A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer, typewriter, or other typographic keyboard.
- Mechanical layout
- The placements and keys of a keyboard.
- Visual layout
- The arrangement of the legends (labels, markings, engravings) that appear on the keys of a keyboard.
- Functional layout
- The arrangement of the key-meaning associations, determined in software, of all the keys of a keyboard.
Most computer keyboards are designed to send scancodes to the operating system, rather than directly sending characters. From there, the series of scancodes is converted into a character stream by keyboard layout software. This allows a physical keyboard to be dynamically mapped to any number of layouts without switching hardware components – merely by changing the software that interprets the keystrokes. It is usually possible for an advanced user to change keyboard operation, and third-party software is available to modify or extend keyboard functionality.
Key types
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A computer keyboard comprises character keys for typing, modifier keys for altering the functions of other keys, navigation keys for moving the text cursor on the screen, function keys and system command keys – such as Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press – for special actions, and often a numeric keypad to facilitate calculations.
Differences between national layouts are mostly due to different selections and placements of symbols on the character keys.
Character keys
redigeraThe core section of a keyboard comprises character keys, which can be used to type letters and other characters. Typically, there are three rows of keys for typing letters and punctuation, an upper row for typing digits and special symbols, and the Mall:Key press on the bottom row. The positioning of the character keys is similar to the keyboard of a typewriter.
Modifier keys
redigeraBesides the character keys, a keyboard incorporates special keys that do nothing by themselves but modify the functions of other keys. For example, the Mall:Key press key can be used to alter the output of character keys, whereas the Mall:Key press (control) and Mall:Key press (alternate) keys trigger special operations when used in concert with other keys.
Typically, a modifier key is held down while another key is struck. To facilitate this, modifier keys usually come in pairs, one functionally identical key for each hand, so holding a modifier key with one hand leaves the other hand free to strike another key.
An alphanumeric key labeled with only a single letter (usually the capital form) can generally be struck to type either a lower case or capital letter, the latter requiring the simultaneous holding of the Mall:Key press key. The Mall:Key press key is also used to type the upper of two symbols engraved on a given key, the lower being typed without using the modifier key.
The English alphanumeric keyboard has a dedicated key for each of the letters A–Z, along with punctuation and other symbols. In many other languages there are special letters (often with diacritics) or symbols, which also need to be available on the keyboard. To make room for additional symbols, keyboards often have what is effectively a secondary shift key, labeled Mall:Key press (which typically takes the place of the right-hand Mall:Key press key). It can be used to type an extra symbol beyond the two otherwise available with an alphanumeric key, and using it simultaneously with the Mall:Key press key may give access to even a fourth symbol. On the visual layout, these third-level and fourth-level symbols may appear on the right half of the key top, or they may be unmarked.
Instead of the Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press keys, Apple Keyboards have Mall:Key press (command) and Mall:Key press keys. The Mall:Key press key is used much like the Mall:Key press, and the Mall:Key press key like the Mall:Key press on IBM PCs, to access menu options and shortcuts. The main use of the actual Mall:Key press key on Macs is to produce a secondary mouse click, and to provide support for programs running in X11 (a Unix environment included with OS X as an install option) or MS Windows. There is also a Mall:Key press key on modern Mac keyboards, which is used for switching between use of the Mall:Key press, Mall:Key press etc. keys either as function keys or for other functions like media control, accessing dashboard widgets, controlling the volume, or handling exposé.
Many Unix workstation keyboards place the Mall:Key press key to the left of the letter Mall:Key press, and the Mall:Key press key in the bottom left. This layout is often preferred by programmers as it makes the Mall:Key press key easier to reach. This position of the Mall:Key press key is also used on the XO laptop, which does not have a Mall:Key press.
Dead keys
redigeraA dead key is a special kind of a modifier key that, instead of being held while another key is struck, is pressed and released before the other key. The dead key does not generate a character by itself, but it modifies the character generated by the key struck immediately after, typically making it possible to type a letter with a specific diacritic. For example, on some keyboard layouts, the grave accent key Mall:Key press is a dead key; in this case, striking Mall:Key press and then Mall:Key press results in à (a with grave accent), whereas Mall:Key press followed by Mall:Key press results in è (e with grave accent). A grave accent in isolated form can be typed by striking Mall:Key press and then Mall:Key press.
A key may function as a dead key by default, or sometimes a normal key can temporarily be altered to function as a dead key by simultaneously holding down the secondary-shift key – Mall:Key press or Mall:Key press. In some systems, there is no indication to the user that a dead key has been struck, so the key appears dead, but in some text-entry systems the diacritical mark is displayed along with an indication that the system is waiting for another keystroke: either the base character to be marked, an additional diacritical mark, or Mall:Key press to produce the diacritical mark in isolation.
Compared with the secondary-shift modifier key, the dead-key approach may be a little more complicated, but it allows more additional letters. Using the secondary shift, you may only type one or (if you use it simultaneously with the normal shift key) two additional letters with each key, whereas using a dead key, a specific diacritic can be attached to a number of different base letters.
Compose key
redigeraA Compose key can be characterized as a generic dead key that may in some systems be available instead of or in addition to the more specific dead keys. It allows access to a wide range of predefined extra characters by interpreting a whole sequence of keystrokes following it. For example, striking Mall:Key press followed by Mall:Key press (apostrophe) and then Mall:Key press results in á (a with acute accent), Mall:Key press followed by Mall:Key press and then Mall:Key press results in æ (ae ligature), and Mall:Key press followed by Mall:Key press and then Mall:Key press results in © (circled c, copyright symbol).
The Mall:Key press key is supported by the X Window System (used by most Unix-like operating systems, including most GNU/Linux distributions). Some keyboards have a key labelled "Compose", but any key can be configured to serve this function. For example, the otherwise redundant right-hand Mall:Key press key may, when available, be used for this purpose.
Mechanical, visual and functional layouts
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Today, most keyboards use one of three different mechanical layouts, usually referred to as simply ISO (ISO/IEC 9995-2), ANSI (ISO 9995-3), and JIS (JIS X 6002-1980), referring roughly to the organizations issuing the relevant worldwide, United States, and Japanese standards, respectively. Keyboard layout in this sense may refer either to this broad categorization or to finer distinctions within these categories. For example, Mall:As of Apple Inc produces ISO, ANSI, and JIS desktop keyboards, each in both extended and compact forms. The extended keyboards have 110, 109, and 112 keys (ISO, ANSI, and JIS, respectively), and the compact models have 79, 78, and 80.
Mechanical layout
redigeraMechanical layouts only address tangible differences among keyboards. When a key is pressed, the keyboard does not send a message such as the A-key is depressed but rather the left-most main key of the home row is depressed. (Technically, each key has an internal reference number, "raw keycodes", and these numbers are what is sent to the computer when a key is pressed or released.) The keyboard and the computer each have no information about what is marked on that key, and it could equally well be the letter A or the digit 9. The user of the computer is requested to identify the visual layout of the keyboard when installing the operating system. Visual layouts vary by language, country, and user preference, and the same mechanical layout can be produced with a number of different visual layouts. For example, the "ISO" keyboard layout is used throughout Europe, but typical French, German, and UK variants of mechanically identical keyboards appear different because they bear different legends on their keys. Even blank keyboards – with no legends – are sometimes used to learn typing skills or by user preference.
Functional layout
redigeraThe functional layout of the keyboard refers to the mapping between the physical keys, such as the Mall:Key press key, and software events, such as the letter "A" appearing on the screen. Usually the functional layout is set to match the visual layout of the keyboard being used, so that pressing a key will produce the expected result, corresponding to the legends on the keyboard. However, most operating systems have software that allow the user to easily switch between functional layouts, such as the language bar in Microsoft Windows. For example, a user with a Swedish keyboard who wishes to type more easily in German may switch to a functional layout intended for German – without regard to key markings – just as a Dvorak touch typist may choose a Dvorak layout regardless of the visual layout of the keyboard used.
Customized functional layouts
redigeraFunctional layouts can be redefined or customized within the operating system, by reconfiguring operating system keyboard driver, or with a use of a separate software application. Transliteration is one example of that whereby letters in other language get matched to visible Latin letters on the keyboard by the way they sound. Thus, touch typist can type various foreign languages with visible English-language keyboard only.
Mixed hardware-to-software keyboard extensions exist to overcome above discrepancies between functional and visual layouts. A keyboard overlay[1] is a plastic or paper masks that can be placed over the empty space between the keys, providing the user with the functional use of various keys. Alternatively, an user applies keyboard stickers with an extra imprinted language alphabet and adds another keyboad layout via language support options in the operating system.[2] The visual layout of any keyboard can also be changed by simply replacing its keys or attaching labels to them, such as to change an English-language keyboard from the common QWERTY to the Dvorak layout, although for touch typists, the placement of the tactile bumps on the home keys is of more practical importance than that of the visual markings.
National variants
redigeraThe U.S. IBM PC keyboard has 104 keys, while the PC keyboards for most other countries have 105 keys. In an operating system configured for a non-English language, the keys are placed differently. For example, keyboards designed for typing in Spanish have some characters shifted, to release space for Ñ/ñ; similarly those for French may have a special key for the character Ç/ç. Keyboards designed for Japanese may have special keys to switch between Japanese and Latin scripts, and the character ¥ (Japanese yen or Chinese yuan currency symbol) instead of \ (backslash, which may be replaced by the former in some typefaces and codepages). Using a keyboard for alternative languages leads to a conflict: the image on the key does not correspond to the character. In such cases, each new language may require an additional label on the key, because the standard keyboard layouts do not even share similar characters of different languages.
The United States keyboard layout is used as default in the currently most popular operating systems: MS Windows,[källa behövs] Apple Mac OS X[källa behövs] and GNU/Linux.[3]
Most operating systems allow switching between functional keyboard layouts, using a key combination involving register keys that are not used for normal operations (e.g. Microsoft reserve Mall:Key press or Mall:Key press register control keys for sequential layout switching; those keys were inherited from old DOS keyboard drivers). There are keyboards with two parallel sets of characters labeled on the keys, representing alternate alphabets or scripts. It is also possible to add a second set of characters to a keyboard with keyboard stickers manufactured by third parties.
History
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Keyboard layouts have evolved over time. The earliest mechanical keyboards were used in musical instruments to play particular notes. With the advent of printing telegraph, a keyboard was needed to select characters. Some of the earliest printing telegraph machines used a layout similar to a piano keyboard.[4][5]
In countries using the Latin script, the center, alphanumeric portion of the modern keyboard is most often based on the QWERTY design by Christopher Sholes, who laid out the keys in such a way that common two-letter combinations were placed on opposite sides of the keyboard so that his mechanical keyboard would not jam, and laid out the keys in rows offset horizontally from each other by three-eighths, three-sixteenths, and three-eighths inches to provide room for the levers. Although it has been demonstrated that the QWERTY layout is not the most efficient layout for typing, it has become such a standard that people will not change to a more efficient alphanumeric layout.
Sholes chose the size of the keys to be on three-quarter inch (0.75-inch) centers (about 19 mm, versus musical piano keys which are 23.5 mm or about 0.93 inches wide). Actually, 0.75 inches has turned out to be optimum for fast key entry by the average size hand, and keyboards with this key size are called "full-sized keyboards".
The standard 101/102-key PC keyboard layout was invented by Mark Tiddens of Key Tronic Corporation in 1982.[källa behövs] IBM adopted the layout on its PC AT in 1984 (after previously using an 84-key keyboard which did not have separate cursor and numeric key pads).
Most modern keyboards conform to the ISO 9995 layout. This layout was first defined by the user group at AFNOR in 1984 working under the direction of Alain Souloumiac.[6] Based on this work, a well known ergonomic expert wrote a report[7] which was adopted at the ISO Berlin meeting in 1985 and became the reference for the keyboards' layout.
The 104/105-key PC keyboard was born when two Mall:Key press keys and a Mall:Key press key were added on the bottom row (originally for the Microsoft Windows operating system). Newer keyboards may incorporate even further additions, such as Internet access (World Wide Web navigation) keys and multimedia (access to media players) buttons.
