A visual comparison of different national layouts on a computer keyboard (2019)
1–10 of 27 posts
Re: A visual comparison of different national layouts on a computer keyboard (2019)
#2The biggest issue for Mac users is the placement of the `command` key on the US ANSI keyboards - which is the layout for pretty much all mechanical keyboards. And the missing left `fn` key.
It requires you to curl your thumb awkwardly when resting on the home row or WASD.
It is between the Z and X, but on MacBook keyboard it is directly under the X so your thumb can rest straight.
The only keyboard I have found that has a similar MacBook layout is the Niz Plum Micro84[1] with dome switches.
There was also the discontinued NuPhy F1 that had a fn key but still had a terrible command placement.
I don't know why more Mac users don't complain about this.
[1]: https://epomaker.com/products/niz-plum-84-bluetooth [2]: https://nuphy.com/collections/keyboards/products/nutype-f1
Re: A visual comparison of different national layouts on a computer keyboard (2019)
#3This is really stupid, old, legacy sh*t. If the USB HumanInoutDevice spec would support full unicode, keyboards could just send unicode directly and not rely on a not-known-by-the-keyboard-firmware language setting. The language settings would be implemented in the keyboard firmware, but with todays hardware shouldn't be a problem.
Edit: typos
Re: A visual comparison of different national layouts on a computer keyboard (2019)
#4Converting from vertical Enter to horizontal Enter when moving to the USA was a real frustration. I spent the first 4 years just importing British keyboards.
Re: A visual comparison of different national layouts on a computer keyboard (2019)
#5Keyboard layouts are such a pet peeve of mine on so many layers. Using custom keyboards and/or layouts is a pain because there is no standard way of defining layout and furthermore most systems do not support arbitrary layers/modifiers/layouts which are critical for reduced key count keyboards. The standard national layouts often being poor fit for technical use only makes the situation more annoying.
Re: A visual comparison of different national layouts on a computer keyboard (2019)
#6Converting from vertical Enter to horizontal Enter when moving to the USA was a real frustration. I spent the first 4 years just importing British keyboards.
Yes and the missing key is frustrating too. Trying to find | and ` and \ on a laptop that doesn't have all the keys is so painful I just add the US keyboard layout to my menu bar.
Re: A visual comparison of different national layouts on a computer keyboard (2019)
#7Converting from vertical Enter to horizontal Enter when moving to the USA was a real frustration. I spent the first 4 years just importing British keyboards.
I miss my chunky Enter key! Also whenever I have to write a currency value in £ I'm always annoyed that I need to go to the Wikipedia entry for "Pound sign" and copy it from there. There's probably an easier way, but it comes up so infrequently and I'm far too lazy to learn.
Re: A visual comparison of different national layouts on a computer keyboard (2019)
#8Converting from vertical Enter to horizontal Enter when moving to the USA was a real frustration. I spent the first 4 years just importing British keyboards.
I came to the opposite conclusion and started importing US keyboards into the UK. I figured the UK layout I was used to wasn't different enough to justify existing, and the US layout has primacy because it's effectively the reference layout for programming language syntax design.
Re: A visual comparison of different national layouts on a computer keyboard (2019)
#9The biggest issue for Mac users is the placement of the `command` key on the US ANSI keyboards - which is the layout for pretty much all mechanical keyboards. And the missing left `fn` key. It requires you to curl your thumb awkwardly when resting on the home row or WASD. It is between the Z and X, but on MacBook keyboard it is directly under the X so your thumb can rest straight. The only keyboard I have found that…
One solution to this problem is to remap caps lock to cmd, which can be easily done in the settings.
Re: A visual comparison of different national layouts on a computer keyboard (2019)
#10Quick nitpick on Polish keyboard layouts. The "Polish (standard)" is more often referred to as the "typist" layout in Poland. IBM's docs say this is required for government contracts. I haven't seen it in any dev or home environments, but it wouldn't surprise me if some compliance-focused IT departments in the government enforce it.
- did the author conflate ż with ź? A rookie mistake! :)
I'm running the 'pl' layout on my Linux box. The Alt(Gr) layer outputs the following: ≠²³¢€½§·«»–śðæŋ’ə…łźć„”ńµ≤≥. Some are expected (diacritics, €), but the presence of characters like ¢, ð, æ, ŋ, and ə is somewhat baffling, I wonder what's the history here.