Talk:Keyboard layout

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[edit] Key widths in graphics

For some reason (or lack thereof), the keys aren't all the same width, even though I put width="exactly 36.000000000000" everywhere possible... Indentation on the page also seems strange. Gaps between the keys aren't supposed to have any border either... Cyp 10:14 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

Do you want a copy of every keyboard from around the world? Editing the page as it stands already gives a warning about it being over the 32K limit! cferrero 10:33 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking. Wasn't really expecting it to take up that much space, though... Perhaps .png files would take up less space than html, if there's a way to quickly make them neatly... Cyp 15:35 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)
Well the quickest way to make them would be to create the tables, like you did for that webpage, then take a screen grab of each and save it as a PNG file. cferrero 15:40 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)
Common sense says that should be easy... Microsoft says otherwise... Finally got the keys to be the same size (but not square), by removing the key borders and adding ridiculous amounts of formatting, and by setting colspan=X, where X is higher than it should be on precisely 3 out of 5 rows. Then I could finally copy/paste as an image onto a blank keyboard, with the keys all the same size... كسيپ 20:34 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

The outline keyboard layout being used for this page is inaccurate in the following way. On a standard Qwerty keyboard, and virtually all keyboards derived from it, the AS line keys are offset from the QW line keys by exactly 1/4 (one quarter) of a key width. The ZX line is offset from the AS line by 1/2 a key width, and the QW line from the numeric line by 1/2 a key width. The reason has to do with the mechanics of the Sholes typewriter -- the keys were on rods which had to go straight to the back of the typewriter, and could not conflict (so the A rod goes between Q and 2 and the Z rod between 2 and W). This is of course pure pedantry on my part, but it would be nice if it were correct. Your fingers know even if you don't. Stephen Robertson 15:44, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If only there was some way to easily edit the pictures... Maybe SVG support (which has been suggested for Wikipedia) would help, although I'm not sure exactly what SVG is. Κσυπ Cyp   16:41, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

image:Keyboard Layout.png image:Keyboard Layout.html

[edit] How do I add a new layout?

Can someone explain how new layout are made, possibly building on some existing layout -- Egil 13:15 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

The sensible way would be to add new tables. However, tables don't work in IE correctly. I've been putting them into tables where the keys have no edges, displaying them in IE 5.00.2920.0000 with text size set to smaller, and overlaying the text on to the picture of a blank keyboard. While this is a completely ridiculous way of making a keyboard, it seems to be the only way... This is the table I have been using: (Removed repetition) Hmmm, edit this page, and copy/paste into notepad, turn off word wrap, if there is to be any hope of turning that back into a table... كسيپ Cyp 15:39 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)
Well, as of Nov. 2005, all layouts seem to be simple PNG images. Click on the image and click on the image and click on "Upload new version of this file" --Yuu en 02:53, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian oddities

I was just wondering how many layouts you were planning on creating for this page...I don't know how many there actually are, but I know there is one for Canadian English that is different from US English. I would attempt to create it, but I don't really understand how (the table below, assuming I ever figured out what to do with it, seems to have been replaced anyway with PNG files, has it not?) Adam Bishop 01:51, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The background is in Keyboard Layout.png (which someone moved to Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense for some reason), and the black and white foreground in Keyboard Layout.html (probably easier to download than copy/pasting from here). I use Corel Photopaint to combine the two. Κσυπ Cyp 08:01, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Hmmm, wasn't sure which is the right keyboard layout... What's Canadian English called in Windows? Is it "Canadian Multilingual Standard", or another one? Κσυπ Cyp 08:07, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It seems to be Canadian Multilingual Standard, yes. There is English (Canada) and French (Canada) but they both seem to be covered under CMS. The keys are:

#1234567890-=
qwertyuiop^¸< (the ^ and ¸ are dead keys)
asdfghjkl;` (` is a dead key)

zxcvbnm,.é

|!"/$%?&*()_+
QWERTYUIOP^¨> (^ and ¨ are dead keys)
ASDFGHJKL:` (` is a dead key, same as lower case)
ZXCVBNM'.É Adam Bishop 21:32, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) Odd, in my Windows, the keyboard layout "Canadian Multilingual Standard" seems to be: (Regular) /1234567890-= qwertyuiop^ç asdfghjkl;èà ùzxcvbnm,.é (Shift) \!@#$%?&*()_+ QWERTYUIOP¨Ç ASDFGHJKL:ÈÀ ÙZXCVBNM'"É (Alt-Gr) | {}[] ¬ `~ ° «» <> The "English (Canada)" locale seems to default to the "US" keyboard layout... In the keyboard layout you typed, Shift-"." also gave a ".", was that intentional? Also, do the keys react to the right-hand alt key? Κσυπ Cyp 09:36, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That was intentional, the shift doesn't do anything to that key. But now I'm not sure what I did to get the Canadian English layout...I got a list of layouts to showup on the toolbar on the bottom of my screen, so I can switch back and forth, but I don't remember how I did it...sorry. Adam Bishop 22:07, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)­

\±@£¢¤¬¦²³¼½¾
§¶[]}
~{
µ¯´­ Those are the Alt-Gr keys under my English (Canada), I forgot about those. Adam Bishop 22:07, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Found the keyboard layout... In my version of Windoze, it's called Canadian French instead of Canadian English. Κσυπ Cyp 02:14, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] German keyboard

The German keyboard uses "Strg" (Steuerung) buttons instead of "Ctrl" (Control) buttons. The picture of the German keyboard layout therefore isn't 100% correct.