QWERTY-based layouts for Latin script
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Although there are a large number of different keyboard layouts used for different languages written in Latin script, most of these layouts are quite similar. They can be divided into three main families according to where the Mall:Key press, Mall:Key press, Mall:Key press, Mall:Key press, and Mall:Key press keys are placed on the keyboard. These are usually named after the first six letters.
While the core of the keyboard, the alphabetic section, remains fairly constant, and the numbers from 1–9 are almost invariably on the top row, keyboards differ vastly in:
- the placement of punctuation characters,
- which punctuation characters are included,
- whether numbers are accessible directly or in a shift-state,
- the presence and placement of dead keys and letters with diacritics.
The actual mechanical keyboard is of the basic ISO, ANSI, or JIS type; functioning is entirely determined by operating-system or other software. It is customary for keyboards to be used with a particular software keyboard mapping to be engraved appropriately; for example, when the Mall:Key press and numeric Mall:Key press keys are pressed simultaneously on a US keyboard; "@" is generated, and the key is engraved appropriately. On a UK keyboard this key combination generates the double-quote character, and UK keyboards are so engraved.
In the keyboard charts listed below, the primary letters or characters available with each alphanumeric key are often shown in black in the left half of the key, whereas characters accessed using the Mall:Key press key appear in blue in the right half of the corresponding key. Symbols representing dead keys usually appear in red.
QWERTY
redigeraBy far the most widespread layout in use, and the only one that is not confined to a particular geographical area. Some varieties have keys like Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press not translated to the language of the keyboard in question. In other varieties such keys have been translated, such as "Bloq mayús" for "Caps Lock", in the Spanish[8] and Latin American keyboards. On Macintosh computers these keys are usually just represented by symbols without the word "Enter", "Shift", "Command", "Option/Alt" or "Control".
Canadian
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English-speaking Canadians have traditionally most often used the same keyboard layout as in the United States, unless they are in a position where they have to write French on a regular basis. French-speaking Canadians respectively have favoured the Canadian French keyboard layout (see below). However, due to Canada's official bilingualism laws, Canadian French keyboards have recently (as of 2010)[källa behövs] become standard across most of the country on both laptops and household computers.
Canadian Multilingual Standard
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The Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard layout is used by some Canadians. Though this keyboard lacks the caret (^) character, this is easily accomplished by typing the circumflex accent followed by a space.
Canadian French (Quebec)
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This keyboard layout is commonly used in Canada by French-speaking Canadians. It is the most common layout for laptops and stand-alone keyboards _targeting French speakers. It can be used to type all accented French characters, as well as some from other languages. It also serves all English functions as well. It is popular mainly because of its close similarity to the basic US keyboard commonly used by English-speaking Canadians, and is the standard for keyboards in Quebec.
In some variants of this keyboard "Caps Lock" is "Fix Maj" or "Verr Maj", "Enter" is "Entrée",[9] and "Esc" is "Échap".
Czech (QWERTY)
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Since the typewriter came to the Czech area from Germany in the late 19th century, Czech typewriters have the QWERTZ layout. However, the QWERTY keyboard layout is frequently used for Czech too. Czech QWERTY layout for computers has one advantage against the QWERTZ one. In QWERTY keyboard the characters (e.g. @$& and others) missing from the Czech keyboard are accessible with AltGr on the same keys where they are located on American keyboard. In Czech QWERTZ keyboard the position of these characters accessed through AltGr differs.
Danish
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Both the Danish and Norwegian keyboards include dedicated keys for the letters Å/å, Æ/æ and Ø/ø, but the placement is a little different, as the Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press keys are swapped on the Norwegian layout. (The Finnish–Swedish keyboard is also largely similar to the Norwegian layout, but the Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press are replaced with Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press. On some systems, the Danish keyboard may allow typing Ö/ö and Ä/ä by holding the Mall:Key press or Mall:Key press key while striking Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press, respectively.)
Dutch (Netherlands)
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This is a modern version of the Dutch layout. In the 1990s there was a version with the now-obsolete florin sign (Dutch: guldenteken) for IBM PCs. It has additions for the € sign, the ¨ (diaresis) and more, and the braces ("{ }") and other symbols are differently located. The Dutch layout is historical and seldom used. A Dutch keyboard uses "qwerty" not "azerty". Most computers in The Netherlands use the US International layout instead.
Estonian
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The keyboard layout used in Estonia is virtually the same as the Swedish layout. The main difference is that the Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press keys (to the right of Mall:Key press) are replaced with Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press respectively (the latter letter being the most distinguishing feature of the Estonian alphabet). Some special symbols and dead keys are also moved around.
Latvian
redigeraApostrophe, LV: Ice3, http://apostrophe.ice3.lv/.
Faroese
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Basically the same as the Danish layout with added Mall:Key press, since the Faroese Islands are a self-governed part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Finnish multilingual
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The visual layout used in Finland is basically the same as the Swedish layout. This is practical, as Finnish and Swedish share the special characters Ä/ä and Ö/ö, and while the Swedish Å/å is unnecessary for writing Finnish, it is needed by Swedish-speaking Finns.
As of 2008, there is a new standard for the Finnish multilingual keyboard layout, developed as part of a localization project by CSC. All the engravings of the traditional Finnish–Swedish visual layout have been retained, so there is no need to change the hardware, but the functionality has been extended considerably, as additional characters (e.g., Æ/æ, Ə/ə, Ʒ/ʒ) are available through the Mall:Key press key, as well as dead keys, which allow typing a wide variety of letters with diacritics (e.g., Ç/ç, Ǥ/ǥ, Ǯ/ǯ).[10][11]
Based on the Latin letter repertory included in the Multilingual European Subset No. 2 (MES-2) of the Unicode standard, the layout has three main objectives. First, it provides for easy entering of text in both Finnish and Swedish, the two official languages of Finland, using the familiar keyboard layout but adding some advanced punctuation options, such as dashes, typographical quotation marks, and the non-breaking space (NBSP).
Second, it is designed to offer an indirect but intuitive way to enter the special letters and diacritics needed by the other three Nordic national languages (Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic) as well as the regional and minority languages (Northern Sámi, Southern Sámi, Lule Sámi, Inari Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Romani language as spoken in Finland, Faroese, Kalaallisut a.k.a. Greenlandic, and German).
As a third objective, it allows for relatively easy entering of particularly names (of persons, places or products) in a variety of European languages using a more or less extended Latin alphabet, such as the official languages of the European Union (excluding Bulgarian and Greek). However, the Romanian letters Ș/ș and Ț/ț (S/s and T/t with comma below) are not supported; the presumption is that Ş/ş and Ţ/ţ (with cedilla) suffice as surrogates.
Icelandic
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The Icelandic keyboard layout is different from the standard QWERTY keyboard because the Icelandic alphabet has some special letters, most of which it shares with the other Nordic countries: Þ/þ, Ð/ð, Æ/æ and Ö/ö. (Æ/æ also occurs in Norwegian, Danish and Faroese, Ð/ð in Faroese, and Ö/ö in Swedish, Finnish and Estonian.)
The letters Å/å, Ä/ä, Ÿ/ÿ, Ü/ü and Ï/ï can be produced with the Icelandic keyboard by first pressing the Mall:Key press or Mall:Key press (for ¨) dead key located below the Mall:Key press key, and then the corresponding letter. (i.e. Mall:Key press followed by Mall:Key press yields å) These letters are not used natively in Icelandic, but may have been implemented for ease of communication in other Nordic languages.[källa behövs]
Irish
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The default keyboard layout for Irish on Microsoft Windows is similar to the UK layout with two exceptions. The keyboards have the same keys with the same markings but (1) the default use for key left of "1", is a grave dead key (this change is also made on UK-Extended) and (2) when AltGr is pressed, the apostrophe key becomes an acute dead key.
Italian
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- braces (right above square brackets and shown in purple) are given with both AltGr and Shift pressed.
- the tilde (~) character is not present on the Italian keyboard layout
- the standard Italian keyboard layout does not allow one to write 100% correct Italian language, since it lacks the È key. The common workaround is writing E' (E followed by an apostrophe) instead, or relying on the auto-correction feature of several word processors when available. It is possible to obtain the È symbol in MS Word by typing Mall:Key press + Mall:Key pressMall:Key pressMall:Key press. Mac users, however, can write the correct accented character by pressing Mall:Key press + Mall:Key press + Mall:Key press. GNU/Linux users can also write it by pressing the Mall:Key press key with Caps Lock enabled.
- There is also no backquote (`).
There is an alternate layout, which differ only in disposition of characters accessible through Mall:Key press, and includes the tilde and the curly brackets. It is commonly used in IBM keyboards.
Italian typewriters often have the QZERTY layout instead.
Maltese
redigeraThe Maltese language uses Unicode (UTF-8) to display the Maltese diacritics: ċ Ċ; ġ Ġ; ħ Ħ; ż Ż (together with à À; è È; ì Ì; ò Ò; ù Ù). There are 2 standard keyboard layouts for Maltese, according to "MSA 100:2002 Maltese Keyboard Standard"; one of 47 keys and one of 48 keys.
Norwegian
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The Norwegian languages use the same letters as Danish, but the Norwegian keyboard differs from the Danish layout regarding the placement of the Mall:Key press, Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press (backslash) keys. On the Danish keyboard, the Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press are swapped. The Finnish–Swedish keyboard is also similar to the Norwegian layout, but Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press are replaced with Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press. On some systems, the Norwegian keyboard may allow typing Ö/ö and Ä/ä by holding the Mall:Key press or Mall:Key press key while striking Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press, respectively.
There is also an alternative keyboard layout called Norwegian with Sámi, which allows for easier input of the characters required to write various Sámi (also known as Lapp) languages. All the Sámi characters are accessed through the Mall:Key press key.
On Macintosh computers, the Norwegian and Norwegian extended keyboard layouts have a slightly different placement for some of the symbols obtained with the help of the Mall:Key press or Mall:Key press keys. Notably, the $ sign is accessed with Mall:Key press and ¢ with Mall:Key press. Furthermore, the frequently used @ is placed between Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press.
Persian (Farsi)
redigeraThe Persian keyboard is contributed by Desphilic group for writing Internationalized Persian language. It supports Unipers characters [ ä š ü ž] and an additional set of Desphilic extended character [ ö ķ ğ ] and their Capitals [ Ä Š Ü Ž Ö Ķ Ğ ]. These characters are added to Latin-1 character set to form Persian Roman alphabet. The keyboard is in increasing use specially in Persian chat. It is intended to be used as a base for future standards for a Universal Persian Keyboard. The keyboard is likely to be agreed by two Persian Romanization standards ( Desphilic and Unipers) and is used for transliteration of Persian and writing Persian Latin alphabet. The base and shifted layouts are identical with US-English keyboard and the AltGr layout is shown in the image to the right.
Polish
redigeraMost typewriters use a QWERTZ keyboard with Polish accented letters accessed directly (officially approved as "Typist's keyboard", polska: klawiatura maszynisty, Polish Standard PN-87), which is mainly ignored in Poland as impractical (except custom-made, e.g., in public sector and some Apple computers); the "Polish programmer's" (polska: polski programisty) layout has become the de facto standard, used on virtually all computers sold on the Polish market.
Polish programmers use QWERTY keyboards identical with the standard US layout. In this layout Polish letters are accessed in the same manner as the usage of keyboard shortcuts, with Latin letter keys in combination with right Alt (actually working as AltGr) key. These key combinations (excluding one for "€") obey states of both Shift and Caps Lock keys, preserving normal capitalization while typing Polish characters. For example, to obtain capital "Ź" pressing Shift-rightAlt-X is needed, with Caps Lock off. The use of the right Alt in Polish programmers layout may be confused with Alt-A, Alt-C etc. (which are common shortcuts in most programs and can be obtained only with left Alt) because the key really acting as AltGr is also marked as Alt. This is because most keyboards sold in Poland are US-layout with Alt marked on both keys, without AltGr.[12]
| Caps Lock state | In combination with | Keystroke | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | C | E | L | N | O | S | Z | X | U | ||
| Off | right Alt | ą | ć | ę | ł | ń | ó | ś | ż | ź | € |
| Shift & right Alt | Ą | Ć | Ę | Ł | Ń | Ó | Ś | Ż | Ź | ||
| On | right Alt | Ą | Ć | Ę | Ł | Ń | Ó | Ś | Ż | Ź | € |
| Shift & right Alt | ą | ć | ę | ł | ń | ó | ś | ż | ź | ||
| Note: On Polish programmer keyboard, right Alt plays the role of AltGr | |||||||||||
Also, on MS Windows, the tilde character (Shift+` ) acts as a dead key to type Polish letters (with diacritical marks) thus, to obtain an "Ł", one may press ~ followed by L. The tilde character is obtained with ~ and space.
