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Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

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Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

#51

Post by witty_username »

webkike wrote: post #29
gkya wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use emacs for input. My browser is xombrero, and with ctrl + i, I can switch to emacs for editing current input. There, I've created an input method with postfix maps, which allows me to input most european languages plus turkish. If I wanted to type « liberté, égalité, fraternité », I'd type: liberte/, e/galite/, fraternite/ Very easy, and invaluably useful. And I can switch to other input methods like greek, hebr…

Cool, would you mind sharing your set up?

XCompose would also work for this.

Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

#52

Post by gkya »

webkike wrote: post #29
gkya wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use emacs for input. My browser is xombrero, and with ctrl + i, I can switch to emacs for editing current input. There, I've created an input method with postfix maps, which allows me to input most european languages plus turkish. If I wanted to type « liberté, égalité, fraternité », I'd type: liberte/, e/galite/, fraternite/ Very easy, and invaluably useful. And I can switch to other input methods like greek, hebr…

Cool, would you mind sharing your set up?

In emacs, I use the Typo package, plus this quail set up:

  (require 'quail)
  ;;; Unified latin input method:
  (quail-define-package
   "unilat-gk" "Universal Latin (GK)" "" nil
   "A universal Latin input method.
  Defines key combos for inputting Turkish, Italian, French,
  Portuguese, Spanish, German, Latin, and Nordic Germanics.")
  
  (eval
   `(quail-define-rules
     ;; Turkish I and umlauts, cedillas circumflecis
     ("i"  ?i) ("i;" ?ı) ("o;" ?ö) ("u;" ?ü) ("c;" ?ç) ("g;" ?ğ) ("s;" ?ş)
  
     ("I;" ?İ) ("O;" ?Ö) ("U;" ?Ü) ("C;" ?Ç) ("G;" ?Ğ) ("S;" ?Ş) ("A^" ?Â)
     ("E^" ?Ê) ("U^" ?Û) ("I^" ?Î) ("O^" ?Ô)
  
     ("a^" ?â) ("e^" ?ê) ("i^" ?î) ("u^" ?û) ("o^" ?ô)
  
     ;; Acute and breve
     ("a\\" ?à) ("e\\" ?è) ("i\\" ?ì) ("o\\" ?ò) ("u\\" ?ù)
  
     ("A\\" ?À) ("E\\" ?È) ("I\\" ?Ì) ("O\\" ?Ò) ("U\\" ?Ù)
  
     ("a/" ?á) ("e/" ?é) ("i/" ?í) ("o/" ?ó) ("u/" ?ú)
  
     ("A/" ?Á) ("E/" ?É) ("I/" ?Í) ("O/" ?Ó) ("U/" ?Ú)
  
     ;; Macron
     ("a_" ?ā) ("e_" ?ē) ("i_" ?ī) ("o_" ?ō) ("u_" ?ū)
  
     ("A_" ?Ā) ("E_" ?Ē) ("I_" ?Ī) ("O_" ?Ō) ("U_" ?Ū)
  
     ;; Tilde
     ("a~" ?ã) ("e~" ?ẽ) ("i~" ?ĩ) ("o~" ?õ) ("u~" ?ũ) ("n~" ?ñ)
  
     ("A~" ?Ã) ("E~" ?Ẽ) ("I~" ?Ĩ) ("O~" ?Õ) ("U~" ?Ũ) ("N~" ?Ñ)
  
     ;; Ordinal
     ("a&" ?ª) ("o&" ?º)
  
     ;; Various
     ("I:" ?Ï) ("i:" ?ï) ("a:" ?ä) ("A:" ?Ä) ("e:" ?ë) ("E:" ?Ë) ("a0" ?å)
     ("A0" ?Å) ("o$" ?ø) ("O$" ?Ø) ("sZ" ?ß) ("o£" ?œ) ("O£" ?Œ) ("a£" ?æ)
     ("A£" ?Æ)
  
     ;; Escaping.
     ,@(mapcar
        (lambda (letter)
          (list (format "%c#" letter) letter))
        (string-to-list "aeiouAEIOUscgnSCGN"))))
The last pair of toplevels have to be evaluated one after another, ‘quail-define-rules’ modifies the last created quail package. Stupid, but what can one do…

I use the ‘#’ character to escape the combination, i.e. a# inserts a literally. Otherwise I'd have to use C-g to interrupt a combination, which doesn't work well with macroes, i.e. stops the recording.