Thanks, --217.85.241.174 18:00, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The English words are used in the pictures of keyboards for all languages. This is an English Wikipedia, after all. --Evice 01:22, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
This is English Wokipedia, but these are the signs on the keys, so maybe they should be just as thay are, like special symbols that are not present in English. It would be another case if this was a tutorial for English users how to use foreign keyboards. But, if it was so, it should be more appropriate to show the original appearance of the keyboard and to explain: "Strg" means "Ctrl" etc.
--84.163.88.102 16:35, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
image:KeyboardLayout-German.png Κσυπ Cyp   20:29, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

To clear this "problem" up. You can get german keyboards with both variants. ctrl, or strg. FreddyE 21:13, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative version of PNG

image:Keyboard Layout Danish.png image:KeyboardLayout-Danish.png

Any preferences? The second version should be more browser-compatible (hopefully anyone can make new ones, that is), and doesn't require merging with an separate image to draw the lines between the keys, and it was even possible to insist on it making square keys (unlike with IE in the first version). Κσυπ Cyp   19:29, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The images could be about half the size. ~~CarbonUnit

[edit] Russian keyboard oddities

Russian keyboard seems to lack {, }, < and >, perhaps other characters too. Could the russian keyboards have more keys than standard, or use something other than the MS-windows keyboard layouts? كسيپ Cyp 21:18 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

They don't lack them, stupid. They're still there -- just on Latin layout. Russian Cyrillic has 7 more letters than Standard Latin, and standard 49 alphanumeric keys get a bit cramped. So these keys were simply left out, given that they aren't often used in Russian texts, and they are still present in Latin layout. Granted, you couldn't type them without switching first, but it's not a very big problem, and this way you can have your cake and eat it too. --Khathi (talk) 06:00, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed how-to section

This sequence is a pure how-to or instruction manual, and does not belong in Wikipedia. It could be moved and cross-referenced to Wikibooks. -- Egil 05:35, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

However, this instruction can be retained in discussion board, for reference. BN(O) 05:48, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to switch to a different keyboard layout in Windows XP

However, some people in HK would like their keyboard input language to be British English. If they are using Windows XP, set-up as below:

1) Open Control Panel, go to Regional and Language Options and double-click the 'Languages' tag. Then click 'Details'

Image:Uk-hk-a.jpg

2) Add English (United Kindgom) as the keyboard language. Select "US" as the keyboard layout/IME.

Image:Uk-hk-c.jpg

3) If you find both US and United Kingdom keyboard layouts exist under the input language "English (United Kingdom)", delete the keyboard layout "United Kingdom".

4) The final setting should be as below:

Image:Uk-hk-d.jpg

[edit] Portuguese keyboard layout: wrong

The portuguese keyboard layout isn't correct. How can I fix it?

Do you mean the Brazilian Portuguese keyboard? I have fixed it. There was a key missing (the "/?°" key). Windows seems to assign a weird character to AltGr+C. I haven't removed it but i don't know what that character is and i don't know if it's part of the standard layout or if it's a Windows extension. --Yuu en 02:45, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AZERTY information incomplete

"The AZERTY layout is used in France and in some surrounding countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout thus:..."

Which QWERTY?

What about special characters, diacritics, use of AltGr etc.?

--84.163.88.102 16:37, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

AZERTY differs from QWERTY-US by most punctuation signs too. To include a picture of AZERTY and others one can rely on the xkeycaps program.

Having pictures written in text-mode in a kind of HTML table would make them easier to read on all screens and resolutions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.66.8.10 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] US keyboard image has duplicate |\ key

I've never seen a US keyboard with two |\ keys, as the image depicts. There isn't one between the left shift and Z keys at all. Usually on modern keyboards, the Enter key is only one row thick, and the only |\ key is located above it. --FOo 15:55, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've seen one. Just a cheap tacky OEM keyboard that came with a computer my mother bought. I can't remember if it had a big delete or a big enter, thought. I mostly just ignored the extra key... If it's still floating around I can take a photo (eventually) of it if you don't believe me :) Felix the Cassowary 8 July 2005 15:21 (UTC)
I own one. Jordi·✆ 8 July 2005 16:30 (UTC)
There's a difference between 101-key keyboards, as mostly sold in the US, and 102-key ones, which are predominant in many other locales. I imagine if one sold a 102-key one in the US there would be a duplicate key like you describe. era 24 Nov 2005

[edit] Hebrew layout problem

The hebrew keyboard doesn't have Altgr key but two Alt keys, also there is another \| key left of Z which doesn't exist (the Shift key is longer). Need to be fixed. Yonir 07:03, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Image of the Hebrew layout —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.223.191.92 (talk • contribs) 21:06, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a \| to the the left of the z in the standard 102 key keyboard layout, 101 key keyboard layout doesn't have it. Epson291 12:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is the image of a Hebrew layout keyboard the first image on the page, it is even ahead of the standard English keyboard layout. Hebrew layout keyboards are not the standard. plain English letter ones are, and by far. Elie (talk) 19:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] East European keyboard layouts: wanted or not?