Portuguese (Brazil)
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The Brazilian computer keyboard layout is specified in the ABNT NBR 10346 variant 2 (alphanumeric portion) and 10347 (numeric portion) standards.
Essentially, the Brazilian keyboard contains dead keys for five variants of diacritics in use in the language; the letter Ç, the only application of the cedilla in Portuguese, has its own key. In some keyboard layouts the AltGr+C combination produces the ₢ character (Unicode 0x20A2), symbol for the old currency cruzeiro, a symbol that is not used in practice (the common abbreviation in the eighties and nineties used to be Cr$). The cent sign ¢, is accessible via AltGr+5, but is not commonly used for the centavo, subunit of previous currencies as well as the current real, which itself is represented by R$. The Euro sign € is not standardized in this layout. The masculine and feminine ordinals ª and º plus the degree sign ° are accessible via AltGr combinations. The section sign § (Unicode U+00A7), in Portuguese called parágrafo, is nowadays practically only used to denote sections of laws.
Variant 2 of the Brazilian keyboard, the only which gained general acceptance (MS Windows treats both variants as the same layout),[13] has a unique mechanical layout, combining some features of the ISO 9995-3 and the JIS keyboards in order to fit 12 keys between the left and right Shift (compared to the American standard of 10 and the international of 11). Its modern, IBM PS/2-based variations, are thus known as 107-keys keyboards, and the original PS/2 variation was 104-key. Variant 1, never widely adopted, was based on the ISO 9995-2 keyboards. In order to make this layout usable with keyboards that have only 11 keys in the last row, the rightmost key (/?°) has its functions replicated across the AltGr+Q, AltGr+W, and AltGr+E combinations.
Portuguese (Portugal)
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During the 20th century, a different keyboard layout, HCESAR, was in widespread use in Portugal. On some QWERTY keyboards the key labels are translated, but the majority are labelled in English.
Romanian (in Romania and Moldova)
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The current Romanian National Standard SR 13392:2004 establishes two layouts for Romanian keyboards: a "primary"[14] one and a "secondary"[15] one.
The "primary" layout is intended for traditional users who have learned how to type with older, Microsoft-style implementations of the Romanian keyboard. The "secondary" layout is mainly used by programmers as it does not contradict the physical arrangement of keys on a US-style keyboard. The "secondary" arrangement is used as the default Romanian layout by GNU/Linux distributions, as defined in the "X Keyboard Configuration Database"[16]
There are four Romanian-specific characters that are incorrectly implemented in versions of Microsoft Windows prior to Vista:
- Ș (U+0218, S with comma), incorrectly implemented as Ş (U+015E, S with cedilla)
- ș (U+0219, s with comma), incorrectly implemented as ş (U+015F, s with cedilla)
- Ț (U+021A, T with comma), incorrectly implemented as Ţ (U+0162, T with cedilla)
- ț (U+021B, t with comma), incorrectly implemented as ţ (U+0163, t with cedilla)
The cedilla-versions of the characters do not exist in the Romanian language (they came to be used due to a historic bug).[17]
Since Romanian hardware keyboards are not widely available, Cristian Secară has created a driver that allows Romanian characters to be generated with a US-style keyboard in all versions of Windows prior to Vista through the use of the AltGr key modifier.[18]
MS Windows 7 now includes the correct diacritical signs in the default Romanian Keyboard layout. This layout has the Z and Y keys mapped like in English layouts and also includes characters like the 'at' (@) and dollar ($) signs, among others. The older cedilla-version layout is still included albeit as the 'Legacy' layout.
Slovak (QWERTY)
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In Slovakia, similarly to the Czech Republic, both QWERTZ and QWERTY keyboard layouts are used. QWERTZ is the default keyboard layout for Slovak in Microsoft Windows.
Spanish (Spain), aka Spanish (International sort)
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The Spanish keyboard layout is used to write in Spanish and in other languages of Spain such as Aragonese, Asturian, Catalan, Occitan, Galician and Basque. It includes Ñ for Spanish, Asturian and Galician, the acute accent, the diaeresis, the left question and exclamation marks (¿, ¡) and, finally, some characters required only for typing Catalan and Occitan that are Ç, the grave accent and the interpunct (punt volat/punt interior, used in l·l, n·h, s·h; located at Shift-3). It can also be used to write other international characters, such as the circumflex accent (used in French and Portuguese among others) and the tilde (used in Portuguese), which are available as dead keys. However, it lacks two characters used in Asturian: ḤMall:Disambiguation needed and Ḷ (historically, general support for these two has been poor – they aren't present in the ISO 8859-1 character encoding standard, or any other ISO/IEC 8859 standard); several alternative distributions, based on this one or created from scratch, have been created to address this issue (see the Other original layouts and layout design software section for more information).
On most keyboards, € is marked as Alt Gr + E and not Alt Gr + 5 as shown in the image.
Spanish keyboards are usually labelled in Spanish instead of English, its abbreviations being:
| Spanish label | English equivalent |
|---|---|
| Insertar (Ins) | Insert (Ins) |
| Suprimir (Supr) | Delete (Del) |
| Retroceder página (Re Pág) | Page up (PgUp) |
| Avanzar página (Av Pág) | Page down (PgDn) |
| Inicio | Home |
| Fin | End |
| Imprimir pantalla / Petición de sistema (Impr Pant/PetSis) | Print Screen / System request (PrtScn/SysRq) |
| Bloqueo de mayúsculas (Bloq Mayús) | Caps Lock |
| Bloqueo numérico (Bloq Num) | Num Lock |
| Bloqueo de desplazamiento (Bloq Despl) | Scroll Lock |
| Pausa / Interrumpir (Pausa/Inter) | Pause/Break |
| Intro | Enter |
Normally "Bloq Mayús" is used instead of "Caps Lock", and "Intro" instead of "Enter".
The c-cedilla key (Ç), instead of on the right of the acute accent key (´), is located alternatively on some keyboards one or two lines above. In some cases it's placed on the right of the plus sign key (+).[19][20] In other keyboards it's situated on the right of the inverted exclamation mark key (¡).[21][22]
Spanish (Latin America)
redigera
The Spanish (Latin America) keyboard layout is used throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Latin American vendors in the last few years have been preferring the Spanish (Spain) layout as default; as of 2011, the latter is becoming dominant.
Its most obvious difference with the Spanish (Spain) layout is the lack of a Ç key; on Microsoft Windows it lacks a tilde (~) dead key, whereas on Linux systems the dead tilde can be optionally enabled. This is not a problem when typing in Spanish, but it is rather problematic when typing in Portuguese, which can be an issue in countries with large commercial ties to Brazil (Argentina and Paraguay).
Normally "Bloq Mayús" is used instead of "Caps Lock", and "Intro" instead of "Enter".
Swedish
redigera
The central characteristics of the Swedish keyboard are the three additional letters Å/å, Ä/ä, and Ö/ö. The same visual layout is also in use in Finland, as the letters Ä/ä and Ö/ö are shared with the Finnish language, and even Å/å is needed by Swedish-speaking Finns. However, the Finnish multilingual keyboard adds new letters and punctuation to the functional layout.
The Norwegian keyboard largely resembles the Swedish layout, but the Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press are replaced with Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press. The Danish keyboard is also similar, but it has the Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press swapped. On some systems, the Swedish or Finnish keyboard may allow typing Ø/ø and Æ/æ by holding the Mall:Key press or Mall:Key press key while striking Mall:Key press and Mall:Key press, respectively.
The Swedish with Sámi keyboard allows typing not only Ø/ø and Æ/æ, but even the letters required to write various Sámi (also known as Lapp) languages. This keyboard has the same function for all the keys engraved on the regular Swedish keyboard, and the additional letters are available through the Mall:Key press key.
On Macintosh computers, the Swedish and Swedish Pro keyboards differ somewhat from the image shown above, especially as regards the characters available using the Mall:Key press or Mall:Key press keys. Mall:Key press (on the upper row) produces the ° sign, and Mall:Key press produces the € sign. The digit keys produce ©@£$∞§|[]≈ with Mall:Key press and ¡”¥¢‰¶\{}≠ with Mall:Key press.
On Linux systems, the Swedish keyboard may also give access to additional characters as follows:
- first row: Mall:Key press ¶¡@£$€¥{[]}\± and Mall:Key press ¾¹²³¼¢⅝÷«»°¿¬
- second row: Mall:Key press @ł€®þ←↓→œþ"~ and Mall:Key press ΩŁ¢®Þ¥↑ıŒÞ°ˇ
- third row: Mall:Key press ªßðđŋħjĸłøæ´ and Mall:Key press º§ÐªŊĦJ&ŁØÆ×
- fourth row: Mall:Key press |«»©“”nµ¸·̣ and Mall:Key press ¦<>©‘’Nº˛˙˙
Several of these characters function as dead keys.
Turkish (Q-keyboard)
redigera
Today the majority of Turkish keyboards are based on QWERTY (the so-called Q-keyboard layout), although there is also the older F-keyboard layout specifically designed for the language.
United Kingdom
redigera The United Kingdom and Ireland[23] use a keyboard layout based on the 48-key version defined in British Standard BS 4822.[24] It is very similar to that of the United States, but has an extra key and a larger Enter key, includes £ and € signs and some rarely used EBCDIC symbols (¬, ¦), and uses different positions for the characters @, ", #, ~, \, and |. See the article British and American keyboards for details.
The BS 4822:1994 standard does not make any use of the AltGr key and lacks support for any non-ASCII characters other than ¬ and £. It also assigns a key for the non-ASCII character broken bar (¦), but lacks one for the far more commonly used ASCII character vertical bar (|). It also lacks support for the Welsh alphabet. Therefore, various manufacturers have modified or extended the BS 4822 standard:
- The B00 key (left of Z) shifted results in vertical bar (|) on some systems (e.g., MS Windows' UK/Ireland keyboard layout and GNU/Linux/X11 UK/Ireland keyboard layout), rather than the broken bar (¦) assigned by BS 4822 and provided in some systems (e.g., IBM OS/2's UK166 keyboard layout)
- The E00 key (left of 1) with AltGr provides either vertical bar (|) (OS/2's UK166 keyboard layout, GNU/Linux/X11 UK keyboard layout) or broken bar (¦) (Microsoft Windows' UK/Ireland keyboard layout)
(Hong Kong uses US and Chinese (Traditional) keyboards rather than UK and Ireland ones. See also Technical standards in colonial Hong Kong.)
Also note that the "British" version of the Apple Keyboard does not have this layout. Instead, some older versions have the US layout below with a few differences: the £ sign is reached by shift-3 and the # sign by option-3, the opposite to the US layout. The € is also present and is typed with shift-option-2.
Newer Apple "British" keyboards use a layout that is relatively unlike either the US or traditional UK keyboard. It uses an elongated return key, a shortened left-shift with ` and ~ in the newly created position, and in the upper left of the keyboard are § and ± instead of the traditional EBCDIC codes. The middle-row key that fits inside the return key has \ and |.
United States
redigera This layout is used as default in the current main operating systems.[källa behövs] U.S. keyboards are used not only in the United States, but also in many other English-speaking places, including India, Australia, English Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines. However, the United Kingdom and Ireland, use a slightly different layout.