I use a British Q keyboard, so I need this too:

  (add-to-list 'quail-keyboard-layout-alist
               `("gb" . ,(concat "                              "
                                 "  1!2\"3£4$5%6^7&8*9(0)-_=+    "
                                 "  qQwWeErRtTyYuUiIoOpP[{]}    "
                                 "  aAsSdDfFgGhHjJkKlL;:'@#~    "
                                 "  \\|zZxXcCvVbBnNmM,/?      "
                                 "                              ")))
  
  (quail-set-keyboard-layout "gb")
And in ‘~/.xombrero.conf’:

  external_editor = emacsclient
When I hit C-i in any input field, a buffer with name like ‘xombreroALP5BY’ pops up in my already running emacs instance, then I edit, and hit ‘C-x #’ to send text to xombrero (technically not so, but works like that).

Hope I didn't skip anything, if it doesn't work, please tell.

Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

#53

Post by franzpeterfolz »

efes wrote: post #27
franzpeterfolz wrote: post #24

Not french, but german. I just recently switched to the neo2 keyboard layout. The hardest thing is unlearning quertz (almost like querty) http://www.neo-layout.org/ It is highly optimized for the home row on the german vocabulary. Support for Programming is also very good. It has 6 different layers • Lowercase • Uppercase • Special Characters (Braces etc.) • Navigation and Numbers • Greek Alphabet (same layout as nor…

I live in Zurich and have been thinking of switching.. If you don't mind, I have a couple questions: How did you handle learning it given so many layers? Stickers seem like trouble.. Do you find it better or worse for dealing with use of occasional accents/etc from a 3rd latin language, (i.e. French) than a more traditional compose key route? Thanks!

It takes time. So I started with a typing program (ktouch) and lections for neo2.

There are 6 layers, but you have to consider that uppercase and lowercase is almost the same. The layers 5 and 6 are not in my usage pattern. Layer 4 is one of the easiest to learn, because it maps the right hand to the numpad and the left one to arrows like sdfe in computer games. a for pos1 and g for end. So there is some easy logic behind this.

At the end there is just layer 3. The organisation of the braces is that they appear in pairs and are arranged in a pattern.

So in Zurich they do a little bit more french as in germany. So I didn't had to use accents a lot. So I can't say a lot about it. èéâǎȩẽ. These characters are a little bit away from the optimal position. But they do not need a Compose Button. èéâ only needs two button strokes. ǎȩẽ needs the Shift button for the first stroke. But the accents are every time on the same position just on different layers. A little bit difficult to explain. Especially if you have not used accents before.

What I would suggest is to take neo2 as a basic layout, take the good parts and addapt it to the usage pattern of the french language.

Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

#54

Post by goalieca »

jernfrost wrote: post #30

I think a lot of Europeans suffer over their keyboard layouts. I am Norwegian and a software developer. I hate Norwegian keyboard layout. It makes programming so much more awkward because the {}, [] and ; symbols used a lot in programming are not easily accessible. There is also a kind of tyranny in how computer companies deal with language. It is next to impossible to get an english layout Apple keyboard in Norway.…

This exactly my problem as a Canadian. I sometimes write in French but often in English. The spell checker drive me mad . It's bad enough that american english is the default or only option in a lot of cases. C++ with Canada multilingual keyboard because of the {} placement. I got used to it but not the easiest to stretch. Luckily I read more code than type.

Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

#55

Post by rasz_pl »

>Most people think that ignoring an accent on a capital letter is acceptable

Of course it is! In Poland its perfectly reasonable to ignore all "weird" polish characters. Ą ą Ć ć Ę ę Ł ł Ń ń Ó ó Ś ś Ź ź Ż ż? hell no. I started using computers in ~90, never ever in my life configured local keyboard variant.