There are many intriguing variants of QWERTY in various Central and East European locales. Is the ambition of this page to list them all eventually, or should they just be sampled? In any event, the minute attention given to minor Swiss and Belgian variants seems out of place if there is not even any mention of the odd keyboards used e.g. for Czech and Croatian. http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/handson/dev/Unicode-KbdsonWindows.pdf has a few examples; there's a book from Microsoft Press about Windows localization and internationalization which has an appendix with all (then) current Windows keyboard layouts (for Windows 95 IIRC). http://www.i18ngurus.com/docs/996049093.html has further links -- I think the one labelled "Nadine Kano's book" is related to the book I just mentioned. http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/keyboards.mspx looks promising but doesn't seem to work in my browser (and given Microsoft's track record, I expect they will remove it as soon as they find out somebody has the gall to link to a page of theirs). era 24 Nov 2005

Update: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/globalization/topics/keyboards/registry_index.jsp (also listed in the External links) has a fairly exhaustive list of layouts, with pictures and a pretty legend which pops up for each key. era 19 Jan 2007

[edit] Romanian layouts

It may be worth noting that there's a new romanian standard (SR 13992:2004) which introduces two new QWERTY layouts:

http://diacritice.sourceforge.net/imagini/ro.png and http://diacritice.sourceforge.net/imagini/ro_us.png

The second one is especially useful since most of the keyboards in Romania have US layout. 82.79.168.47 14:29, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese keyboard

The bopomofo style keyboards are in lexicographical order, top-to-bottom left-to-right. I checked this statement with the Bopomofo article. In my eyes this statement is not correct. --Abdull 13:46, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speed comparisons?

I think a table with some speed comparisons of the different layouts would be useful.

There is a table now, which is less than useful, not only because it's rather empty, but more importantly because it just lists some numbers without explaining what they mean. So what precisely do you want compared? 134.130.4.46 05:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
It's there now. It's really bad, but it's less worse than the one that was there before. Rōnin 21:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't classify that as "really bad". In fact, I'd classify it as rather good :) Only thing IMHO lacking is details on the applet used. I guess it's http://www.acm.vt.edu/~jmaxwell/dvorak/compare.html , but modified how? 134.130.4.46 00:11, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! It was only modified to add the extra layouts... Or, at least I hope that's what I did! :) Rōnin 18:12, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Given the length of the sample text, there is too much precision given in the table. Using only 2 digits and boldifying the best multiple entries within some margin of error would probably be better. Also, using cell coloring like in Comparison of file systems for good/ok/bad ranges would do much for readability. Finally, I think that the minimal-usage bottom- and top-row entries should probably be 'ranked' as well. 22:19, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you on some points, but actually, the error margin or even the usefulness of the data isn't actually known at this point, so I don't see the merit in reducing decimals to an arbitrary number. The table's mostly there to act as an interesting observation in the absence of scientifically valid data, anyway. The colour codes would be a nice touch, but I'm not good with those things, so please add them if you want them. :) Rōnin 21:33, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and now tht you mention it, the only data that leaves room for inaccuracy to begin with is the column to the left, which only has two decimals. Rōnin 21:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

This looks a lot like original research to me. JPD (talk) 14:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Does submitting the changes (which are only the new layouts) to the tool to the original author and linking to it sound reasonable? --StuartBrady (Talk) 16:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I would think that not only the tool used, but also the actual results, would have to be published somewhere else, if they were to be included as anything other than original research. Presumably more detailed analyses have been published somewhere. JPD (talk) 09:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Sigh. I wasn't suggesting keeping the results here! :) --StuartBrady (Talk) 10:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I have doubts about the accuracy of the results, anyway... why should the figure for the number row vary between Dvorak and Capewell-Dvorak? I suppose that sums up exactly why original research isn't allowed. --StuartBrady (Talk) 10:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
The results should be as accurate as the descriptions of the layouts, except for column 1, which obviously can't be entirely accurate. As it happens, Dvorak by design has a number of symbols that would normally be found on the number row scattered across other rows, which is why one can see the difference between those two layouts.
As for the original research issue, as far as I'm concerned, the data hardly amount to research at all, because they were simply collected by adding some numbers relating to a piece of text on this very page. The descriptions for the layouts themselves were taken from the layouts' home pages or from Wikipedia. The rest of the section may contain some scientifically unjustifiable conclusions, of course, but I think the table data themselves (again with the possible exclusion of column 1) could be arrived at by almost any programmer given the relevant piece of text. Rōnin 23:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
That being said, though, please feel free to send me a message on my talk page if you do remove it so that I remember to archive it somewhere. I was quite surprised by the results. Rōnin 23:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, forget I said that. I took the data and republished them here (I wrote the section myself, just to prevent any misunderstandings): An informal comparison of keyboard layouts
Being a subsection of my home page, it's not only an extremely reputable source, but if the speed comparison section here is removed in the future, one could for instance place a link to it at the bottom of the article instead. I hope that helps clear up the controversy. Rōnin 00:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I was talking about Capewell-Dvorak and Dvorak. For some reason, you decided to use the typical QWERTY layout for symbols. Which is a bug[1]. The table should and hopefully will be removed from the article — I don't know why you're still questioning this, it's original research. It has to go, as much as I would like to see it stay. Thanks for producing the table, and making it available on your web site. Thanks also for publishing the source! Cheers, --StuartBrady (Talk) 02:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
The description I used for the Capewell-Dvorak layout came from a page that also mentioned Capewell's evolved layout, which didn't include the relevant symbols. I suppose I just used some default positions or none at all. If you think the table needs to go, then feel free to remove it. That's why I published the page, after all. Rōnin 19:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I removed the entire section. Any research like this needs to be based on a sample size of at least 8MB of text, this was based on less than 3K. Moreover, the source chosen (Wikipedia) is a biased source. Some glaring errors include: Colemak and ASSET have the same home row, but it gives different results. Arensito which is one of the layouts with the lowest finger distance ranks very low on this table, Dvorak on this table appears to have same finger ratio which is almost as bad as QWERTY (it doesn't). Also there are quite a few errors in the layout definitions. --Sharcho 10:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
The glaring errors you mention are an error on your part. ASSET's home page assigns a symbol to the far right on the home row, COLEMAK doesn't. And if Arensito ranks very low in the table, it's because it ranked very low. If you can do it better yourself, then please do. Rōnin 14:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
No they're not. Look at the source code. In the ASSET lowercase home row you have " asetfhnior'\n" (should be " asetdhnior'\n"). In the Colemak shifted bottow row is " ZXCVBKM,./" (should be " ZXCVBKM<>?"), and that just some of the errors I caught on a first glance. Anyway, it's original research, and the sample size is ridiculously small. --Sharcho 16:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Nonsense. Colemak's bottom row is " ZXCVBKM,./", not " ZXCVBKM<>?". As for the ASSET lowercase row, you're free to correct it and make your own table. Rōnin 20:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, Sharcho is right. You were making mistakes, and if there's still any doubt, then this is exactly why OR is not allowed. The thing is, we didn't even know you were making mistakes until you published the code, which is simply not acceptable. --StuartBrady (Talk) 13:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
There's been one mistake pointed out so far, which affected one row of the entire table. I realize that after all the talk about "glaring errors" it's tempting to exaggerate, but for the time being all but one of the "glaring errors" have been misunderstandings and not errors at all. That being said, I never claimed the table would be accurate at all, nor am I the one claiming it constitutes research of any kind. It's simply a trivial observation that some users are being very critical of. Rōnin 16:17, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
This doesn't belong here, anymore. We probably need a mailing list for the applet. Shall I set one up somewhere? --StuartBrady (Talk) 16:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not actually my applet, so I'll leave that to you. Rōnin 20:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the offer though. Perhaps the original author would be interested? Rōnin 21:49, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish keyboard(s)?