The US keyboard layout has a second Alt key instead of the AltGr key and does not use any dead keys; this makes it inefficient for all but a handful of languages. On the other hand, the US or UK keyboard layout is occasionally used by programmers in countries where the keys for []{} are located in less convenient positions on the locally customary layout.[25]
On some keyboards the enter key is bigger than traditionally and takes up also a part of the line above, more or less the area of the traditional location of the backslash key (\). In these cases the backslash is located on alternative places.[26] It can be situated one line above the default location, on the right of the equals sign key (=).[27][28] Sometimes it's placed one line below its traditional situation, on the right of the apostrophe key (') (on these cases the enter key is narrower than usual on the line of its default location).[29] It may also be two lines below its default situation, below the enter key, on the right of a narrower than traditionally right shift key.[30]
Vietnamese
redigera
The Vietnamese keyboard layout is an extended Latin QWERTY layout. The letters Ă, Â, Ê, and Ô are found on what would be the number keys 1–4 on the American English keyboard, with 5–9 producing the tonal marks (grave accent, hook, tilde, acute accent, and dot below, in that order), 0 producing Đ, = producing the đồng sign (₫) when not shifted, and brackets ([]) producing Ư and Ơ.[31]
International
redigeraInternational layouts are available which are capable of generating a wide variety of characters used in different countries, based on UK and US physical keyboards. The UK extended keyboard retains the normal use of all keys except the rarely used grave accent (`), using the AltGr key for most functions; the US-international layout changes the effect of the apostrophe/single-quote ('), grave accent (`), double-quote ("), caret (^) and tilde (~) keys, making them dead keys used to modify the following keystroke.
United Kingdom extended
redigeraWindows XP SP2 and later also offer a "United Kingdom Extended" keyboard layout which allows input on a standard physical UK keyboard for many languages (including Welsh) without changing any of the allocations of frequently used keys (the rarely used grave accent key becomes a dead key). In particular, the apostrophe, double-quote, tilde and caret keys are not changed into dead keys modifying the character generated by the next key pressed, as used by the US International layout. The extended keyboard is software installed from the Windows control panel, and the extended characters are not normally engraved on keyboards.
The layout provides support for adding diacritics to the vowels a, e, i, o, u, w and y (the last two being used in Welsh) as well as capitals:
- The grave accent key (left of 1) becomes a dead key which adds a grave accent to a subsequent vowel, generating à, è, etc. Pressing the key followed by a character which does not take a grave accent behaves as on a standard keyboard; grave followed by spacebar generates a grave accent character.
- Vowels with acute accents are generated either by pressing AltGr and the relevant character key simultaneously, or AltGr and apostrophe (acting as a dead key combination) followed by the character. Some programs use the combination of AltGr and a letter for other functions, in which case the AltGr and apostrophe method must be used to generate acute accents.
- AltGr + 6 acts as a dead key combination to add a circumflex to a subsequent vowel (â, ê, etc.). Use of the shifted 6 key is intended to be mnemonic as the key is marked with the caret (^), which looks like a circumflex.
- AltGr + 2 acts as a dead key combination to add a diaeresis to a subsequent vowel (ä, ë, etc.). Use of the shifted 2 key is intended to be mnemonic as on UK keyboards the key is marked with the double quote ("), which looks a bit like a diaeresis.
AltGr + # (hash) acts as a dead key combination to add a tilde (~) to a subsequent a, n, o, A, N, or O (ã, ñ, õ etc.), as used in Spanish and Portuguese. This is mnemonic again; the # key on a UK keyboard is marked with the tilde character (~).
With Windows versions newer than Windows XP SP2, AltGr and c generates lower-case c with cedilla (ç), and AltGr and C (shift-c) generates the capital letter (Ç).
The UK extended layout is almost entirely transparent to users familiar with the UK layout; a machine with the extended layout will behave exactly as with the standard UK except for the rarely used grave accent key. This makes this layout suitable for a machine for shared or public use by a user population in which some, but not all, are aware of the extended functionality.
US-International
redigera
There is an alternative layout that uses the physical US keyboard to type diacritics in some operating systems (including Windows). This is the US-International layout, which uses the right Alt key as an AltGr key which supports many additional characters directly as an additional shift key, and uses keys ', `, ", ^ and ~ as dead keys used to generate characters with diacritics by pressing the appropriate key, then the letter on the keyboard. The international keyboard is a software setting installed from the Windows control panel[32] or similar; the additional functions (shown in blue) may or may not be engraved on the keyboard, but are always functional.
A diacritic key is activated by pressing and releasing it, then pressing the letter that requires a diacritic. After the two strokes, the single character with diacritics is generated. Note that only certain letters (such as vowels and n) can have diacritics in this way. To generate the symbols , ', `, ", ^ and ~, when the following character is capable of having a diacritic, press the spacebar after the key.
Characters with diacritics can be typed with the following combinations:
- ' + vowel → vowel with acute accent, e.g., ' + e → é
- ` + vowel → vowel with grave accent, e.g., ` + e → è
- " + vowel → vowel with diaeresis (or umlaut), e.g., " + e → ë
- ^ + vowel → vowel with circumflex accent, e.g., ^ + e → ê
- ~ + a, n or o → letter with tilde, e.g. ~ + n → ñ, ~ + o → õ
- ' + c → ç
The US-International layout is not entirely transparent to users familiar with the US layout; when using a machine with the international layout the commonly used single- and double-quote keys and the less commonly used grave accent, tilde, and caret keys will behave unexpectedly. This could be disconcerting on a machine for shared or public use
There are also alternative US-International formats, whereby modifier keys such as shift and alt are used, and the keys for the characters with diacritics are in different places from their unmodified counterparts.
US-International in the Netherlands
redigeraIn the Netherlands the US-International keyboard layout is nearly always used. The Dutch layout is historical, and keyboards with this layout are rarely used. Many US keyboards sold do not have the extra US-International characters or "AltGr" (blue in the image) engraved on the keyboard, although € (AltGr+5) always is; however the keys work as expected although not marked. Many computer-experienced Dutch people have retained the habit of using alt+number codes to type accented characters, though use of a spelling checker to replace words typed without diacritics by the correct form is common.
Windows 2003 has an error by which the (obsolete) Dutch layout is set as default if the Windows location is set to the Netherlands, and will even install this every time the system boots, replacing the US International layout. This causes many issues, but has not been patched.
International English (Apple Keyboard)
redigera
There are three kinds of Apple Keyboards for English: the United States, the United Kingdom and International English. The International English version is almost identical to the United States version, but some features are identical to the United Kingdom version:
- The Mall:Key press key is located on the left of the Mall:Key press key, and the Mall:Key press key is located on the right of the Mall:Key press key.
- The Mall:Key press key is added on the left of the Mall:Key press key.
- The left Mall:Keypress key is shortened and the Mall:Keypress key has the shape of inverted L.
QWERTZ
redigeraThe QWERTZ layout is fairly widely used in Germany and much of Central Europe. The main difference between it and QWERTY is that Y and Z are swapped, and most special characters such as brackets are replaced by diacritical characters.
Czech (QWERTZ)
redigera
The QWERTZ keyboard layout is commonly used in the Czech Republic, but the QWERTY variant is an option. (The layout in the picture is a combination of the US and CZ keyboard layout.)
Hungary
redigera
Note that on some keyboards "ű" is found to the right of the right Shift key. Also, many Hungarians who were not exposed to typewriters, but started using computers when Hungarian keyboards were uncommon or unavailable, still prefer the layout with the y/z keys in their QWERTY locations because that is what they are used to. The same applies to Hungarians who frequently switch between a QWERTY and a Hungarian layout (for example because they write in several different languages).
Germany and Austria
redigera
The PC keyboard layout commonly used in Germany and Austria is based on one defined in an old (October 1988) version of the German standard DIN 2137-2. The characters ², ³, {, [, ], }, \, @, €, |, µ, and ~ are accessed by holding the Alt Gr key and tapping the other key. The Alt key on the left will not access these additional characters. Alternatively Ctrl+Alt and pressing the respective key also produce the alternative characters on some operating systems.
The accent keys ^, `, ´ are dead keys: press and release an accent key, then press a vowel key to produce accented characters (ô, á, ù, etc.). One problem with German keyboards when used to type English text is that users frequently mistype a spacing accent instead of an apostrophe (e.g., it´s or it`s instead of correctly it's).[33]
The keyboard lacks some important characters like the German style quotation marks („ and “ and ‚ ‘ respectively). As a consequence, these are seldom used in Internet communication, " and ' are used instead.
Note that the semi-colon and colon are accessed by using the Shift key.
Contrary to many other languages, German keyboards are usually not labeled in English (a notable exception is the layout on the Schneider EURO PC series, which used English abbreviations like Ctrl). Abbreviations on a German keyboard:
| German label | English equivalent |
|---|---|
| Steuerung (Strg) | Control (Ctrl) |
| Alternate Graphic (Alt Gr) | See Alt Gr key |
| Einfügen (Einfg) | Insert (Ins) |
| Entfernen (Entf) | Delete (Del) |
| Bild auf (Bild↑) | Page up (PgUp) |
| Bild ab (Bild↓) | Page down (PgDn) |
| Position eins (Pos1) | Home ("position one") |
| Ende (Ende) | End (end) |
| Drucken / Systemabfrage (Druck/S-Abf) | Print Screen/SysRq |
| Rollen | Scroll Lock ("to roll") |
| Pause/Unterbrechen (Pause/Untbr) | Pause/Break |
On some keyboards, the asterisk (*) key on the numeric keypad is instead labeled with the multiplication sign (×) and the divide-key is labeled with the division sign (÷) instead of slash (/).
The behaviour of Caps Lock according to the DIN standard is inherited from mechanical typewriters: Pressing it once shifts all keys including numbers and special characters until the Caps Lock key is pressed again. Holding Shift while Caps Lock is active unshifts all keys. Both Shift and Caps Lock lack any textual labels. The Caps Lock key is simply labeled with a large down-arrow (on newer designs pointing to an uppercase A key) and Shift is labeled with a large up-arrow.
In IT, an alternative behaviour is often preferred, usually described as "IBM", which is the same as Caps Lock on English keyboards – only letters are shifted, and hitting Caps Lock again releases it.
Poland
redigera
Slovak (QWERTZ)
redigera Typewriters in Slovakia have used the QWERTZ layout quite similar to the layout used on the Czech typewriters. Slovak QWERTZ layout differs from the Czech one in using the letter "ľ" instead of the Czech "ě" on the same position, also the letter "ť" is on the position of Czech "ř" and the letter "ô" is on the position of Czech "ů". There are 2 more keys that differ in these 2 languages: Slovak "ä" and "(" key replaces the Czech "(" and ")" key and Slovak "ň" and ")" key replaces the Czech "'" and "¨" key. There are 17 characters from American keyboard (@#$&\|[]{}<>^`~*') that are missing on the Slovak keyboard because of the presence of the Slovak letters (ľščňťžôúáíýéä°´ˇ§). Some people who want to access some special characters often quickly switch to American layout to write them. Since American keyboard has the QWERTY layout they prefer for Slovak to have the letters Y and Z on the same position like on the United States keyboard in order to have a consistent environment. So besides the QWERTZ keyboard layout inherited from the typewriter era, QWERTY layout is also used by computer users in Slovakia.
Bosnian & Herzegovian, Croatian, Serbian (in Latin script) and Slovene
redigera
The Bosnian & Herzegovian, Croatian, Serbian (for writing in Latin script) and Slovene keyboard layout has five additional special characters Č, Ć, Ž, Š and Đ. This keyboard layout was standardized in the 1980s in Yugoslavia. Characters Ć and Đ are not part of the Slovene alphabet however they are used for historical reasons and for writing words in the closely related Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian & Herzegovian languages. The Ž is on the right side of the Ć key on keyboards which have a longer Backspace key, and the usual inverted L shaped Enter key.
For Serbian, there is also a Cyrillic keyboard variant.
Switzerland (German, French, Italian, Romansh), Liechtenstein, Luxembourg
redigera
The layout of the Swiss keyboard is designed to allow easy access to frequently used accents of the French, German and Italian languages. The difference between the Swiss German (sg) and the Swiss French (sf) layout is that the German variety has the German umlauts (ä, ö, ü) accessible without dead keys, while the French version has the French accented characters (é, à, è) accessible in the unshifted state. The actual keyboards have the keys engraved for both variations; the difference is only in the driver setting. In the latest versions of Windows there are also separately listed driver settings for Swiss Italian and Swiss Romansh, but they correspond to the Swiss French and Swiss German layout, respectively. In Mac OS X 10.6 only Swiss French and Swiss German is available.
