I have sort of taken up the torch when it comes to AltGr mappings. My AltGr mappings are named Colemak[eD] and contain both symbols and further dead keys. I don't think it falls short of other layouts, when it comes to symbols that people actually need. I've never needed a reversed breve. If I did, I'd use the Compose method for it, as spending a layout spot on a dedicated dead key for such a rarely needed accent would be a massive waste.

A more complete IPA implementation would be lovely, and I have some ideas for it but I haven't finished such a project. Again, it's possible to use Compose instead.

Read more about it in my BigBag, see my signature or follow this link: https://dreymar.colemak.org

If you have any ideas for improving on my work in a consistent and clear fashion, please let me know!

If you want to add to Shai's old AltGr mappings, feel free but I think they're pretty hopeless. Layers like that one and EURKey try to cram lots of accented letters into the AltGr layer without thinking about it, and end up lacking space for all and putting some in unintuitive positions. This is not the right answer. Also, Shai has said that he doesn't want to work more on the AltGr layers. They clearly bear every mark of being half finished, with all those tilde mappings. But suit yourself.

What people are actually used to is open to some debate. Many users are simply used to not caring about special letters at all. Many use Colemak[eD], which has been around for many years now. Then some are like you I guess, and have gotten used to Shai's original mappings – haphazard though they may be. So I don't think there is a very clear answer to what people are used to, really!

The reason I didn't go for the tack of having accent dead keys in the letter block, is that it didn't feel intuitive to me, and I felt it could lead to accidental dead key triggering which would be quite disruptive to typing flow. As it is, the diaresis on the `;:` key and the acute on the `'"` key are both intuitive and very easily reachable in my opinion, and the ones on the top row are mostly rare one; these get far(!) better placements in my locale variants for languages that need a specific subset of them. A few are a bit bothersome in my solution, granted: Mostly the grave and circumflex accents, which are needed fairly often and not placed so well in my setup. For those I sometimes use special tricks like having a special layer mapping for their dead key in addition to the top-row one. These days I've got a Compose method for Windows going, so I can use sequences to get stuff. It may mean a few more key presses, but it may also be a lot more intuitive.

The E1 setup is very interesting! Have you shared your KLC file(s) for it somewhere?

As I said, I've been toying with ideas for IPA implementation. The challenge is the number of similar forms of some letters. I feel it'd take quite a number of new dead keys to do it well in an intuitive fashion. I haven't got the time and inspiration to do it all on my own, so I guess I'm waiting for someone to become interested enough.

Interesting that you should find Shai's AltGr layers "the most thorough layout" you'd ever seen, when in fact it's anything but. Shai said back in 2007 or so that he'd thrown it together for access to multilingual glyphs but without much further analysis and thought as to what's best. It should work decently for Spanish but less so for other accented languages. He also said that he wasn't interested in working more on it, nor in filling out the ugly "tilde" blanks. In the 15 or so years since he said that he's held true to those words.

There are other layer designs like Bépo that in the meantime have been truly thoroughly thought out. And I dare say I've put quite a lot of thought into Colemak[eD]'s design too. Several of these projects have been actively maintained for many years.

Therefore, you cannot say about the standard Colemak that "its AltGr layer is a little unmaintained". You simply can not. It's been completely unmaintained for a decade and a half. As for Shai opting to adopt Colemak[eD] as a new AltGr standard for Colemak, that is also very unlikely to happen I believe. Another thing he's said in 2006 is that he won't change Colemak. So unless he considers these layers somehow "not Colemak" after all, they will not change.

This is one point where I disagree with Shai's policy. I find that bundling the Colemak layout itself (the letter assignments) with AltGr layers and a Caps-To-Back remapping works great for simplicity but sucks for advanced users who want modularity and freedom of choice. I don't want that silly and crude Caps-To-Back trick! I want the far more refined and powerful Extend layers for that key. Others want other solutions. Shai's Linux implementation even breaks Linux design principles by forcing that trick on the Colemak user so it overrides the system option settings for their CapsLock key.

I don't have the time and energy for a full run-down, but I'll briefly note some things I consider design flaws in the original Colemak AltGr layers:
• The grave dead key is on AltGr+r, and ogonek on AltGr+g, for example. That's easily reachable, but completely unintuitive.
• Other dead keys are organized by the first letter in their name, but that's not how I think of their accents. It's better to go by shape.
• Forms of A and O are given some priority, but of course there's only room for one of each so Æ Å Ä Ã and Ö Õ are scattered around the A and O keys.
• Doing this, letters end up in unintuitive places like Ø (an O/E form) on P, Ä/Æ (A/E forms) on Q/Z, etc.
• Having exhausted those keys, other important accented forms of at least E I U have nowhere to go.

Sure, if you're, say, Portuguese you'll learn where ÃÕ are, and ÇÉÍÓÚ are in intuitive positions. But for À ÂÊÔ it's a mess.

Okay, that may sound too harsh. It's well thought-out, of course, as is anything Shai has made I believe. But I still think it's less than it should be.

You make very good points. I haven't got an answer, beyond my claim that there is no de facto Colemak AltGr standard today. My take on the modularity issue has been to consider Colemak per se the letter block assignments (including the semicolon key which obviously has to move), and my impression is that this is in accordance with the sentiments of nearly all of the Alt Keyboard Layout community. That is the Colemak layout as such, not the various implementations and their add-ons as I consider them.

And yet, as you say, on most platforms a layout implementation will come with all layers defined. The US standard is a wasteland of missed opportunity, and entirely unsatisfactory for those of us who wish to use accents and typographic characters etc.

I could suggest my own Colemak[eD] as a standard of course, but that'd be a fairly obvious plug and I won't. I'm not sure I'd even want to be the sole person in charge of such a responsibility. I have way more than enough work on my hands as it is with my BigBag, as you may well imagine. I'm always interested in these matters, but I already use too much time on them.

I haven't had the time to look at the E1 properly yet. As I said, it looks interesting! I see a few things I'd have done differently, of course, but also things I agree with. I take it it's a kind of standard in Germany then? Anywhere else?

In my works, I've looked to different semi-standard implementations such as Linux, MacOS, US International (albeit less than Shai did) and Bépo. But I've also made my own decisions. One was to abandon the double quote with AltGr for diaeresis: This common accent deserves a lot better than a shifted mapping! So I ended up with that on the easily accessible semicolon key, unshifted. It seems that some of the traditional layers have not given ergonomics the deserved attention.

One challenge for making a standard for AltGr layers, is that of positional vs mnemonic mappings. To me it's obvious that ß goes on AltGr+s for mnemonic reasons, and you'll find quite a lot other such ones in my layers. However, typographic quotes are positionally mapped in Colemak[eD]: ‚‘’ on QWF and ‹› on UY. This is easy to remember, but layout specific. A standard, ideally, should work for more layouts than just Colemak I feel. But that raises some challenges, due to this issue. As you may see in my EPKL program's alt layout implementations, I've moved some keys around for some layouts to alleviate this but there's really no one-size-fits-all solution. Abandoning positional mappings altogether for the sake of unity seems an overly harsh answer.

DreymaR, if you're curious, you can now try Germany's new E1 and E2 layouts for yourself, complete with their unprecedentedly large set of dead keys and other things mapped under AltGr. This includes the IPA phonetic transcription features we'd discussed previously.

These layouts are included in Windows Insider Build 25977, and are described in this blog post: https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insid … y-channel/

They're implemented based on the latest version of the standard.