For some reason, Spanish keyboards are not included in the current (2006-03-05) version of this article. As a non-speaker (and barely reader) of Spanish, I do not know what to put in for this.

An example is at http://www.forlang.wsu.edu/help/kspanish.asp, but note that this one is weird because it uses Control to get symbols printed in the upper right corners of some keys; other examples (like http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/keyboards/kbdsp.htm) do not seem to have this feature. I saw 2 different Spanish keyboards on laptop computers while I was in Uruguay and Argentina, but I have no idea whether this reflects different standards or just different opinions of the different manufacturers about how to squeeze everything into the laptop physical layout.

Lchiarav 19:15, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

In your first example, while the legend shows the upper-right characters to use the Control key, there are none on the keyboard shown (unless I missed some). It looks precisely like the layout I used on my own home computer for some time, except that mine had a tilde deadkey in AltGr+4 and the Euro symbol in AltGr+5.
I would also like to request the creation and inclusion of the Spanish layout. I, unfortunately, do not have the means to edit SVG files nor the time (currently) to edit the files. Laogeodritt [ Talk | Contribs ] 21:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Russian keyboard error

There is no O on the russian keyboard layout shown here! Replace the 'C' in the 2nd row with an 'o'.

[edit] Why a Complete Rewrite?

I have removed the Complete Rewrite tag on the article. After reviewing this Talk page, I could not see what the reasons were for the Rewrite tag in the first place. There have been numerous problems noted by various editors, many of which were promptly fixed; there are some redundancies which still need to be addressed (East Asian Languages, particularly); and there is concern about the size of the article, though I believe that the nature of the subject requires a graphical explanation which is unavoidably large. In sum, the article is a good one in its current state and is on a positive trajectory in terms of quality overall. A Complete Rewrite is overkill. Your thoughts are welcome. Mmccalpin 11:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Japanese keyboard...romaji/kana

"Usually the JIS keyboard is used. Some people type Hiragana directly, but most people prefer typing Latin alphabets,(...)" Where is the source for that affirmation. I would have through japanese ppl would use kana...

My personal experience leads me to believe that's not the case. At least not the people I deal with, say, on 2ch. Nevertheless, there's not evidence to say one thing or the other. -- Ishikawa Minoru 09:59, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
It's a quite obvious and undeniable fact that the Romanized input dominates in Japan. Many articles mention kana input users are minority. This glossary says "The most of Japanese IME supports Kana input, although it is said that the actual users are the few.", and this site surveyed the users input method in 2003, according to the result, the ratio between Romaji input users and Kana input ones is 141 vs 15. Also major PC manufactures provide an BTO option of the Japanese keyboard without Kana printings on the key tops, please check [2] and [3]. 121.102.25.245 03:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction on US AltGr key

The text reads 'The US keyboard layout does not use AltGr or any dead keys', yet the image shows a keyboard with an AltGr key. Being in the UK and not having a US keyboard, I don't know whether they have AltGr keys or not. -- 193.235.128.1 09:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you're right — they have two ordinary Alt keys... but I don't have a US keyboard either. --StuartBrady (Talk) 11:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Correct, 2 Alt keys. I have uploaded a replacement and re-linked the two articles referencing the Image. Hopefully that is OK with people. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michaelliberty (talk • contribs) 18:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] SVG Images

Unfortunately, it seems IE renders the svg images differently to Mozilla. They have transparency, and Mozilla gives them a white background, but IE gives them a gray background. After reading Template talk:Football kit, it seems that IE is probably wrong. The confusing thing is that Image:KB United States Dvorak.svg doesn't have this problem — I've no idea why. Anyway, if I'm to add more images, I really need to know how to fix this. Any suggestions? --StuartBrady (Talk) 10:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

The MediaWiki software converts the SVG file to full-transparency PNG on pages (that is, everywhere except when you click the image on the description page). Internet Explorer before IE7 was unable to properly display PNG transparency, instead rendering it with a grey background.
Is it possible that the US Dvorak has an explicitly defined white background (fill of the outer rectangle, for instance), which the others don't have? —Laogeodritt [ Talk | Contribs ] 16:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] §/½ key in Swedish layout

I'm looking at my Swedish keyboard (provided by Dell) and when I compare it to your picture of a swedish layout, I see that the key-to-the-left-of-numeric-one has its symbols reversed.