On Windows, Swiss German does not include the esszett (ß) ligature, which is only used in Germany and Austria, and so that letter is not found on the keyboard. Linux typically assigns ß to AltGr-s.
While the German keyboard uses German-language abbreviations (e.g. Strg for German Steuerung instead of Ctrl for Control), Swiss keyboards use the English abbreviations as a "neutral" solution, as they are used for all the national languages of Switzerland.
Luxembourg does not have a keyboard layout of its own. Public education uses the Swiss-French keyboard, while the banking sector prefers the Belgian layout [källa behövs]. Other places use either or the US layout. Liechtenstein, which also has no keyboard layout of its own, uses the Swiss German keyboard.
AZERTY
redigeraThe AZERTY layout is used in France, Belgium and some African countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout thus:
- A and Q are swapped,
- Z and W are swapped,
- M is moved to the right of L (where colon/semicolon is on a US keyboard),
- The digits 0 to 9 are on the same keys, but to be typed the shift key must be pressed. The unshifted positions are used for accented characters,
- Caps lock is replaced by Shift lock, thus affects non-letter keys as well. But there is an evolution going towards a Caps lock key instead of a Shift lock.
The French and Belgian AZERTY keyboards also have special characters used in the French language, such as ç, à, é and è, and other characters such as &, ", ' and §, all located under the numbers.
French
redigera
Some French people use the Canadian Multilingual standard keyboard. The Portuguese (Portugal) keyboard layout may also be preferred, as it provides all the French accents (acute, grave, diaeresis, circumflex, cedilla, and also the French quotation marks or guillemets, «»). Furthermore, its dead-letter option for all the accent keys allows for easy input of all the possibilities in French and many other languages (áàäãâéèëêíìïîóòöõôúùüû). Ç is, however, a separate key. The US-International keyboard is also used for the same reason. An alternative to AZERTY is the BÉPO layout.
Belgian
redigera
The Belgian AZERTY keyboard was developed from the French AZERTY keyboard, but some adaptations were made in the 1980s.
All letters remain in the same positions as on the French keyboard, but there are:
- additional symbols (³, ´, `)
- other symbols in different locations (!, @, -, _, +, =, §)
Lithuanian
redigeraLithuanian keyboards use a layout known as ĄŽERTY, where Ą appears in place of Q above A, Ž in place of W above S, with Q and W being available either on the far right-hand side or by use of the AltGr key. Depending on the software used, the Lithuanian symbols can also be positioned in the place of digits: 1 for Ą, 2 for Č, 3 for Ę, 4 for Ė, 5 for Į, 6 for Š, 7 for Ų, 8 for Ū and = for Ž.
Tamazight (Berber)
redigera
The "Tamazight (Latin)" standards-compliant layout is optimised for a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants, and includes support for Tuareg variants. It installs as "Tamazight_L" and can be used both on the French locale and with Tamazight locales. QWERTY and QWERTZ adaptations are available for the physical keyboards used by major Amazigh (Berber) communities around the world.
Other non-standards-compliant but convenient combined AZERTY layouts exist which retain closer French keyboard compatibility and also allow typing in Tifinagh script without switching layout:
- "Tamazight (International)" is optimised for French keyboard compatibility, with Tamazight (Berber) as an extension and limited Tifinagh script access (i.e. by deadkey). It installs as "Tamazight (Agraghlan)" or "Français+".
- "Tamazight(International)+" is optimised for Tamazight (Berber), but with close French compatibility and easy typing in Tifinagh script. It installs as "Tamazight(Agraghlan)+" or "Tamazight_LF".
All the above layouts were designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and are available from there.
QZERTY
redigeraThe QZERTY layout is used mostly, if not exclusively, in Italy, where it is very common on typewriters[källa behövs]. Computer keyboards usually have QWERTY, although non-alphanumeric characters vary.
- Z and W are swapped
- M is moved from the right of N to the right of L, as in AZERTY
Apple supported QZERTY layout in its early Italian keyboards, and currently iPod Touch also has it available.[34]
Non-QWERTY keyboards for Latin scripts
redigeraThere are also keyboard layouts that do not resemble QWERTY very closely, if at all. These are designed to reduce finger movement and are claimed by some proponents to offer higher typing speed along with ergonomic benefits.
Dvorak
redigera
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK) is the best-known alternative to QWERTY, also known as the American Simplified Keyboard, ASK layout. It was named after its inventor, August Dvorak. There are also numerous adaptations for languages other than English, and single-handed variants. Dvorak's original layout had the numerals rearranged, but the present-day layout has them in numerical order. The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard has numerous properties designed to increase typing speed, decrease errors, and increase comfort[källa behövs]. The most prominent property involves concentrating the most used English letters in the home row where the fingers rest, thus having 70% of typing done in the home row (compared to 32% in QWERTY).
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is available out of the box on most operating systems, making switching through software very easy. "Hardwired" Dvorak keyboards are also available, though only from specialized hardware companies.
Colemak
redigera
The Colemak keyboard layout is another alternative to the standard QWERTY layout, offering a more incremental change for users already accustomed to the standard layout.[35] It builds upon the QWERTY layout as a base, changing the positions of 17 keys while retaining the QWERTY positions of most non-alphabetic characters and many popular keyboard shortcuts, making it easier to learn than Dvorak for people who already type in QWERTY. Despite this, statistics show it to be equal to, if not a slight improvement over, Dvorak.[36]
An additional defining feature of the Colemak layout is the lack of a Caps Lock key; an additional Backspace key occupies the position typically occupied by Caps Lock on modern keyboards.[35]
The Colemak layout is supported out-of-the-box in the NetBSD,[37] FreeBSD,[38] DragonFly BSD,[39] Haiku,[40] Chrome and GNU/Linux[41] operating systems, as well as the X.org implementation of the X Window System (starting with X11R7.3 in 2007).[42] It is also included with the Apple Mac OS X and iOS (hardware keyboards), starting with Mac OS X Lion and iOS 5.0[43] and there is a multi-platform program available for Windows, Mac, and Linux,[44] although as of 2012 Windows has not yet adopted the keyboard in its out-of-the-box selection.
JCUKEN (Latin)
redigera
The JCUKEN layout was used in the USSR for all computers (both domestically produced and imported such as Japan-made MSX-compatible systems) due to its phonetic compatibility with Russian ЙЦУКЕН layout (see below). The layout has the advantage of having punctuation marks on Latin and Cyrillic layouts mapped on the same keys.
Neo
redigera
The Neo layout is an optimized German keyboard layout developed by the Neo Users Group[45], supporting nearly all Latin-based alphabets, including the International Phonetic Alphabet,[46] the Vietnamese language and some African languages.[47] The positions of the letters are not only optimized for German letter frequency, but also for typical groups of two or three letters. English is considered a major _target as well. The design tries to enforce the alternating usage of both hands to increase typing speed. It is based on ideas from de-ergo and other ergonomic layouts. The high frequency keys are placed in the home row. The current layout Neo 2.0 has unique features not present in other layouts, making it extremely suited for many _target groups such as programmers, mathematicians, scientists or authors.[källa behövs] Neo is grouped in different layers, each designed for a special purpose. Most special characters inherit the meaning of the lower layers — for example the ⟨¿⟩ character is one layer above the ⟨?⟩, or the Greek ⟨α⟩ is above the ⟨a⟩ character. Neo uses a total of six layers with the following general use[48][49]:
| Layer | Usage |
|---|---|
| 1 | Lowercase characters |
| 2 | Uppercase characters, typographical characters |
| 3 | Special characters for programming, etc. |
| 4 | WASD-like movement keys and number block |
| 5 | Greek characters |
| 6 | Mathematical symbols and Greek uppercase characters |
BÉPO
redigera
The BÉPO layout is an optimized French keyboard layout developed by the BÉPO community[50], supporting all Latin-based alphabets of the European Union, Greek and Esperanto.[51] It is also designed to ease programming. It is based on ideas from the Dvorak and other ergonomic layouts. Typing with it is usually easier due to the high frequency keys being in the home row.
Turkish (F-keyboard)
redigera
The Turkish language uses the Turkish Latin alphabet, and a dedicated keyboard layout was designed in 1955 by İhsan Sıtkı Yener.[52] During its design, letter frequencies in the Turkish language were investigated with the aid of Turkish Language Association. These statistics were then combined with studies on bone and muscle anatomy of the fingers to design the Turkish F-keyboard. The keyboard provides a balanced distribution of typing effort between the hands: 49% for the left hand and 51% for the right. With this scientific preparation, Turkey has broken 14 world records in typewriting championships between 1957 and 1995.[53] In 2009, Recep Ertaş and in 2011, Hakan Kurt from Turkey came in first in the text production event of the 47th (Beijing) and 48th (Paris) Intersteno congresses respectively.[54][55] Despite the greater efficiency of the Turkish F-keyboard however, the modified QWERTY keyboard ("Q-keyboard") is the one that is used on most computers in Turkey.
Chorded keyboards and mobile devices
redigeraThe multi-touch screens of mobile devices allow implementation of virtual on-screen chorded keyboards. Buttons are fewer, so they can be made larger. Symbols on the keys can be changed dynamically depending on what other keys are pressed, thus eliminating the need to memorize combos for characters and functions before use. For example, in the chorded GKOS keyboard which has been adapted for the Google Android, Apple iPhone, MS Windows Phone and Intel MeeGo/Harmattan platforms, thumbs are used for chording by pressing one or two keys at the same time. In the layout, the keys are divided in two separate pads which are located towards the sides of the screen and the text appears in the middle. The most frequent letters have dedicated keys and do not require chording.
Some other layouts have also been designed specifically for use with mobile devices. The FITALY layout, which is optimised for use with a stylus to place the most commonly used letters closest to the centre and minimise the distance travelled when entering words. A similar concept was followed to research and develop the MessagEase keyboard layout for fast text entry with stylus or finger. The ATOMIK layout, designed for stylus use, was developed by IBM using the Metropolis Algorithm to mathematically minimize the movement necessary to spell words in English.[56] The ATOMIK keyboard layout is an alternative to QWERTY in ShapeWriter's WritingPad software.[57]
Chorded keyboards in general, such as the Stenotype and Velotype, allow letters and words to be entered using combinations of keys in a single stroke. Users of stenotype machines can often reach rates as high as 300 words per minute and these systems are commonly used for realtime transcription by court reporters and in live closed captioning systems.
Other original layouts and layout design software
redigera
Several other alternative keyboard layouts have been designed either for use with specialist commercial keyboards (e.g. Maltron and PLUM) or by hobbyists (e.g. Asset, Arensito); however, none of them are in widespread use, and many of them are merely proofs of concept. Principles commonly used in their design include maximising use of the home row, minimising finger movement, maximising hand alternation or inward rolls (where successive letters are typed moving towards the centre of the keyboard), minimising changes from QWERTY to ease the learning curve, and so on.
Maltron also has a single-handed keyboard layout[58].
Programs such as the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator,[59] KbdEdit[60] and Keyman Developer[61] make it easy to create custom keyboard layouts for regular keyboards;[62] users may satisfy their own typing patterns or specific needs by creating new ones from scratch (like the IPA[63] or pan-iberian[64] layouts) or modify existing ones (for example, the Latin American Extended[65] or Gaelic[66] layouts).
Some high end keyboards such as the Kinesis Advantage contoured keyboard allow users total flexibility to reprogram keyboard mappings at the hardware level.
A few companies offer "ABC" (alphabetical) layout keyboards.[67][68]
Keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabetic scripts
redigeraSome keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabetic scripts, most notably the Greek layout, are based on the QWERTY layout, in that glyphs are assigned as far as possible to keys that bear similar-sounding or appearing glyphs in QWERTY. This saves learning time for those familiar with QWERTY.
This is not a general rule, and many non-Latin keyboard layouts have been invented from scratch.
