The article refers to quotation marks as "inverted commas", I've never heard that before.
I think that is the usual English (as opposed to American) terminology. See, for example, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/36944#eid8715028 .
Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
61–70 of 82 posts
Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
But surely there are tools to remap X-language physical keyboard codes to the US layout?
Here's diagrams of the mappings.
https://www.terena.org/activities/multiling/ml-mua/test/kbd-...
And here's usbkbd (note scancodes at the top):
http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/drivers/hid/usbhid/usbk...
Explanation on scancodes, which map to which keys for different physical boards: http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/scan.htm
Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
But surely there are tools to remap X-language physical keyboard codes to the US layout? Here's diagrams of the mappings. https://www.terena.org/activities/multiling/ml-mua/test/kbd-... And here's usbkbd (note scancodes at the top): http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/drivers/hid/usbhid/usbk... Explanation on scancodes, which map to which keys for different physical boards: http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/scan.htm
I suppose you could use something like autohotkey to do that, but it would require intercepting and generating new key presses for every altered key on the keyboard, and could theoretically cause input-swaps if one keypress took longer than a subsequent keypress (e.g. due to a context switch).
Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
#64I 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.…
> It is next to impossible to get an english layout Apple keyboard in Norway. I'm surprised. Each time I ordered a laptop on the Apple Store, there was the option to choose the keyboard layout. > For the non english speakers among us, especially those from small countries like Norway we mix in a lot of english in our writing. But spell checking software isn't really designed to handle that. (Sorry to contradict you :…
> The only think I miss is the ability to lookup the definition of a French or Spanish word. By default, it only looks up english definitions when you click on words (if somebody knows how to achieve this, i'm interested!).
Go to preferences in the Dictionary application.
Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US-International layout exists for ages, and allows for composable letters. "áéíóúçãñàâô..." is as simple as getting the accent + letter. I fail to understand why the Brazilian Standardization bodies decided that we needed to get a keyboard with an exclusive letter for "ç" and yet forces composition of everything else.
This causes excruciating pain when coding, as you can't type a single ', ", or ~ without an obligatory space after it. Instead, I usually install the "Pseudo VT320" keyboard layout from here: http://keyboards.jargon-file.org/ , which makes the AltGr key act like the Compose key on a Unix keyboard. The Mac keyboard is also bearable.
Thanks for sharing - will try it out!
After learning touch type on German (QWERTZ) and then on French keyboard (AZERTY) - I finally found a solution by switching to the US International with AltGr Dead Keys (Combinator key) - which is easy on Linux. However on Windows I felt exactly the same pain as you - luckily I have to work only rarely on Windows. Until now I used for Windows [1].
However I do not understand how Microsoft missed to ship such Keyboard layout with Windows.
Now I can write French, German and Turkish on the same keyboard. And when I have to work abroad, even in Russia, the US International layout is everywhere (most of the times reachable just with Alt-Shift on Windows).
Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
#66I 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.…
While as a coder I'm sympathetic, it still seems bizarre to me that []{} are dedicated keys when the vast majority of typists will almost never in their lives use them. I mean at least make it ()!!
Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
#67I 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.…
It sucks that `~[]{} are so well hidden on Scandinavian keyboards (did people not program when these where made?), but what the hell are you on about with Apple?
They do sell Macs with American keyboards in Norway (including laptops! no additional fee) and they have very easy software keyboard layout switching. I have 5 layouts on my OSX, and at least as many on my iPhone.
Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
#68To those that understand it to mean that AZERTY is dying, it is not. In fact, it is very hard to buy a non-AZERTY laptop in France. It is unlikely to ever go away. I personally would prefer (and do use) a QWERTY with compose key shortcuts. It is obviously easier to write code, but I find writing French also easier that way. Not only do we get the obvious (compose + ' = é, compose + ^ = ê, compose + ` = è), but we als…
Which one is the compose key? Sitting on mac with American English QWERTY?
Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
#69I've dropped AZERTY more than 10 years ago. Nowadays I use QWERTY with "US, international with dead keys" as keyboard layout. It works much better than AZERTY. You don't need to remember where all the accented letters are on the keyboard. You just compose them logically with the `'", characters. It pretty much allows for composing any French (accent) German (umlaut) diacritical. The only difficulty is typing a ç. You need to switch on the third level, assign it to a dead key (such as ALT) and then you can compose it as alt+C. The "third level" does not work out-of-the-box.
Re: Is France's AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
#70And once again, the "standard to rule them all" dream * insert relevant xkcd strip here * , finding a keyboard layout that would allow easy typing in French and all France's languages (Breton, Basque, etc) and dialects (Catalan, Provençal, etc). Impossible task to bring both easy typing and support for all of those.
It seems to me that it's a problem (or bunch of problems) that already has a solution(s). I'm right now using a QWERTY layout under Linux. I can code and type English directly, use the compose key to type in French, German and Breton and use a keyboard input (currently fcitx) to type in Chinese. Add to this the fact that you can easily input complex signs that you wouldn't find on keyboards like µ or €. And all this is actually pretty easy to use. I'm sure there are equivalents in Microsoft and MacOS. Why look further?