Which is the official standard? Is it "§" with "½" shifted, as on my keyboard; or "½" with "§" shifted, as shown in your picture...?

§ with ½ shifted is the standard. I have never seen the opposite. The image is wrong and needs to be corrected.
Done! Thanks! I've also coloured the deadkeys in red. (Hope I got it right.) Cheers, --StuartBrady (Talk) 16:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keyboard layot/Input language switching key

Windows offers only two ways of switching the input language: Ctrl+Shift or Alt+Shift (too see this, select Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Language -> Details -> Key Settings -> Change Key Sequence). This limit imposes specific problems, when there is more than one active keyboard layout and input language in the system, as is usually the case in countries with non-Roman languages (e.g. Bulgarian or Russian with Cyrillic, Greek, etc.). Example: Ctrl+Shift+Right Arrow is universally used in text editors to select the word to the left. After I do this, I usually end up with the input language changed анд бегин то тъпе ин а странге ваъ (and begin to begin to type in a strange way; the result would be incomprehensible if I used BDS layout, instead of phonetic). If I use Alt+Shift to change input label, I usually end up the main menu selected, because Windows use the Alt key for this purpose also.

My question is: Is there somewhere around the wide world a keyboard (hardware device) with a dedicated key for changing keyboard layouts/input languages?

(Twenty years ago, when the only available personal computers in Bulgaria were Pravetz-82, a clone of Apple-][, and Pravetz-16, a clone of IBM PC/XT, it came with a keyboard that did have such a key. It was labelled Cyr/Lat). Gazibara 17:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's usually printed on keyboards sold to the UK

I've removed the two statements discussing what's printed on UK keyboards for the two vertical bar characters. The statements said that an unbroken bar usually appears in the key to the left of 1 and a broken bar usually appears on the key to the left of Z. All of my keyboards (from a number of different manufacturers, including Logitech and Cherry) are the other way around. As is the illustration. I suspect somebody got confused and put these in the wrong way round, but a source would be useful to help make sure this really is a standard. JulesH 06:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Seven of keyboards near me (of a range of manufacturers, also) have an unbroken bar to the left of 1 (including two MS keyboards) and three have a broken bar there (not counting another one which has broken bars in both places). My best guess is that the original IBM PC UK keyboard had an unbroken bar to the left of 1. Anyway, I don't know what ISO 9995 says, but I found an image from IBM... --StuartBrady (Talk) 14:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
I certainly recall having had keyboards in the past that had this arrangement, I just don't think it's common any more. JulesH 11:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, the two MS keyboards I mentioned were bought from new this month, so I would have to disagree. --StuartBrady (Talk) 15:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Missing keyboard layouts

  • Sun Microsystems Type 4 Layout (with linefeed)
  • Sun Microsystems Type 5 with UNIX layout
  • IBM Mainframe style keyboard layouts.
If you can convince me that they're notable, I'll do them. --StuartBrady (Talk) 00:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latvian

There's special Latvian non-QWERTY keyboard. Is it possible to insert it here. I think I could not make this.

Okay. I should get round to doing that eventually. --StuartBrady (Talk) 14:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-standard elements (win-keys for example)

The images in the article show non-standard elements in the keyboars layouts, for example windows keys that can be found on windows type keyboards, but not on Solaris or Apple keyboards. I think it would be best if the elements that varies between keyboard manufacturers - Caps Lock, Ctrl, Win Key, Alt Gr & Menu - were blanked out. Battra 00:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I have actually worked with a Solaris keyboard in the past. It had a whole array of extra buttons (none of which seemed to do anything useful), was missing others (most notably the delete or backspace key (I don't remember) - or at least I couldn't find it) and had a layout that was rightout evil.
Most keyboards sold today are of the "with logo and menu keys" variety, often including an extra "macro" key as well (which is just a backslash when using the international layout). On Linux these extra keys usually behave the same as on Windows, popping up the K menu and context menu, although I don't know whether any of the logo + other key combinations are supported (haven't tried that).
Macs usually use a rather different keyboard layout anyway (location of the € sign), so they're not really an issue, since we need to have separate Mac images anyway. Shinobu 21:33, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd also suggest to replace the win-key with another name/sign (i.e. "Super Key" as mentioned in some articles), i.e. mac keyboards, don't have one, and my Linux keyboard doesn't have one either. (btw. it does not pop up my K menu ;) ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.178.218.18 (talk) 12:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Standardisation needed

The page looks horrible, with all the differently styled layout images. Some of them are even bitmaps!

