.

And `~ diacritics on Fn+`=` and Fn+shift+`=~

And Tab at Fn+space)

OR

Tab on a dedicated key

And `~ on the Fn layer

(And no `~ diacritics

OR ` and ~ live on an entirely other key's Fn layer increasing 'clutter'))

Each has it's advantages and disadvantages.
 
this " ` " is very important on Linux, it should be included regardless of nationality
They're talking about diacritics, not the ` itself, but diacritic based off of `.


If `~ are embedded at the Fn layer, then it can't itself be used as a diacritic on the same key.


It comes down to a trade off.


(This `~ on it's own key.


And `~ diacritics on Fn+`=` and Fn+shift+`=~


And Tab at Fn+space)


OR


Tab on a dedicated key


And `~ on the Fn layer


(And no `~ diacritics


OR ` and ~ live on an entirely other key's Fn layer increasing 'clutter'))


Each has it's advantages and disadvantages.
In some keyboard layouts, ` and/or ~ are only available as diacritics. That means that if you need the actual `/~ symbol, you have to type the diacritic followed by a space (or the diacritic twice, that usually also works).

I would say that ~ should usually be available as a non-dead key because it is your homedir on the command line. Backtick (which is what ` is usually called if it's not a dead key) is not very important: it is used in shell scripts, but $(this syntax) is equivalent and better because it can be nested. It's also used sometimes in ASCII-only programs like LaTeX, where e.g. two backticks `` denote an ldquo and \` is used for grave accents.

In a layout that has `~ on the same Meta-key (~ as a Shift+Meta key), I would just let the user configure whether those characters are dead keys or not.

In a layout that has ` and ~ on separate Meta-keys, then a sensible default is to let the Meta-symbols be non-dead and Shift+`~ can be the dead diacritics.

I wouldn't put `~ on its own primary key. Tab is way more important than backtick. Tilde and grave diacritics are not hugely important if the precomposed letters àèñ (ù) are available.
 
Update:

With 91 votes in, this is the preliminary result:

  • 91.2% wants English support
  • 35.2% wants German support
  • 17.6% wants French support
  • 15.4% wants Spanish support
  • 11.0% wants Italian support
  • 11.0% wants Scandinavian support
  • 7.7% wants Dutch support
  • 4.4% wants Portuguese support
  • 4.4% wants Balto-Slavic support
  • 3.3% wants something else

If we assume that if some language is supported, then the 'more important' languages are also supported, then we get the following letter/diacritics requirements:

  • English: A-Z
  • German: add üöäß
  • French: add àèéç (ù)  and ¨ ˆ for âêîôû ëï
  • Spanish: add ñ (¿¡) and ´ for áíóú
  • Italian: add ìò (or just ` )
  • Scandinavian: no extra needs for Finnish, å for Swedish and the rest, øæ for Norwegian/Danish
  • Dutch: no extra needs
  • Portuguese: add ˜ for ãõ
  • Balto-Slavic: add ˇ for čšž řďťňľě, and also  ˛ for ąęįų and ¸ for şģķļņţ (these two can be combined as one diacritic for ogonek/cedilla/comma), · for żė, ° for ů (these two could be combined as one diacritic for dot above and ring), Ł (Polish only, can be considered ´ + L), Đ (Serbo-Croatian only), ˝ for őű (Hungarian only, can be done by letting ¨ OU produce őű since öü are already available from German), ¯ for āēīōū (Latvian/Lithuanian only)

Based on the poll results, I think it is reasonable to have üöäßàèéçñ ¨ ˆ ´ ` labeled, so German, French, Spanish and Italian can be typed efficiently, use diacritics for the rest, and let the Scandinavians who need å ø æ efficiently, remap the German üöä (the experience would be similar to a Norwegian typing on a Swedish keyboard).
 
Spanish here. My only complaint when writing Spanish text with the Pandora keyboard, is that I wasn't able to configure dead keys. So to write e.g. "á", I have to do 5 key presses ([sHIFT]+[ENTER], [FN]+J, A). That's painful. An easy way to enable dead keys would be enough for me.
 
Spanish here. My only complaint when writing Spanish text with the Pandora keyboard, is that I wasn't able to configure dead keys. So to write e.g. "á", I have to do 5 key presses ([sHIFT]+[ENTER], [FN]+J, A). That's painful. An easy way to enable dead keys would be enough for me.
In my proposal:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/d7e5a0dab3f707566068e641e29c84d9

to write á, you would need 3 keypresses if you use the keyboard only:

[◆]  [ ' ]  [A]

or 2 keypresses and one shoulder button press:

[L2 + ']  [A]

You would also have ñ  directly at [◆] [ V ]

or using diacritics it would be: ⇧~ N, which is four keypresses using just the keyboard [◆] [⇧] [Q] [N]

or two keypresses using the shoulder buttons as modifiers [L1+L2+Q] [N]

Would you consider such a keyboard layout good enough to make the claim: "it supports Spanish" ?
 
