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Comment by csdvrx | Hacker News Reader

Given how everybody has a different answer (use the Canadian/Spanish/Swiss keyboard, use the Compose key, go for Colemak/Dvorak...) that seems to overlook how, like it or not, the US Qwerty keyboard is the standard for programmers, I think you're on to something!

Good luck to you!

One question though: the French seem to enjoy using different standards, for some reason. Besides the keyboard, I've also noticed they have a lot of WIFI channel exclusions.

I'm not saying it's good or bad, but do you think this might impede the success of your project?

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Thank you! :)

The fact that most people ask “Why shouldn't I use alternative <x> instead?” means that I need to improve my README file to show better why QWERTY-fr is truly different from all the other keyboard layouts, and what makes it stick out!

Colloquially, I already planned to update the website[1] with a tutorial guiding the user step by step through the philosophy. Hopefully this will help users understand its value proposition!

[1] https://qwerty-fr.org

—

With regards to the different standards, I agree that French people tend to reinvent the wheel. I have nothing against that but the big issue is that they never look well at the previous attempts, which leads to crappy alternative standards. This project aims to reinvent the wheel but in a good way!

I plan to get this keyboard layout standardized by a standardization organization once it's stable. It should help adoption because I could then convince OS maintainers to add it as an available layout. :)

> I agree that French people tend to reinvent the wheel.

If their wheel is better, why not?

> I have nothing against that but the big issue is that they never look well at the previous attempts, which leads to crappy alternative standards. This project aims to reinvent the wheel but in a good way!

Great answer, I totally agree!!

I wish you a lot of luck, as I'm a bit irked to have to provide support for weird keyboards! (I hope someone from Germany will do as you did so QWERTZ can also die :-)

> I plan to get this keyboard layout standardized by a standardization organization once it's stable.

Even better! Using standards is a great way to work around many issues.

One last thing: if I may suggest, you should replace the default picture by one with fewer characters: the german β, the spanish Ñ, and the scandinavian character (oslash, ae) may be nice to have, but they may play against you: French users may see them as irrelevant, and cluttering the keyboard.

Trim everything you can, to only have as little extra characters as necessary to support french.

For similar reasons, you may want to unify the blue and the red overlays. I've figured out that the right Alt did toggle the blue overlay, but I still don't understand how to get the red one.

Given that blue and red do not coexist on any key, merging the red keys into the blue overlay may be for the better: you want what you offer to be extremely clear and simple to understand

> One last thing: if I may suggest, you should replace the default picture by one with fewer characters: the german β, the spanish Ñ, and the scandinavian character (oslash, ae) may be nice to have, but they may play against you: French users may see them as irrelevant, and cluttering the keyboard.

This is a very good suggestion! I should definitely show a simplified screenshot, and only introduce the extra characters in an advanced section. This should make it look less overwhelming.

> For similar reasons, you may want to unify the blue and the red overlays. I've figured out that the right Alt did toggle the blue overlay, but I still don't understand how to get the red one.

For other readers, you're referring to https://qwerty-fr.org/. Blue means that it's accessible with AltGr, and red means that the key is a dead key.

In a nutshell:

– Lower left corner: no modifier.

– Upper left corner: Shift.

– Lower right corner: AltGr.

– Upper right corner: AltGr + Shift.

I agree that this is confusing, especially since the keyboard widget doesn't highlight the layer when you press e.g. AltGr + Shift so it's hard to know what's going to happen.

Oh, I see! What about you replace red by purple or some darker shade of blue?

Given the difference in color, I thought it was a separate layer activated by another key!!!

This would help readability a lot!

This widget I'm using is x-keyboard[1]. It has several shortcomings (including the one you mentioned). I'm trying to get in touch with the author to see if they are still interested in maintaining it, otherwise I'll do a fork.

[1] https://github.com/fabi1cazenave/x-keyboard

> the scandinavian character (oslash, ae) may be nice to have

Those are Danish or Norwegian characters, they are not "the Scandinavian characters" as they are not used in Sweden (using ö/ä).

> With regards to the different standards, I agree that French people tend to reinvent the wheel. I have nothing against that but the big issue is that they never look well at the previous attempts

Well not everything as to be from America and in English language. Different attempts are made in different countries and it's true that US attempts tend to stick, not necessarily because they are superior, but because of the general US influence.

It's true that AZERTY is an annoying layout but only because everything is made as if the only existing layout was QWERTY.

> the French seem to enjoy using different standards

I chuckled :). How dare they use the metric system and degree Celsius? You got me curious about the WiFi channels though, but it looks like there is nothing specific to France: https://www.lairdconnect.com/support/faqs/what-channels-are-...

>> the French seem to enjoy using different standards

> How dare they use the metric system and degree Celsius?

Judgements about what they dare to do aside, isn't it fair to call those French? The metric system is based on the meter, a French unit. The International Prototype Kilogram (obsoleted only recently) was stored in France. While Celsius wasn't invented in France, a Frenchman flipped the scale (originally, freezing was 100 and boiling was 0). etc.

Not Invented Here syndrome doesn't mean that what you do invent here can't be good, that you can't sometimes get the rest of the world to agree with you, or that you abandon anything that's successful.

That was the joke.