They should all be standardised, and they should be SVG's. There are currently two different styles in use in the SVG images, light and dark. I prefer the light layout, besides it's the most used. Shinobu 21:37, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, when I open the generated PNG's in a bitmap editor, they both look the same, including transparency... why? Shinobu 21:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
When I generate a new picture, it looks okay... compare:
Old, not okay:
New, okay:
Odd, ne? Shinobu 21:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand your question but I'd anyway suggest throwing IE out of the window. After that, what about contributing work instead of asking others to do it for you? —Gennaro Prota•Talk 22:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
@I'm not sure I understand your question: then don't try to come up with an answer, you're not helping.
@After that...: Very nice, giving that kind of response before there's any sign that I'm not contributing.
How about being nice to people? Shinobu 08:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, I was evidently irritated by your tone ("The page looks horrible… they should all be… and they should be…" etc.) which didn't look gentle to people in the first place and didn't look like "contributing". That said, I want to be constructive, so any work on this would certainly have my support. IIRC your transparency problem is related to an Internet Explorer rendering bug, though I'm not sure. The images appear correctly on my Firefox, regardless of the size. —Gennaro Prota•Talk 13:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Apology accepted - and I offer mine for my rather impolite tone... I didn't mean to be rude (although reading back it might come across that way) but it just was my reaction. Again, my apologies.
I'm not sure why some programs render it correctly and some don't, otherwise I wouldn't have asked the question in the first place, but something is different with the new PNGs that makes them render correctly everywhere. I wish I could just delete an old thumbnail from the cache. I also wish I knew what's different.
As for new SVGs, if I allocate some time in the near future to be alone with Inkscape, that shouldn't be too much work. I'll base them on the SVG layouts already here. Shinobu 23:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what's wrong with these images, but it seems IE7 and Firefox aren't affected. I've purged the image pages in question. I'm still having cache issues, but they may only be affecting me. Unfortunately, I didn't finish updating the layout images (I only did 14), so I'd be very grateful for any more images. Word of advice, btw: it's probably easiest to translate objects by blocks of 30 points (iirc), than to align things manually. --StuartBrady (Talk) 15:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, standartization needed, but I doubt if Wikipedians can do much about it. It is not a problem of the wikipedia article, it is problem of disorder in layouts. The variety of keyboards layouts and encoding schemes it trully disaster for users who type in more than one type of computer and/or more than 2 languages. The layouts have so few (perhaps, occasional) coinsidences; the user has to put many different labels at a same key. The key looks like a complicated collage (see first figure in the Article), and the identification with lateral vision becomes impossible. I believe, each layout was optimised for one language. Together, these layouts make impression of just tandom distribution of codes among keys.
However, Wikipedia should declare this chaos. First, the newcommers will not think that they are stupid - it is not a fault of a user, that his fingers cannot remember a ten of different meanings of the same key in different layouts. Second, designers of the keyboards may read the opinion about their mental capacities, and consider the unification of layouts and options of quick switch between them. dima 12:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The images are all too big and take up too much space on screen. It makes the article look very messy -- like it's all keyboard layout and no discussion. They need to be resized and perhaps right aligned to make the page look more balanced. — jammycakes (t)(c) 13:37, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

This article leans very much to the POV of Windows Users. Suggest revamp of all images to remove Win/Meun keys. --ÆAUSSIEevilÆ 14:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

These keys are usually found on PC keyboards; removing them from the images would not make them go away (and they can be used on Linux too, so they are not only for Windows users). As for Apple or Sun keyboards, they probably have other changes beyond simply removing these keys. --cesarb 20:56, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Apple has a totaly different set of alt+ keys on their keyboard setup. I don't think that those would need to be added though. Most of them are unneccesary keys that you would/will never use. Prep111 18:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

"Unneccesary keys"? Unfortunately that statement isn't accurate at all. The keys aren't there just for looks: they are used by folks on a daily basis. The alt/option key is used to access deadkeys (and thus directly relevant to this article). The apple/command key is roughly the equivalent to the Windows CNTRL key. The Mac's CNTRL key is not used as much, but some applications—including Adobe applications—do use it as a modifier key for commands. -Fenevad (talk) 14:54, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm removing the NPOV tag. The majority of keyboards do contain the windows key, removing it from the images would itself be biased. --Dr. WTF 20:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bulgarian keyboard

I´m neither a bulgarian and nor a native english speaker so I couldn´t understand why there is a need for a standard and phonetic keyboard. The paragraph about roman script transliteration is IMHO not specific to the bulgarian language. A lot of russians, ukranians etc. do the same. 84.173.237.206 15:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

For non-Roman script you have basically two ways of creating a layout -- you can just use your own (if you have one), or simply put your letters to correspond to similarly-sounding Lating ones. First is a standard keyboard (which generally uses a respective typewriter standard -- more or less), and second is phonetic. You can still find phonetic keyboards on old machines in Russia -- it was pretty popular in 8-bit era, when most machines had a phonetic "ЯВЕРТЫ" keyboard, and with minis, where it was a remainder from 7-bit encoding. --Khathi (talk) 05:46, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question: images and the enter-key

Some of the images have a vertical enter-key, others have a horizontal enter-key. I've been using the horizontal one in my own drawings to be consistent with the US-international image, but my own keyboard has a vertical enter-key. Since the keyboard layout is a software thing, and completely independent of what the keyboard actually looks like, should we perhaps standardize on one choice? If so, which? I not, is there a special reason behind when the vertical enter and when the horizontal enter is used? Shinobu 12:34, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mac vs. PC Layout

Hi, I am wondering why I can't read anything about the difference between Mac and PC layouts. e.g. in the german Mac layout the @ is at the L, but on a german (DE-de) layout for PCs the @ is found at the Q. Same with varius other symbols. cu AssetBurned 16:14, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Win Key"

Would anyone else support changing the images in this article from "Win Key" to the more OS-neutral "SUPER" or "META"? -- Phoeba WrightOBJECTION! 14:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Yup, I'd also suggest this, since they're are several keyboards which doesn't come with this OS-specific key (Mac, Linux, Solaris,... Keyboards for example doesn't have a Windows(isn't it copyrighted anyway?)-Flag on it, but something else. Super-Key is a good idea and wouldn't be the first time I'd read that name. --87.178.218.18 12:38, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree, perhaps we should call it OS-Key--200.181.168.183 (talk) 16:26, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What about the Compose Key ?