Why is the first system better than ctrl+alt+diactric + letter.   Thats 3 keypresses with 4 buttons total, but then you get a lot more of them.

What letters is it that cant be included with one+the other? I should think the biggest languages are supported like that anyhow.

If using the US-international symbols, then i would expect it to work with all US-international symbols.

Instead of putting the dotted O, you could put instead the diactric symbol in a different colour.
 
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Why is the first system better than ctrl+alt+diactric + letter.   Thats 3 keypresses with 4 buttons total, but then you get a lot more of them.

What letters is it that cant be included with one+the other? I should think the biggest languages are supported like that anyhow.

If using the US-international symbols, then i would expect it to work with all US-international symbols.

Instead of putting the dotted O, you could put instead the diactric symbol in a different colour.
Ctrl+Alt is just the Windows convention to emulate AltGr on keyboards that do not have a right Alt/AltGr key.

Yes, setting your keyboard to US-International would also work in my layout; it would mean right Alt (which is shoulder button R2 in my proposals) would behave as an AltGr key, so you would get áéíóúñ directly at AltGr+AEIOUN. That would be even faster in the case of Spanish, but it means you have to sacrifice shoulder Alt behaving as Alt (not a huge deal, since that's how it is on the Pandora).

You could also use the Windows convention and let Ctrl+Alt behave like AltGr, so you could use R1+R2 for AltGr and still have a shoulder Alt available.

US-International is practical for Spanish, but not so much for other languages unless you know where the symbols are hidden. Except for the acutes, they are not in easy-to-remember positions: the German ÜÖÄ are on YPQ for example, and Ç is not at C (which has © and ¢) but at comma. Eastern European languages are not supported at all in US-International.

Also the way US-International behaves by default in terms of dead diacritics (` ~ ' " ^ all become dead keys) is a bit annoying imo. A nicer variant of US-International has AltGr+`~'"^ as dead diacritics, so the normal symbols still work as expected.

In summary: it's certainly a possibility to map a Pyra keyboard to US-International, which is nice if you already know US-International.

That is, as long as the Pyra does not get a layout which already uses AltGr for other things.
 
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So 5th level-shift ctrl+alt is possible or not? I think the pandora uses shift+enter, but not sure.

Short of having to switch layouts to make adjustments for a key that is supposed to be there (AltGr) vs a key that isnt (FN) which is just cumbersome, if otherwise equivalent, would it not be better to have a convention that is at least in use somewhere?

When you say eastern-european, do you mean cyrillic(slavic)?

What i had in mind was international US with international AltGr for keyboard and numbers, (which is familiar to euros) and then ctrl+alt only for the dead-part.

I think that is functionally pure, because you get no mix between function like on some euro layouts. (AltGr doing symbols and dead-keys depending on what button it is.)
 
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Spanish here. My only complaint when writing Spanish text with the Pandora keyboard, is that I wasn't able to configure dead keys. So to write e.g. "á", I have to do 5 key presses ([sHIFT]+[ENTER], [FN]+J, A). That's painful. An easy way to enable dead keys would be enough for me.
In my proposal:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/d7e5a0dab3f707566068e641e29c84d9


to write á, you would need 3 keypresses if you use the keyboard only:


[◆] [ ' ] [A]


or 2 keypresses and one shoulder button press:


[L2 + '] [A]


You would also have ñ directly at [◆] [ V ]

or using diacritics it would be: ⇧~ N, which is four keypresses using just the keyboard [◆] [⇧] [Q] [N]

or two keypresses using the shoulder buttons as modifiers [L1+L2+Q] [N]


Would you consider such a keyboard layout good enough to make the claim: "it supports Spanish" ?
That could be a great improvement for sure!
 
I answered english + some other language for the last question. The other language is Polish, and it is a simple case, because it doesn't require any accents or special letters on the keyboard (basic English will do). All diacritics are typed with AltGr + letter. In Pandora I have set xkb to use Right Shoulder as AltGr, and I'm 100% happy.
 
kbd_polish.gif
 
One thing that's missing from this poll is programming/CLI - easy access to <>[]{}|+=_#~` etc.

Some layouts seem to be designed with that usecase strongly in mind, whereas others are quite poorly suited for it.
 
One thing that's missing from this poll is programming/CLI - easy access to <>[]{}|+=_#~` etc.
That's a question for a different poll. This one is specifically trying to establish dominance of such "foreign" characters and whether they should be included or not. That's kind of not relevant to programming punctuation.
 
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