>commissioned Paris-based consultancy AFNOR to draw up a list of recommendations by the summer

brilliant, nothing like one more standard to ignore!

offtopic: BBC Video volume slider goes to 11 (haha), but is too quiet even at full volume :(. BBC should have people/systems responsible for this type of stuff, its not rocket science to normalize volume :/. You can always lower volume on the client if its too loud, but there are no easy ways of making very quiet stuff louder (other than passing it thru sound editor).

Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

#56

Post by spdustin »

yodsanklai wrote: post #9

Good riddance! But we've yet to see what they come up with as a replacement. Besides, I'm not sure a different keyboard will help with people laziness and spelling deficiencies. Personally, I'm perfectly fine with my qwerty keyboard, and it doesn't prevent me from typing specific French letters "é, è, ç, à, É ...". It's actually very easy to type these letters on a mac keyboard. Apple did a good job on this. "option…

Unless it's disabled, on recent versions of OS X and iOS, you can also hold down the letter to get a pop-up of variations. Holding down "e" shows me ėęēêèéë variations. At least, on my US English locale, it does.

Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

#57

Post by efes »

franzpeterfolz wrote: post #53
efes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Zurich and have been thinking of switching.. If you don't mind, I have a couple questions: How did you handle learning it given so many layers? Stickers seem like trouble.. Do you find it better or worse for dealing with use of occasional accents/etc from a 3rd latin language, (i.e. French) than a more traditional compose key route? Thanks!

It takes time. So I started with a typing program (ktouch) and lections for neo2. There are 6 layers, but you have to consider that uppercase and lowercase is almost the same. The layers 5 and 6 are not in my usage pattern. Layer 4 is one of the easiest to learn, because it maps the right hand to the numpad and the left one to arrows like sdfe in computer games. a for pos1 and g for end. So there is some easy logic b…

very cool, thanks! Composing the other accents actually works well for me since I use them infrequently but just frequently enough to get annoyed if there is no system in their placement.

Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

#58

Post by efes »

lorenzhs wrote: post #44
efes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Zurich and have been thinking of switching.. If you don't mind, I have a couple questions: How did you handle learning it given so many layers? Stickers seem like trouble.. Do you find it better or worse for dealing with use of occasional accents/etc from a 3rd latin language, (i.e. French) than a more traditional compose key route? Thanks!

Hi, I've been using Neo2 for a couple of years now, so maybe I can help you with these. Don't use stickers! You should touch-type neo from the beginning, so avoid looking at the keyboard. I had a print-out next to me for the first couple of weeks. You also don't need to memorize all the layers from the start. I use layers 5 and 6 very very rarely , and for the Greek letters you can mostly guess (α is on a, β on b, ε…

Cool, thanks! I'll do a little practice and then jump in to immersion at the start of my next vacation then. I just tried a little using an onscreen keyboard as a cheat, and it doesn't really feel all that different from learning chorded keyboard.

At least for me, I the sense of physical fatigue is about the stress of dealing with the higher degrees of freedom on a regular keyboard together with the location memory task. But needing a chorded keyboard seems like a bridge to far in a work environment.

Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

#59

Post by andrey-g »

jernfrost wrote: post #30

I think a lot of Europeans suffer over their keyboard layouts. I am Norwegian and a software developer. I hate Norwegian keyboard layout. It makes programming so much more awkward because the {}, [] and ; symbols used a lot in programming are not easily accessible. There is also a kind of tyranny in how computer companies deal with language. It is next to impossible to get an english layout Apple keyboard in Norway.…

Wait, how does the national keyboard layout matter? Aren't you using the US layout when writing code?

Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?

#60

Post by Someone1234 »

andrey-g wrote: post #59
jernfrost wrote: post #30

I think a lot of Europeans suffer over their keyboard layouts. I am Norwegian and a software developer. I hate Norwegian keyboard layout. It makes programming so much more awkward because the {}, [] and ; symbols used a lot in programming are not easily accessible. There is also a kind of tyranny in how computer companies deal with language. It is next to impossible to get an english layout Apple keyboard in Norway.…

Wait, how does the national keyboard layout matter? Aren't you using the US layout when writing code?

That isn't how keyboards work. If a key is assigned to a different keyboard code, then when you push the button the OS will recognise that code regardless of layout configuration.

Norwegian keyboards have a different physical layout meaning different character codes are sent for the same location.

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