All non-Latin computer keyboard layouts can also input Latin letters as well as the script of the language, for example, when typing in URLs or names. This may be done through a special key on the keyboard devoted to this task, or through some special combination of keys, or through software programs that do not interact with the keyboard much.
Arabic
redigera
This layout was developed by Microsoft from the classic Arabic typewriter layout and is used by IBM PCs.
For Apple keyboards there is a different layout.
Armenian
redigera
The Armenian keyboard is similar to the Greek in that in most (but not all) cases, a given Armenian letter is at the same location as the corresponding Latin letter on the QWERTY keyboard.
Cyrillic
redigera
Wikimedia Commons har media som rör Umeaboy/Översättning.
Bulgarian
redigera
The current official Bulgarian keyboard layout for both typewriters and computer keyboards is described in BDS (Bulgarian State/National Standard) 5237:1978.[69] It superseded the old standard, BDS 5237:1968, on 1 January 1978.[69] Like the Dvorak keyboard, it has been designed to optimize typing speed and efficiency, placing the most common letters in the Bulgarian language — О, Н, Т and А — under the strongest fingers. In addition to the standard 30 letters of the Bulgarian alphabet, the layout includes the non-Bulgarian Cyrillic symbols Э and ы and the Roman numerals I and V (the X is supposed to be represented by the Cyrillic capital Х, which is acceptable in typewriters but problematic in computers).
There is also a second, informal layout in widespread use — the so-called "phonetic" layout, in which Cyrillic letters are mapped to the QWERTY keys for Latin letters that "sound" or "look" the same, with several exceptions (Я is mapped to Q, Ж is mapped to V, etc. — see the layout and compare it to the standard QWERTY layout). This layout is available as an alternative to the BDS one in some operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X and Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Normally, the layouts are set up so that the user can switch between Latin and Cyrillic script by pressing Shift + Alt, and between BDS and Phonetic by pressing Shift + Ctrl.
In 2006, Prof. Dimiter Skordev from the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics of Sofia University and Dimitar Dobrev from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences proposed a new standard, prBDS 5237:2006, including a revised version of the old BDS layout and a standardization of the informal "phonetic" layout. After some controversy and a public discussion in 2008, the proposal was not accepted,[70] although it had been already used in several places – the "Bulgarian Phonetic" layout in MS Windows Vista is based on it.
Moldovan
redigeraThe Moldovan Cyrillic keyboard layout is based on a mixture of Russian phonetic and Serbian keyboard layout while adding a unique letter Ӂ to the layout in place of the letter Џ on the Serbian Cyrillic layout. This is the ЭЖЕРТ (EZhERT) layout. The letter Я is mapped the same as on the standard Russian layout, while letter Й is mapped where J is in Serbian layout. Also, letters Ь and Ы are remapped. This unofficial keyboard layout can be found here.[71]
Russian
redigera
The most common keyboard layout in modern Russia is the so-called Windows layout. It is the default Russian layout used in the MS Windows operating system. This layout allows using keyboards of the same physical design as in many other countries but has some usability issues for Russian-language users. Because of an unfortunate design decision, the comma and full stop symbols are on the same key in this layout, and users need to hold Shift every time they enter a comma although the comma is much more frequent in the language.[72]
There are some other Russian keyboard layouts in use: in particular, the traditional Russian Typewriter layout (punctuation symbols are placed on numerical keys, one needs to press Shift to enter numbers) and the Russian DOS layout (similar to the Russian Typewriter layout with common punctuation symbols on numerical keys, but numbers are entered without Shift). The Russian Typewriter layout can be found on many Russian typewriters produced before the 1990s, and it is the default Russian keyboard layout in the OpenSolaris operating system.[73]
Keyboards in Russia always have Cyrillic letters on the keytops as well as Latin letters. Usually Cyrillic and Latin letters are labeled with different colors.
The Russian phonetic keyboard layout (also called homophonic or transliterated) is widely used outside Russia, where normally there are no Russian letters drawn on keyboard buttons. This layout is made for typists who are more familiar with other layouts, like the common English QWERTY keyboard, and follows the Greek and Armenian layouts in placing most letters at the corresponding Latin letter locations. It is famous among both native speakers and people who use, teach, or are learning Russian, and is recommended — along with the Standard Layout — by the linguists, translators, teachers and students of AATSEEL.org.[74]
There are several different Russian phonetic layouts, for example YaZhERT (яжерт), YaWERT (яверт), and YaShERT (яшерт) (also sometimes with the 'ы'/'y' — i.e. YaZhERTY (яжерты), YaWERTY (яверты), etc.) They are named after the first several letters that take over the 'QWERTY' row on the Latin keyboard. They differ by where a few of the letters are placed. For example, some have Cyrillic 'B' (which is pronounced 'V') on the Latin 'W' key (after the German transliteration of B), while others have it on the Latin 'V' key. There are also variations within these variations; for example the Mac OS X Phonetic Russian layout is YaShERT but differs in placement of ж and э.[75][76]
A virtual (on-screen) Russian keyboard[77] allows entering Cyrillic directly in a browser without installing Russian drivers. Another virtual keyboard[78] supports both traditional (MS Windows and Typewriter) and some phonetic keyboard layouts.
Serbian (Cyrillic)
redigeraApart from a set of characters common to most Cyrillic alphabets, the Serbian Cyrillic layout uses six additional special characters unique or nearly unique to the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet: Љ, Њ, Ћ, Ђ, Џ and Ј.
Due to the bialphabetic nature of the language, actual physical keyboards with the Serbian Cyrillic layout printed on the keys are somewhat uncommon today. Typical keyboards sold in Serbian-speaking markets are marked with Serbian Latin characters and used with both the Latin (QWERTZ) and Cyrillic layout configured in the software. What makes the two layouts this readily interchangeable is that the non-alphabetic keys are identical between them, and alphabetic keys always correspond directly to their counterparts (except the Latin letters Q, W, X, and Y that have no Cyrillic equivalents, and the Cyrillic letters Љ, Њ and Џ whose Latin counterparts are digraphs LJ, NJ and DŽ). This also makes the Serbian Cyrillic layout a rare example of a non-Latin layout based on QWERTZ.
The Macedonian dze is on this keyboard despite not being used in Serbian Cyrillic. The gje and kje can be typed by striking the apostrophe key then striking the G or K key.
There is also a dedicated Macedonian keyboard that is based on QWERTY (LjNjERTDz) and uses Alt Gr to type the dje and tshe. However, the capital forms are next to the small forms.
Ukrainian
redigera
Ukrainian keyboards, based on a slight modification of Russian Standard Layout, often also have the Russian Standard ("Windows") layout marked on them, making it easy to switch from one language to another. This keyboard layout had several problems, one of which was the omission of the letter Ґ, which does not exist in Russian. The other long-standing problem was the omission of the apostrophe, which is used in Ukrainian almost as commonly as in English (though with a different value), but which also does not exist in Russian. Both of these problems were resolved with the "improved Ukrainian" keyboard layout for Windows available with Vista and subsequent Windows versions.
Georgian
redigera
All keyboards in Georgia are fitted with both Latin and Georgian letters.
Greek
redigera
The usual Greek layout follows the U.S. layout for letters related to Latin letters (ABDEHIKLMNOPRSTXYZ, ΑΒΔΕΗΙΚΛΜΝΟΠΡΣΤΧΥΖ, respectively), substitutes visually or phonetically similar letters (Φ at F; Γ at G) and uses the remaining slots for the remaining Greek letters: Ξ at J; Ψ at C; Ω at V; Θ at U).
Greek has two fewer letters than English, but has two accents which, because of their frequency, are placed on the home row at the U.K. ";" position; they are dead keys. Word-final sigma has its own position as well, substituting W, and semicolon (which is used as a question mark in Greek) and colon move to the position of Q.
Hebrew
redigeraAll keyboards in Israel are fitted with both Latin and Hebrew letters. Trilingual editions including either Arabic or Russian also exist.
InScript
redigera
InScript is the standard keyboard for 12 Indian scripts including Devanagari, Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu etc.
Most Indian scripts are derived from Brahmi, therefore their alphabetic order is same. On the basis of this property, the InScript keyboard layout scheme was prepared. So a person who knows InScript typing in one language can type in other scripts using dictation even without knowledge of that script.
An InScript keyboard is inbuilt in most modern operating systems including Windows, Linux and Mac OS Classic. It is also available in some mobile phones.
Inuktitut
redigeraInuktitut has two similar, though not identical, commonly available keyboard layouts for Windows. Both contain a basic Latin layout in its base and shift states, with a few Latin characters in the AltGr shift states. The Canadian Aboriginal syllabics can be found in the Capslock and AltGr shift states in both layouts as well.
The difference between the two layouts lies in the use of Mall:Key press as an alternate to AltGr to create the dotted, long vowel syllables, and the mapping of the small plain consonants to the Caps + number keys in the "Naqittaut" layout, while the "Latin" layout does not have access to the plain consonants, and can only access the long vowel syllables through the AltGr shift states.
Brahmic Script
redigera- Wikimedia Commons har media som rör Umeaboy/Översättning.
Khmer
redigera
Khmer uses its own layout roughly matched to the equivalent of its QWERTY counterpart. For example, the letter ល Mall:IPA-km is typed on the same space as the letter L on the English based qwerty. Since most Khmer consonants have two forms, the shift key is used to switch between the first and second forms. The glyph below the letter ញ Mall:IPA-km is used to type in subscripts when they occur in a cluster. Since spaces are used in Khmer to separate sentences and not words, the space option is activated when pressed with the shift key only. Otherwise it has no effect.
Sinhalese
redigera
The Sinhala keyboard layout is based on the Wijesekara typewriter for Sinhala script.
Thai
redigeraThe less frequently used characters are accessed by the Shift key. Despite their wide usage in Thai, Arabic numbers are not present on the main section of the keyboard. Instead they are accessed via the numeric keypad. The backtick (`) key is blank, because this key is typically used to switch between input languages.
Tibetan
redigeraTibetan (China)
redigera
The Chinese National Standard on Tibetan Keyboard Layout standardises a layout for the Tibetan language in China.[79]
The first version of Microsoft Windows to support the Tibetan keyboard layout is MS Windows Vista. The layout has been available in GNU/Linux since September 2007.
Dzongkha (Bhutan)
redigera
The Bhutanese Standard for a Dzongkha keyboard layout standardizes the layout for typing Dzongkha, and other languages using the Tibetan script, in Bhutan. This standard layout was formulated by the Dzongkha Development Commission and Department of Information Technology in Bhutan. The Dzongkha keyboard layout is very easy to learn as the key sequence essentially follows the order of letters in the Dzongkha and Tibetan alphabet. The layout has been available in GNU/Linux since 2004.
Tifinagh
redigeraTamazight (Berber)
redigera
The "Tamazight (Tifinagh)" standards-compliant layout is optimised for a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants, and includes support for Tuareg variants. AZERTY-mapped, it installs as "Tamazight_F" and can be used both on the French locale and with Tamazight locales. QWERTY and QWERTZ adaptations are available for the physical keyboards used by major Amazigh (Berber) communities around the world.
Non-standards-compliant but convenient combined AZERTY Latin script layouts exist which also allow typing in Tifinagh script without switching layout:
- "Tamazight (International)" is optimised for French keyboard compatibility, with Tamazight (Berber) as an extension and limited Tifinagh script access (i.e. by deadkey). It installs as "Tamazight (Agraghlan)" or "Français+".
- "Tamazight(International)+" is optimised for Tamazight (Berber), but with close French compatibility and easy typing in Tifinagh script. It installs as "Tamazight(Agraghlan)+" or "Tamazight_LF".
A non-standards-compliant but convenient combined AZERTY-mapped Tifinagh layout exists which also allows typing in Latin script without switching layout:
- "Tifinagh (International)". It installs as "Tifinagh (Agraghlan)" or "Tamazight_FL".
All the above layouts were designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and are available from there.
Morocco
redigeraThe Royal institute of the Amazigh culture (IRCAM) developed a national standard Tifinagh layout for Tamazight (Berber) in Morocco. It is included in Linux and Windows 8, and is available from IRCAM for the Mac and older versions of Windows.
