Good point about the Caps lock as CTRL,  I actually find after moving to Dvorak that the shortcuts on the left hand are really quite awkward for me now.  CTRL + Q Dvorak maps to CTRL + X Qwerty.  Still preferable to Alt + F4!  CTRL + X Qwerty - feels too tight for me.  I can't say that I miss any other Qwerty shortcuts, apart from CTRL + X Dvorak which maps to CTRL + B Qwerty.  B being quite a distant letter.

I've actually taken to having them off of one hand - but then again, I'm not that much of a mouse user, and I'm also not a fan of one handed chords.  Though I once was.  Others don't seem to have any issues.  Caps lock for CTRL could make a one handed chord / shortcut more comfortable for me.

Yeah, DreymaR I love the idea of your extended layer but I haven't tried it yet because (and I will deny I've ever said this) I don't want to spend time learning/getting used to the new shortcut setup and to get it working and understand exactly how it works (the ahk code). I'm such a hypocrite, I know. I'm always saying to my friends: optimisation, optimisation...

@Pafkata: No, I *totally* understand that sentiment! There's far too much to get into.

Should you nevertheless be just a tiny bit intrigued after all, know this:

• You don't have to learn the shortcut setup! That is, just use the arrow block and Backspace and then when you feel like it add any useful combination of the Enter, Home/End and PgUp/PgDn keys, and probably the Alt/Shift/Ctrl keys to use with them. I swear, that'll get you such a long way that it's enough to sell this. In fact, the arrow keys alone are!

After a while you'll probably get curious and add some other keys you like to your arsenal (I use Esc, Del, mouse wheel for scrolling, Back/Forward, the function keys – especially for Alt+F4 and F2 for renaming – and the multimedia keys are nice too) but even I don't use all the keys. My mousing keys are almost never in use; feel totally free to ignore them and anything else you don't want.

But hear me on this: Basic navigation/editing from the home position is gold, pure gold. I can whiff around in Windows Explorer, looking at and renaming/copy-pasting files around, without mousing for instance.
Great for multiple-file jobs that aren't big enough for a batch app but big enough to be annoying with mousing.

• Getting it working should be really easy without understanding the code! If you have special needs not covered by my package (one setup for Wide and one for non-Wide keyboard layouts), just let me know and I can make you a pkl.ini file that works for you. You can use that with a PKL layout of your choice or with a transparent "VirtualKey" setup that doesn't mess with your layout.

@Lalop: Is it the Extend key you're calling 'ad hoc'? I wouldn't say that! It's just a lot of power at your hands. In that respect, it's anything but an ad hoc solution and more of an ad omnes one if you ask me and others who use it or similar ones! Like having a little of the power of Vim with you at all times, but with a smoother learning curve.

The worst thing about the Extend layer is that I've gotten so used to it that I feel that vanilla keyboards are stunted. Luckily I have solutions both for Windows and Linux; before I got the Linux mappings up I felt let down. Only later did I learn that there actually were similar solutions in place for XKB already – just not as complete as mine. :)

There are no basics with XKB, I'm afraid. It's a beast. :)

That said, all you need do is find a layout you wish to wreck – such as the basic colemak layout in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/us (depending on your distro your X11 folder may be elsewhere). Then find, say, the bit that goes

    key <AC07> { [            n,            N,          ntilde,           Ntilde ] };
    key <AC08> { [            e,            E,          eacute,           Eacute ] };

...and change it to, say, something like...

    key <AC07> { [             n,             N,   parenleft, bracketleft ] };
    key <AC08> { [             e,             E, parenright, bracketright ] };

(the others are 'braceleft'/'braceright' and 'less'/'greater')

Then you may want to clear out the cache files in /var/lib/xkb/ called 'server*.xkm' before rebooting.

Whatever tickles your fancy. This simple kind of editing is easy enough; adding your own layouts and suchlike is a whole lot worse!

If your AltGr key does something strange now, it's probably because you either use a layout that doesn't use AltGr or because you've activated a setting that messes with it. In Ubuntu for instance, there are a lot of settings in the keyboard settings GUI to play with, and some of them affect the AltGr.

