Re: localization of keyboard shortcuts

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

Jörg Rathlev wrote:
> > I had a look at these layouts:
> >
> > Belgium
> > Denmark
> > France
> > Germany
> > Italy
> > Netherlands
> > Norway
> > Spain
> > Sweden
> > Switzerland
> > UK
> > US
> 
> Where did you take a look at them? Ok, maybe you've seen the actual
> keyboards, but what I am looking for is a web site that shows the layouts of
> all major keyboard layouts. If you have a link, could you please send it to
> me or the gnome-gui-list?

Actually, I happen to have an old, worn computer manual here from an old
486 of mine. The reason I kept the manual is that it includes a chapter
with the 102-key keyboard layouts of the countries above. :-)

That manual has saved me a lot of times when I had to deal with keyboard
issues, and I've gotten some bugs in keymappings corrected with the help
of it.
I have searched for keyboard layouts on the web myself before, and to my
surprise I didn't find anything, so when I had to do keymapping bug
reports and describe the layouts it actually turned out that it was
easier for me to go to the school and scan in parts of the manual.

I don't have all layouts scanned in, but i could do that if there was
demand for it.


> > The reason is documentation and portability. I don't have to know what
> > keyboard layout you use and you don't have to know mine, as long as we
> > agree on a keyboard shortcut that makes sense on most layouts and that
> > we can both easily type.
> 
> > If you still have to swap layouts, you still have to learn to type on
> > that other layout. Having to learn how to access your favorite key combo
> > is no different than having to learn where all the other keys are.
> 
> Yes. The same character does the same thing, on any layout. Pressing A will
> always type an a, no matter where the A key is located. Pressing Shift+A
> will always result in an uppercase A, no matter where the keys are. Why
> should Ctrl+A be different?

Exactly.


> Of course, if you have a completely different keyboard, e.g. with a
> different character set, you'll have to change the shortcuts.

Yes.


Christian



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Christian Rose
http://www.menthos.com                    	    menthos@menthos.com
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