A compatible, international version of this layout, called "Tifinagh (International)" exists for typing a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants, and includes support for Tuareg variants as well as the ability to type in Latin script when required. It was designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and is available from there.
East Asian languages
redigeraChinese, Japanese and Korean require special input methods, often abbreviated to CJK IMEs (Input Method Editors), due to the thousands of possible characters in these languages. Various methods have been invented to fit every possibility into a QWERTY keyboard, so East Asian keyboards are essentially the same as those in other countries. However, their input methods are considerably more complex, without one-to-one mappings between keys and characters.
In general, the range of possibilities is first narrowed down (often by entering the desired character's pronunciation). Then, if there remains more than one possibility, the desired ideogram is selected, either by typing the number before the character, or using a graphical menu to select it. The computer assists the typist by using heuristics to guess which character is most likely desired. Although this may seem painstaking, East Asian input methods are today sufficient in that, even for beginners, typing in these languages is only slightly slower than typing English.
In Japanese, the QWERTY-based JIS keyboard layout is used, and the pronunciation of each character is entered using Hepburn romanization or Kunrei-shiki romanization. There are several kana-based typing methods. See also Japanese language and computers.
Chinese has the most complex and varied input methods. Characters can be entered by pronunciation (like Japanese and Hanja in Korean) or by structure. Most of the structural methods are difficult to learn, but they are extremely fast for experienced typists, as they do not need to select characters from a menu. For a detailed treatment, see Chinese input methods for computers.
There exist a variety of other, slower methods in which a character may be entered. If the pronunciation of a character is not known, the selection can be narrowed down by giving its component shapes, radicals, and stroke count. Also, many input systems include a "drawing pad" permitting "handwriting" of a character using a mouse. Finally, if the computer does not have CJK software installed, it may be possible to enter a character directly through its encoding number (e.g. Unicode).
In contrast to Chinese and Japanese, Korean is typed similarly to Western languages. There exist two major forms of keyboard layouts: Dubeolsik (두벌식), and Sebeolsik (세벌식). Dubeolsik, which shares its symbol layout with the QWERTY keyboard, is more commonly used. While Korean consonants and vowels (jamo) are grouped together into syllabic grids when written, the script is essentially alphabetical, and therefore typing in Korean is quite simple for those who understand the Korean alphabet Hangul. Each jamo is assigned to a single key. As the user types letters, the computer automatically groups them into syllabic characters. Given a sequence of jamo, there is only one unambiguous way letters can be validly grouped into syllables, so the computer groups them together as the user types.
Japanese
redigera - Wikimedia Commons har media som rör Umeaboy/Översättning.
The JIS standard layout includes Japanese kana in addition to a QWERTY style layout.
For entering Japanese, the most common method is entering text phonetically, as romanized (transliterated) kana, which are then converted to kanji as appropriate by an input method editor. It is also possible to type kana directly, depending on the mode used. For example, to type たかはし, "Takahashi", a Japanese name, one could type either "takahas(h)i" in Romanized (Rōmaji) input mode, or "qtfd" in kana input mode. Then the user can proceed to the conversion step to convert the input into the appropriate kanji.
The extra keys in the bottom row, and the changed keys in the leftmost column, control various aspects of the conversion process and select different modes of input.
For more details, see the section on East Asian languages above, and the articles Japanese language and computers, Japanese input methods, and Language input keys.
Chinese
redigeraA Chinese keyboard is simply a US layout with Chinese input method labels printed on the keys. Without an input method handler, these keyboards would respond to Latin characters, provided that US keyboard layout is selected in the operating system.
Most modern input methods allow input of both simplified and traditional characters, and will simply default to one or the other based on the locale setting.
See the section on Chinese languages, and also Chinese input methods for computers.
China Mainland
redigeraKeyboards used in the People's Republic of China typically use an English US (QWERTY) keyboard and input Chinese characters using Hanyu pinyin, which represents the sounds of Chinese characters using Latin letters. Keyboards can occasionally be found with labels for alternative input methods such as Wubi method, but those are rare.
Taiwan
redigera
Computers in Taiwan often use Zhuyin (bopomofo) style keyboards (US keyboards with bopomofo labels), many also with Cangjie method key labels, as Cangjie is the standard method for speed-typing in Traditional Chinese. The bopomofo style keyboards are in lexicographical order, top-to-bottom left-to-right. The codes of three input methods are typically printed on the Chinese (traditional) keyboard: Zhuyin (upper right); Cangjie (lower left); and Dayi (lower right).
Hong Kong
redigeraIn Hong Kong, both Chinese (Taiwan) and US keyboards are found. Japanese keyboards are occasionally found, but UK keyboards are rare.
Other input methods include the Cantonese Input Method for the Cantonese language speakers. The romanisation requires users to spell out the Cantonese sound of each character without tone marks, e.g. 'heung' and 'kong' (or 'gong') for 'Hong Kong'/香港 and to choose the characters from a list.
The advantage of the Cantonese Input Method is that nearly all Cantonese Speakers can input Traditional Chinese characters on their very instinct; no particular training and practice is required at all. The advantage available to a Hanyu Pinyin user is that any keyboard with just an English layout, i.e., without BoPoMoFo markings engraved, can deploy the Pinyin IME for bilingual (both Chinese and English on the same document) input. All those who have received formal education in Mainland China can easily input with Hanyu Pinyin without any formal training. The drawback of Hanyu Pinyin to a Hong Kong native Cantonese speaker is that the alphabets are not pronounced exactly in the same way as the common English language syllables should be pronounced because it is only the Latin letters in the keyboard that have been used by the Hanyu Pinyin Method.
Although Cantonese input method seems intuitive to Hong Kong people, it is an unpopular input method for various reasons. There are many characters that can have the same syllable in the spelling only (they sound the same but are written with different characters) that needed to be differentiated by different intonations for speech communication. Unless a user has also input a phonetic intonation or an accent numeral (i.e., 1, 2, 3, or 4.) to narrow down the list of possible combinations, he or she can have a substantial set of ambiguous Chinese characters of the same pronunciation to select. The selection process can slow down the input speed for those do have not input an accent numeral after each and every Cantonese spelling. There is no official standard for Cantonese romanisation, and there are multiple romanisation schemes, which leads to different Cantonese input method implementations adopts different romanisations. Moreover, Hong Kong students almost never learn any of the romanisation schemes. Also, Microsoft Windows, which is the most popular operating system used in desktops, doesn't carry Cantonese input method, users would need to find a third-party input method software and install into Windows to use Cantonese input method, which may be cumbersome for system administrators who are responsible for office computers.
For these reasons, Hong Kong computer users often have to resort to use those "harder" shape-based Chinese input methods (e.g. Cangjie); or for those with formal Mandarin education, they may choose Pinyin instead. A minority of users may even have to use a graphics tablet designed to recognize handwritten Chinese characters.
Thorough training and practice are required to input correctly with Changjie or Cangjie, yet it is, by impression, the quickest Chinese input method[förklaring behövs]. Many Cantonese speakers have taken Changjie or Cangjie input courses because of the fast typing speed availed by the input method. This method is the fastest because it has the capability to fetch the exact, unambiguous Chinese character which the user has in mind to input, pinpointing to only one character in most cases. This is also the reason why no provision for an input of phonetic accent is needed to complement this Input Method. The Changjie or Cangjie character feature is available on both Mac OS X and Windows. On Mac OS X the use of the multitouch pads of modern Macs makes it possible to write a glyph with a finger and the correct character is recognised by the computer.[förklaring behövs]
The clumsiest Chinese Input method is the Stroke Input Method which is ideal for those who are not so proficient in spelling the Cantonese language in English Alphabets nor Mandarin in Pinyin. The method is widely installed in mobile phones with small screens because the method only requires five key taps for the 5,000 commonly used Chinese characters. It is also considered too tedious requiring a user to type out all the strokes constituting a single Chinese character. Chinese characters sharing the same 3 to 5 beginning brush strokes are grouped to response to users' tapping sequences. Thus, there yields a lengthly list of more than 40 some Chinese characters having these similar beginning strokes for the user to confirm which one of the listed characters should be the intended one to input.
The character picking process is a must for the Stroke Input Method users regardless of whether the Traditional or Simplified Chinese character set is to be used. To a native Hong Kong Cantonese speaker who can spell the Cantonese dialect fairly accurately in English alphabets and, who types Chinese in ad-hoc occasions only; Cantonese Input Method is, by far, the most convenient Chinese input method both for phone book searching and for word processing using laptops and smart phones.
Hangul (for Korean)
redigera- Wikimedia Commons har media som rör Umeaboy/Översättning.
Dubeolsik
redigera
Dubeolsik (두벌식) is the most common and the sole national standard of Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea since 1969. Pressing the Han/Eng (한/영) key once switches between Hangul as shown, and QWERTY. There is another key to the left of the space bar for Hanja input. But, if using a 104-key keyboard, the left Alt key will become the Ha/En key, and the right Ctrl key will become the Hanja key. Consonants occupy the left side of the layout, while vowels are on the right.
Sebeolsik 390
redigeraSebeolsik 390 (세벌식 390) was released in 1990. It is based on Dr. Kong's earlier work. This layout is notable for its compatibility with the QWERTY layout; almost all QWERTY symbols that are not alphanumeric are available in Hangul mode. Numbers are placed in three rows. Syllable-initial consonants are on the right (shown green in the picture), and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters are on the left (shown red). Some consonant clusters are not printed on the keyboard; the user has to press multiple consonant keys to input some consonant clusters, unlike Sebeolsik Final. It is more ergonomic than the dubeolsik, but is not in wide use.
Sebeolsik Final
redigera
Sebeolsik Final (세벌식 최종) is another Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea. It is the final Sebulsik layout designed Dr. Kong Byung Woo, hence the name. Numbers are placed on two rows. Syllable-initial consonants are on the right, and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters are on the left. Vowels are in the middle. All consonant clusters are available on the keyboard, unlike the Sebeolsik 390 which does not include all of them. It is more ergonomic than the dubeolsik, but is not in wide use.
Sebeolsik Noshift
redigeraSebeolsik Noshift is a variant of sebeolsik which can be used without pressing the shift key. Its advantage is that people with disabilities who cannot press two keys at the same time will still be able to use it to type in Hangul.
See also
redigera Wikimedia Commons har media som rör Umeaboy/Översättning.
- Alphanumeric keyboard
- British and American keyboards
- Chinese input methods for computers
- Computer keyboard
- FITALY Layout
- IBM Personal Computer
- Inscript (Indian Script)
- ISO/IEC 9995
- Japanese language and computers
- Language code
- Maltron
- Model M keyboard
- Scancode
- Technical standards in colonial Hong Kong
- Telephone (phone, mobile phone) keypad character (letter) layout (mapping)
- Unicode
- Urdu keyboard
Notes and references
redigera- ^ Funk, Buddy Keith; Tetrick, Elton Earl, Keyboard overlay, Google, http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPAT4075465&oi=fnd&dq=keyboard+overlay&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ ”Latkey: Defining keyboard layouts with stickers”. Latkey: Defining keyboard layouts with stickers. http://www.latkey.com/. Läst 31 oktober 2010.
- ^ An introduction to Linux Mint 8 (Main (Helena)), Liberian Geek, 12 2009, http://www.liberiangeek.net/2009/12/introduction-linux-mint-8-main-edition-helena/.
- ^ Phelps, George M (November 1, 1859), Improvement in Telegraphic Machines
- ^ ”The House Printing Telegraph”. The House Printing Telegraph. Telegraph history. http://www.telegraph-history.org/george-m-phelps/house.htm. Läst 27 november 2010.
- ^ Souloumiac, Alain (1983), Les perspectives de l'informatique, La Documentation Française.
- ^ Neuville, Yves (1985), Cedic-Natan.
- ^ ”Spanish/Español”. Spanish/Español. iragination.com. http://www.iragination.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/spankey.jpg. Läst 27 november 2010.
- ^ ”Fren-Canadian keyboard”. Fren-Canadian keyboard. uakron.edu. http://www3.uakron.edu/modlang/french/images/kbd4.gif. Läst 27 november 2010.