Thanks DreymaR, but I can't really use it without understanding the code because I'm already using my own AHK file with shortcuts and other stuff that is about 1000 lines long – so I'd need to do some compatibility and possibly combine them in one if I want them to work together. And I know the comfort of navigating from (almost) home position, yeah. I've got my (sift+)LAlt + NEIU mapped to (shift+)Ctrl + ←↓→↑ which is golden for text editing/navigating. Maybe one of these days I'll feel less lazy about it and dive in and let you know if I need some help with the setup :)

Need an opinion: is it easier to hit rightalt+n (my current backspace) or rightalt+i, when in the middle of typing sentences?  Right now, I'm finding the transition to the former quite awkward compared to the latter (only the transition: the combos themselves seem equally easy to press), but I'm not sure if that's just because I'm used to hitting backspace with my ring finger.

I think, the way you're seeing it, having a layer is not ad hoc; it meets a fairly straightforward convenience rationale.  I can buy that.  But if a layer just happens to duplicate functionality of a singular button in some places, then replaces that functionality in others, I would start to consider that an ad hoc solution.  Granted, you don't seem to duplicate much of the ctrl functionality with your capslock layer, but I, of course, would (since caps+those shortcuts are so wonderful).

I've already explained the inflexibility scenario: the problem is that, while I may think I know which of the ctrl shortcuts are useful (believe me, it is very tempting to reassign one of those unused caps+home keys to a parenthesis), this could change eventually, and by then that shortcut spot would probably have been taken.

Edit: as to the second way in which I meant it, if you take a general rule, then decree such and such an exception to it (say, by practical considerations), such a procedure could be considered ad hoc.  In this case, the two meanings are very closely related, of course.

I've moved the paren altgr shortcuts to the top, in favor of a backspace as Altgr+t.  It's a little awkward, but will see if I can get used to it.

I think our disagreement stems from my seeing a Caps layer (with many Ctrl-shortcuts) as an ad hoc Ctrl key, while you see a Caps layer (with fewer Ctrl-shortcuts) as a keyboard layer with some shortcuts that just happen to agree with Ctrl's.

Edit: I've just discovered this very second that some programs don't recognize the Altgr backspaces, though the other Altgr shortcuts work fine.  In particular java programs seem to treat it as a space, while python outputs some weird unicode.

I thought, from the charts, you had caps+zxcv, and I would not be willing to give up arstwf either (maybe the q).  Maybe the ^Z, etc don't mean what I thought they meant.

Does your altgr BackSpace work throughout all programs?  If so, I may have to try to figure out how you did it.

It all depends on whether you use [{ more often than AltGr. If you use AltGr more, then use the second option is better.

pafkata: I guess that's good enough to keep me trying the alt alt layout a few more days.  I think it's slightly better already.

Dreymar: I think I may want one of those! My personal problem, though, is that my [laptop] spacebar seems to be crapping off at the sides (I probably shouldn't have tried cleaning it - though I'm not sure if it actually was my fault), so it could get annoying quickly.

Despite my earlier misgivings, I got the itch and am now trying a slight variation of your wide layout:

I was just warming up to the moved altgr layout (and now consider it superior to my original unmoved one as pafkata suggested): it'll probably take the same few days to see if I can get used to this one.  What ended up convincing me was that having the return key as [qwerty "]+t is almost functionally identical to just having the return key next to o in the first place.

Not quite sure how this will work out in windows; maybe I can just use the default layout there instead.

I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm feeling daring :)

Edit: Should I switch quote and return? Food for thought.

I tried moving the quote key and quickly came off it. It really needs to be almost where it was.

You might move the Enter to the position above (the \| key where you have ]} ), but only if that works for you. I should think that Enter is actually less frequent than the apostrophe and quotes together, depending on what you're doing – nevertheless moving it could prove annoying.

I use the Caps+Space = Enter at least as much as the old Enter key (less stretch even with the Wide mod, since I have an ISO keyboard!). I'm very happy with that, and so I could envision moving the right-hand Enter around.