> Given how everybody has a different answer (use the Canadian/Spanish/Swiss keyboard, use the Compose key, go for Colemak/Dvorak...)

I'd advise the author to go one step further and adopt the ANSI layout instead of ISO. So you can just get the US version with most of the keys already etched with the correct symbol, no matter where you are in the world.

> One question though: the French seem to enjoy using different standards, for some reason.

Not French, but here's an observation: the French world has great engineering schools like the Polytechniques (Paris, Montreal, Lausanne) or Mines. And the French government historically had military procurement and R&D done inside the country as well. They are, for instance, the only country outside of the United States to have built and operate a nuclear aircraft carrier.

> I'd advise the author to go one step further and adopt the ANSI layout instead of ISO. So you can just get the US version with most of the keys already etched with the correct symbol, no matter where you are in the world.

Totally. I once had to use a UK keyboard with this weird vertical ISO enter key - it's a pain.

I think I might live with a smaller space bar, as I got a rare IBM SK-8835 keyboard in JP locale before I could source a US one ( see: http://www.komotch2.com/junk/kj/sk8835lj.htm ): the true dealbreaker was the ISO enter key.

The carveout from the spacebar were actually pretty handy, to map with AutoHotKey extra keys staying right by my thumbs :)

> They are, for instance, the only country outside of the United States to have built and operate a nuclear aircraft carrier.

I love that a lot of countries do a lot of things: we need more alternatives to avoid duopolies (MIPS to avoid AMD64 vs ARM64, Firefox OS to avoid Android vs iOS)

And it's even better when the 3rd alternative offers unique advantages!

But using a different keyboard layout for no reason at all... sorry, I don't get that. It makes life harder for everyone, with 0 practical benefit.

It's like if some country mandated a square USB-C connector: breaking a standard, just for the pleasure of breaking it, to make things more expansive, create more e-waste, etc.

> I think I might live with a smaller space bar

On typical keyboards, the spacebar is just about the width of 6 keys. -- Comparing what's allocated to the thumb vs to the pinky: the thumb is strong, the pinkies are weak, but the thumb is only used for the spacebar, and the pinkies for a bunch of other keys.

I've enjoyed using these niche ortholinear or split ergonomic keyboards. It's good to be able to use the thumb for more keys.

I use my thumbs just as much for the control key for keyboard shortcuts, which I move [using xkb on Linux] to the keys left and right of space. I got used to it there as a Mac user (where it's the command key). I can't imagine trying to use control with my pinky in the corner.

> But using a different keyboard layout for no reason at all... sorry, I don't get that. It makes life harder for everyone, with 0 practical benefit.

It originally appeared in the 19th century for typewriters, so it's not exactly new.

That's even more in favor of this qwerty-fr project then: let's fix the mistakes of the past!

Spacebar is what I dislike about US ANSI layout. I don't need such big spacebar but I need a Spacekey and useful thumb keys.

I don’t think you’re right about the US layout being standard for programmers. It might be in some countries, but I’ve meet maybe two Danish prograamers that uses US layout.

The weird part about this layout is that you can use it for English, French, German and Swedish (maybe more), but leave out exactly one Danish characther making it useless for Danish. Why leave even add æ and ø if you leave out å?

No idea about ø but æ is used (very rarely, to be fair) in French. Famously, it's used in the name Lætitia. We enjoy having characters that are important but comparatively rare, such as ù, which has a key of its own in the French keyboard even though it is used in a single word, "où" (meaning where), to differentiate it from "ou" (meaning or). I've always felt the key might as well say "où" on it :-)

I don't think we've met. I'm Danish. I use the US keyboard layout.

I buy hardware for new staff in Copenhagen, and none of the Danish people ask for the US or UK layout.

People from other countries are more likely to ask for an English layout, generally UK if they're from Europe (it keeps the ISO enter key shape) or US otherwise.

Wouldn't say it's that rate, but I'm pretty sure less than 10% of German programmers use US intl, maybe 5%?

I switched like 10 years ago and it's really a lot better, even if I have to customize it a bit to be able to type äöüß (via caps+aous).

But I'm peculiar anyway as only my Linux/work machines have that, I still use a German qwertz on Windows on my gaming machine so I generally switch layouts once per day, which only works with different physical keyboards so it feels different ;)

Bear in mind I'm in Denmark, I'm sure Germans-in-Germany are different.

Danish keyboards are obviously the default here, but it's usually not much hassle to get UK/US keyboards for laptops. Buying a laptop with a German keyboard is more complicated.

Hm. I switched to US QWERTY twice. Both times my wrist started hurting after half a year. The special characters feel badly spread out.

Never had any issues with Belgian AZERTY. Much prefer the useless number row to be behind the shift (there's a numpad for those anyway), and having special characters readily available on that row.

> One question though: the French seem to enjoy using different standards, for some reason. Besides the keyboard, I've also noticed they have a lot of WIFI channel exclusions.

Each country has its own standards, especially with radio channels, but France seems pretty similar with other west-european countries (Wifi channels, FM radio, digital TV...).

Regarding physical keyboard layouts, mostly all the world is using the ISO layout but US are stuck with the ANSI keyboard missing one key.

> the US Qwerty keyboard is the standard for programmers

Is anyone using the us keyboard outside the US? I am actually curious, it never came to my mind before.

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