- ^ SFS 5966, Finnish Standards Association SFS, 2008-11-03, http://sales.sfs.fi/servlets/ProductServlet?action=showproduct&productid=210467. Finnish-Swedish multilingual keyboard setting.
- ^ Kotoistus (2006-12-28) (på finnish, english), Uusi näppäinasettelu, CSC IT Center for Science, http://www.csc.fi/sivut/kotoistus/nappaimisto.htm.
- ^ ”Polish keyboard”, Developer network, Microsoft, http://www.microsoft.com/resources/msdn/goglobal/keyboards/kbdpl1.htm.[död länk]
- ^ ”Pimping your Brazilian keyboard”. Developer network. Microsoft. 2006‐10‐7. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2006/10/07/799605.aspx. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ ”RO” (PNG), Diacritice, Sourceforge, http://diacritice.sourceforge.net/imagini/ro.png.
- ^ ”RO US” (PNG), Diacritice, Sourceforge, http://diacritice.sourceforge.net/imagini/ro_us.png.
- ^ X keyboard config, Free desktop, http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/XKeyboardConfig.
- ^ ”S-uri si t-uri”. S-uri si t-uri. Secarica. 2011-10-20. http://www.secarica.ro/html/s-uri_si_t-uri.html. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ ”RO Keyboard” (på romanian). RO Keyboard. Secarica. 2011-10-20. http://www.secarica.ro/html/ro_keyboard.html. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ Spanish Keyboard layout and special alt characters Spain (Spanish) version, MyLingos, http://mylingos.com/keyboards/spanishspain.html.
- ^ Spanish (Traditional Sort) Keyboard Overlays, FI: Trantor, http://www.trantor.fi/AC_Spanish_Traditional_keyboard_overlay_sticker.htm.
- ^ ”Flyff Distrib esp” (PNG), Commons, Wikimedia, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flyff_Distrib_esp.png
- ^ Foreign language Keyboard layout: type foreign languages, spanish keyboard layout, French, German, Italian, Translation Software, http://www.translationsoftware4u.com/keyboard-layout.php
- ^ There is a separate Irish Gaelic keyboard layout, but this is rarely used. In all common operating systems that have a different selection for Irish, this refers to the layout that is identical with the UK layout (with the exception of Windows, where the grave dead key is enabled by default, and when AltGr is pressed, apostrophe becomes an acute dead key), not the Irish Gaelic layout; the latter tends to be called Gaelic or similar.
- ^ BS 4822: Keyboard allocation of graphic characters for data processing, British Standards Institution, 1994, ”[t]his standard has been declared obsolescent as it is no longer felt to be relevant”.
- ^ ”Editing Lisp Code with Emacs”. Editing Lisp Code with Emacs. CLiki. http://www.cliki.net/Editing%20Lisp%20Code%20with%20Emacs. Läst 4 januari 2008.
- ^ Where is the backslash key located on my keyboard?, Sharpened.net, http://www.sharpened.net/helpcenter/answers/location_of_backslash_key.
- ^ ”Keyboard for programmers” (JPEG), Stackoverflow, http://oneapiprod.synnex.com/image_technote/I95194895.jpg.
- ^ ”US keyboard” (JPEG), SLES, OpenSUSE, http://doc.opensuse.org/products/SLES/SLES-admin/images/keyboard_us.png.
- ^ Aske, Jon, Typing accented letters and other special characters on a PC (or Mac), Department of Foreign Languages, Salem State University, http://www.lrc.salemstate.edu/aske/accents.htm.
- ^ (på german) US Tastaturbelegung: amerikanische Tastatur, DE: in4mation, http://www.in4mation.de/services/uskeyboard.html.
- ^ ”Just nice people”. Just nice people. Free. http://just.nicepeople.free.fr/kbd/. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ How to use the United States-International keyboard layout in Windows 7, in Windows Vista, and in Windows XP, Microsoft, August 17, 2009
- ^ Markus Kuhn: Apostrophe and acute accent confusion, 2001.
- ^ ”iPod touch Features Guide” (PDF). iPod touch Features Guide. http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/iPod_touch_Features_Guide.pdf. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ [a b] ”Colemak keyboard layout”. Colemak keyboard layout. http://www.colemak.com/. Läst 29 augusti 2011.
- ^ Krzywinski, Martin. ”Colemak — Popular Alternative”. Carpalx keyboard layout optimizer. Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre. http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?colemak. Läst 4 februari 2010.
- ^ ”CVS commit: src”. Mail index. NetBSD. 2008-05-21. http://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2008/05/21/msg006624.html. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ ”CVS log”. CVS log. FreeBSD. http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/share/syscons/keymaps/colemak.iso15.acc.kbd. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ ”Colemak keymap for syscons(4)”. Bugs. Dragonfly BSD. 2009-06-25. http://bugs.dragonflybsd.org/issue1409. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ ”Trac”. Trac. Haiku. http://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/3944. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ ”kbd”, Git, Alt Linux, http://git.altlinux.org/people/legion/packages/kbd.git?a=blob;f=ChangeLog.
- ^ ”Xkeyboard-config — "added us(colemak), b.fd.o#11416"”. Cgit. Free desktop. http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xkeyboard-config/commit/?id=f95173bb8b82a32eefd3edb8bf247f22153efcd1. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ ”Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" Developer Preview has Colemak built-in!”. Forum. Colemak. 1. http://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=1031. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ ”Colemak keyboard layout”. Colemak keyboard layout. Colemak. http://colemak.com/. Läst 30 mars 2012. ”ergonomic, fast and easy to learn QWERTY/Dvorak alternative”
- ^ Neo layout, Neo users group, http://www.neo-layout.org/.
- ^ ”IPA mit Neo” (på german). Neo-Layout. Neo users group. https://wiki.neo-layout.org/wiki/IPA%20mit%20Neo. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ ”Sprachen mit Neo” (på german). Neo Layout. Neo users group. https://wiki.neo-layout.org/wiki/Sprachen%20mit%20Neo. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ Poll, Phillip H (5 2009) (på german), Neu verteilt. Ergonomischeres Tastaturlayout mit Neo, LinuxUser.
- ^ Knittl-Frank, Daniel (7 2009) (på german), Neo – Ergonomisch optimiert, Yalm-Magazine.
- ^ (på french) Bépo, FR, http://bepo.fr/.
- ^ (på french) Caractères supportés, FR, http://bepo.fr/wiki/Caractères_supportés.
- ^ ”F klavye” (på turkish)). Wikipedia. http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_klavye.
- ^ ”Biography of Ihsan Sıtkı Yener” (på turkish)). Biography of Ihsan Sıtkı Yener. MSX labs. http://www.msxlabs.org/forum/bilim-tr/276542-ihsan-sitki-yener-ihsan-sitki-yener-kimdir-ihsan-sitki-yener-hakkinda.html.
- ^ ”Results list of 47th Intersteno congress” (PDF). Results list of 47th Intersteno congress. Instersteno. http://www.intersteno.it/uploads/BEIJING_RESULTLIST.pdf.
- ^ ”48th Intersteno congress, Final Results” (PDF). 48th Intersteno congress, Final Results. International Federation for Information Processing. http://www.intersteno.it/uploads/ClassificationsListParis2011.pdf. Läst 12 januari 2012.
- ^ ”Atomik”. Atomik. IBM. http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/zhai/ATOMIK.htm. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ Demo, Shapewriter, http://www.shapewriter.com/demo.html.
- ^ ”Introduction from Lillian Malt”, Left hand single keyboard training, Maltron, s. 1, http://www.maltron.com/training/left-hand-single-keyboard-training/103-introduction-from-lillian-malt-1-of-2.html.
- ^ ”Developer network”. Developer network. Microsoft. http://msdn.microsoft.com/goglobal/bb964665. Läst 3 februari 2011.
- ^ ”KbdEdit”. KbdEdit. http://www.kbdedit.com/. Läst 4 oktober 2007.
- ^ ”Keyman Developer”. Keyman Developer. Tavultesoft. http://www.tavultesoft.com/keymandev/. Läst 14 maj 2009.
- ^ Kaplan, Michael (2006-11-28). ”Your layout (in all likelihood) bores me”. Developer network. Microsoft. http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/2006/11/28/1170048.aspx. Läst 26 juli 2007.
- ^ ”IPA Keyboard Layout for MS Windows”. IPA Keyboard Layout for MS Windows. Rejc2. http://www.rejc2.co.uk/ipakeyboard/. Läst 26 mars 2009.
- ^ ”Keyboard layouts for Windows: pan-Iberian”. Distribuciones de teclado. Farah. http://www.farah.cl/DistribucionesDeTeclado/PaniberN_en.html. Läst 26 april 2009.
- ^ ”Keyboard layouts for Windows: Latin American extended”. Distribuciones de teclado. Farah. http://www.farah.cl/DistribucionesDeTeclado/LatAmExt_en.html. Läst 26 mars 2009.
- ^ O’Duibhin. ”Gaelic Keyboards for MS Windows”. Gaelic Keyboards for MS Windows. UHI. http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~oduibhin/mearchlar/windows.htm. Läst 26 mars 2009.
- ^ ”The ABC keyboard”. The ABC keyboard. http://www.abckeyboard.co.uk/. Läst 3 april 2011.
- ^ ”Big key keyboaards ABC Layout or QWERTY Layout”. Big key keyboaards ABC Layout or QWERTY Layout. Fentek. http://www.fentek-ind.com/bigkey.htm. Läst 3 april 2011.
- ^ [a b] ”БДС 5237:1978” (på bulgarian). БДС 5237:1978. Bulgarian Institute for Standardization. http://www.bds-bg.org/standard/info.php?standard_id=14264. Läst 10 februari 2009.
- ^ ”Състоя се една ползотворна дискусия” (på bulgarian). News. Bulgarian Institute for Standardization. 2008-06-20. http://www.bds-bg.org/news/?news_id=56. Läst 10 februari 2009.
- ^ ”Moldovan Cyrillic keyboard layout » Земља кода и меда”. Moldovan Cyrillic keyboard layout » Земља кода и меда. Marxo.iz.rs. 2012-01-23. http://marxo.iz.rs/moldovan-cyrillic-keyboard-layout/. Läst 30 mars 2012.
- ^ Lebedev, Artemy (2004), Where once was a comma, Art Lebedev, http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/105/.
- ^ ru:Русская раскладка клавиатуры
- ^ Aatseel, http://AATSEEL.org/.
- ^ ”Mac OS X Keyboards”. Mac OS X Keyboards. Teaching and Learning with Technology, Penn State University. 2009-03-06. http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/keyboards/mackey.html. Läst 2009 9 13.
- ^ ”Mac OS X Keyboard Layout Editor”. Mac OS X Keyboard Layout Editor. SIL International. 2009-03-06. http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=ukelele. Läst 2009 9 13.
- ^ ”Russian Keyboard OnLine (On-Screen Cyrillic Virtual Keyboard) with Russian Spellcheck”. Russian Keyboard OnLine (On-Screen Cyrillic Virtual Keyboard) with Russian Spellcheck. Soft corp. http://www.softcorporation.com/products/cyrillic/.
- ^ Gorodyansky, Paul. ”On-line Cyrillic keyboard”. On-line Cyrillic keyboard. http://winrus.com/screen_e.htm.
- ^ ”MS Tibetan keyboard”. MS Tibetan keyboard. Yalasoo.com. 2007-05-10. http://www.yalasoo.com/English/docs/yalasoo_en_MStbKb.html. Läst 30 mars 2012.
External links
redigeraCustom Layouts
redigera- ”Official keyboard layout for MS Windows”, Developer network, Microsoft, http://msdn.microsoft.com/goglobal/bb964665.
- Custom xkb keyboard layouts (for Posix systems), PL: Lublin, http://hektor.umcs.lublin.pl/~mikosmul/computing/articles/custom-keyboard-layouts-xkb.html.
- Unofficial custom keyboard layouts for Mac OS X, SIL, http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=ukelele&_sc=1.
- Russian Translit — converting Latin characters into Russian, UK: Russians in London, http://www.russians-in-london.co.uk/translit.html.
Mall:Keyboard keys Mall:Keyboard layouts