The Compose Key is another way to obtain accentuated letters on a QWERTY US keyboard. I have it on my Sun Ultra 5 machine. I find it quite useful to write French, so there should be some section to talk about it.

The Alt Graph is present on my keyboard too, near the Compose Key, but it does nothing. And I have only the left Control Key. The right one is replaced by Compose and Alt Graph. 213.244.14.206 13:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Original layouts and external links section

The section on "Original" layouts contains a lot of links to obscure and non-notable keyboard layouts, and it looks a bit spammy to me. I think they both need to be cleaned up - after all, Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day. — jammycakes (t)(c) 17:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe I've read somewhere, that Wikipedia is for uncle George's bathroom reading. Maybe it can be classified as uncle George's bathroom reading, and then be salvaged from annihilation by appealing to uncle George? Said: Rursus ☻ 08:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't understand what point you are trying to make. Can you be a bit clearer? — jammycakes (t)(c) 08:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Colemak

While it is debatable whether the layout is notable enough to deserve its own article, I think it deserves a section in the Keyboard layout article. There was a section on the layout, but it was deleted from the article. --86.40.177.139 22:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide any links to reliable, third party sources to demonstrate how it stands out from the gazillions of non-notable qwerty derivatives that people knock together using Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator on a wet weekend? (If so, you may want to consider requesting a deletion review of the article.) — jammycakes (t)(c) 06:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Colemak is several orders of magnitude more popular than other alternative layouts (e.g. compared to Arensito which has been around since 2001). It's also the only one to come as a built-in option in an operating system (e.g. Debian). 86.40.177.139 07:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
The important thing is reliable, third party sources. (I tried but failed to find any references to back up their assertion that it is going to be included in the next version of X11, for instance, though maybe I just didn't google hard enough.)
There used to be an article on Colemak, but it was deleted per WP:N and salted after several undiscussed attempts to re-create it. If you can get some good sources together and think it merits some further discussion, go to WP:DRV and ask for a review. Even if it doesn't merit its own article, you could suggest a redirect to this one instead. If you want to edit this article itself though, go ahead and be bold -- just remember to cite your sources.
Personally, I don't think it warrants a whole section in this article though a mention in the "Original" section may be appropriate. — jammycakes (t)(c) 08:45, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Here's the patch that added Colemak support to X.Org. --86.40.177.139 20:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I've added a note about it to the "Original" section along with a few others that crop up from time to time and I think that should suffice. I know that there is a tiny core of fairly noisy Colemaktivists who would like to use Wikipedia for Colemak advocacy[4] but Wikipedia is not a soapbox or a free web host and any content needs to be backed up by reliable sources. Usage statistics seem particularly hard to pin down, though I would be surprised if there are more than a couple of hundred or so active users at the present time. — jammycakes (t)(c) 06:23, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I've added a bit more information about Colemak to the article. It is certainly widely enough used to merit it, and besides it now has its own article again. The fact that it is now included with a mainstream desktop OS means that it is clearly notable, so there is absolutely no reason why it should only be glossed over. Snthdiueoa (talk) 20:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaning up the article

There is a probem with this article that I mentioned above but I am a little unsure how best to address it, namely that the images in the article dwarf the commentary and make it look like a rather unencyclopedic (WP:NOT#REPOSITORY) repository of images. Has anyone any thoughts as to how it can be improved? 193.35.133.150 19:35, 25 August 2007 (UTC) (oops sorry -- thought I was signed in but I obviously wasn't — jammycakes (t)(c) 19:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC))

--i do not concur i believe that the images are intricate to understanding the explanations of the facts, and should remain. Killemall22 20:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "new canadian keyboard"

This keyboard should have its own diagram (description taken from current version of article):

Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard layout

Only differences to the above diagram are indicated.

The keytops will be described as ( lower case, upper case and alternate keypress ).

The key above the (tab/shift tab) contains the octothorpe ( # | \ ). 
The 3 key has ( 3 / £ ).
The 5 key has the ( 5 % ¤ ).
The 6 key has the ( 6 ? ¬ ).
The 7 key has the ( 7 & ¦ ). 
The 8 key has the ( 8 * ² ) (the 2 superscript).
The 9 key has the ( 9 ( ³ )  (the 3 superscript). 
The 0 key has the ( 0 ) ¼)   (the 1/4 character).
The - key has the ( - _ ½ )  (the 1/2 character). 
The = key has ( = + ¾ )      (the 3/4 character). 
The E key has ( e E Euro symbol)   
The O key has ( o O § )
The P key has (p P ¶ )
The ^ key has ( ^ ^ [ ) (same char for lower/upper case) used for ô Ô  
The key to the right of the ^ has (¸ ¨ ] ) where the ¸ is combined with c to form ç or Ç 
The key to the right of the ^ has the ¨ where the ¨ is used with vowels ä ë ï ö ü ÿ 
The key to the right of the ¨ has the right brace ( ] ) as the alt char key.
The ; key has ( ; : ~ ).
The key to the right of the semicolon has ( ` ` { ) lower/upper ` used for à À è È etc.
The key to the right of the (` ` { ) has ( < > } )
the key to the left of the Z key has  (  «  »  degree) 
The m key has  ( m M µ ) 
The , key to the right of the m key has ( , ' ¯ )
The . key to the right of the ,l key has ( . . ­­­­short upper bar). The period is same for lower/upper.
The key to the right of the , key has ( é É ´ ) for á

My best interpretation of this description is:

| ! @ / $ % ? & * ( ) _ + 
#\1 2 3£4 5¤6¬7¦8²9³0¼-½=¾
   Q W E R T Y U I O P ^ ¨ 
        €           § ¶ [¸]
    A S D F G H J K L : ` > 
                      ;~ {<}
   » Z X C V B N M ' . É 
   «°             µ,¯.¯ ´

but the text claims more dead keys (actually, on review, it's claiming that about the 'old' CMS keyboard), and some other parts seem strange. Can anyone find a source for this layout or one like it? —Random832 17:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed image style

See Image:KB Faroese.svg - the key differences from the typical current style are: text is text rather than paths (the 'uncommon font' isn't really necessary) - non-layout-related keys are not labeled. Feedback? —Random832 18:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish layout

In spanish keyboards the euro symbol is on the E key--85.152.76.101 (talk) 17:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What is a "deadkey"?

The term "deadkey" is mentioned in the main article text but there is no explanation to what it is. And I have no clue :-( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.227.76.225 (talk) 19:33, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

A dead key is a keystroke that doesn't do anything by itself, but causes the following keystroke to be modified. For instance, on a Macintosh keyboard, typing Option+E is a dead key that adds an acute accent to the next key typed (if that combination exists). On keyboards with a Compose key, such as the Linux keyboard layout I'm using right now, Compose+' (that's an apostrophe) has the same function: Compose+' followed by e produces é. --FOo (talk) 18:35, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Korean Won / Japanese Yen Key

Just a note that on a Korean keyboard, the Won symbol (₩ or Unicode 20A9) replaces the backslash. Not always (such as here in Firefox), since it is mapped to the key and depends on the application or OS. I can't even cut'n'paste the appropriate character since as I just said, it replaces it in the keymapping. I understand that the Japanese keyboard does the same, except with the Yen key (¥ or Unicode 00A5), though I can't confirm this since I don't have a Japanese keyboard but a quick search of google images seems to confirm this. The point being, a backlash character is not on the keyboard but when English OS is installed, typing that key marked as ₩ results in \. Should the keyboard graphic reflect this? SUN has some nice images here if you'd like to see: http://docs.sun.com/source/806-6642/images/BR.korean.tif.gif http://docs.sun.com/source/806-6642/images/BR.japan.tif.gif Darkpoet (talk) 20:19, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Which keyboard graphic are you referring to? EdC (talk) 02:43, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
All 4 keyboard graphics under this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Hangul_.28for_Korean.29 should have the ₩ character. After consulting with some Koreans, most have no idea what a backslash even is... they've never seen it before. But as said, when typing in an English OS, the keyboard spits out the backslash just fine, which means that Korean keyboards have just relabelled that key, rather than reprogrammed it. Am I making sense? ...by the way, the Korean keyboard graphics are inconsistant with each other anyway and all should include the 한/영 (Hangul/English) key and the 한자 (Hanja) key, which are present on every Korean keyboard one way or another. Darkpoet (talk) 17:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Irish layout

Note 1 of this article states "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, not the Irish Gaelic layout; the latter tends to be called Gaelic or similar."

However this is not true. On the Irish layout, the key to the left of the number one is a dead key that adds a grave accent to the next key pressed. (Go on, open up MS keyboard layout creator and have a look) Admittedly, this is the only difference, but it does sure means the layouts are not identical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.44.93.48 (talk) 01:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like the layout of the physical keys is the same, but the use of them in the software is different. --FOo (talk) 18:36, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] US-International - Reversed Dead Key Layout

I've got my keyboard configured in Gnome as "USA International (AltGr dead keys)" which works as described in that section. My layout also differs from 'plain' US-international in that AltGr+6, AltGr+7 and AltGr+8 produce characters other than ¼, ½ and ¾. If my layout and RDKL are the same this means that the claim about this layout only being supported by Windows is wrong. Furthermore I cannot seem to find anything about Aris Lancrescent in connection to keyboards that isn't on Wikipedia. Could someone clarify a bit? -- StevenDH (talk) 21:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's see, it links to a generic upload site, and "Reversed Dead Key Layout" gives zero Google hits (not counting mirrors of this article), and see the user name (and list of contributions) of the user who added the section. It may be a useful layout (I have no idea!), but it doesn't matter, I'm boldly removing it as a thing made up one day. -- Jao (talk) 16:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] French North Africa  ??????

THERE IS NOTHING CALLED "French North Africa" !!! North africa is definitely NOT FRENCH although many people can speak and read fremch fluently. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hedi0058 (talk • contribs) 08:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

You could safely have fixed that yourself, as it's such a no-brainer. I changed it to more appropriate wording, but retained the fact that they were formerly French colonies because it helps explain why the layout is AZERTY (if indeed it is – someone who reads Arabic should check that). -- Jao (talk) 12:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)