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    French keyboard layout who tried to follow the Colemak principles

    • Started by ced
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    • Registered: 04-Oct-2012
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    18-Oct-2012 16:52:18#1 French keyboard layout who tried to follow the Colemak principles

    Hello everybody,

    I’m a french user and despite the fact that I’m totally agree with the colemak mapped method, The layout is not convenient for this language.
    So I’ve build up a french version who tried to follows the colemak principles but the keys position can changes a bit. Maybe that could be interested some of you.
    ~~( ε:> The rats layout for a pc105 keyboard <:3 )~~ :
    French keyboard layout

    Maybe you wonder me why I put these ridiculous rats.
    well... The name of this layout come from to the left main row keys placement who is a chance. In fact I start to swap r and A at first because of the frequency of theses letters and I need to swap W and Q for french. The T and S swapping was do for avoid some Consecutive Finger Use combinations in french. That don’t remain true for English but in other hand improve left index usage who is underutilized.
    It made first for french but i tried to keep it convenient for typing in English also and maybe other Europeans languages.I’ve added the letter é who is very common in french and dead keys `, ¨ and ^ for mapping the others ones.
    The num keys and symbols are mapped completely differently (like fn layer in the laptop but more powerful). It’s optional and need two symmetric AltGr keys and remap Alt on Super key or Caps to be fully usable.

    It’s currently tested with the keyboard layout analyser. There are some bugs so use it with care. Dead keys are not supported. to avoid this I’ve adapted the input text : "à" is replaced by "`a", "ê" by "^e" and so on.

    If you are interested to test this layout you can download the package file here :
    https://github.com/cedl38/xkeyboard-config-rats
    This package include :
    - xkb files and a keymap to compile with setxkbmap tool.
    - kbd *.map files for linux console
    - Imput files to test the layout with the keyboard-layout-analyser : rats configuration file for this tool and the imput text file (from "bépo" layout website) found in the "keyboard_layout_analyser" folder.

    The rats layout is highly configurable. You can choose from various options like the folowings :
      - rats : "rats" layout with tech layer
      - frt : french layout with tech layer
      - rats(rats-01) : rats layout with more conventional keys placements
      - bepot : a "bepo" layout with tech layer
      - standard or switched modifier placement
      - overlay mode
      - ...

    Install (linux) : see README
       
    I really like to have your feedback about this layout and maybe suggests to improve it.

    See also my user page (in french) on the bepo website who explain who I made this stuff. You can look on this page on http://bepo.fr/wiki/Utilisateur:Cedricl.
    This work, was inspired by the frequency analysis for some european languages found here.

    Last edited by ced (21-Jun-2013 12:22:07)
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    18-Oct-2012 18:40:42#2 Re: French keyboard layout who tried to follow the Colemak principles

    In my language, with a Amphetype script you can type special combinations which will produce the special characters or apostrophes. That is how Vietnamese writing with 6 different tones can be typed on any keyboard and any layout you prefer.

    For example,  ef = è, es=é, er=ẻ, ex=ẽ, ej=ẹ .

    It's good that you can type your language with only alphabet characters, which you can type really fast. When I need to type in English, I turn that script off by pressing a hot key.

    Re-inventing another layout is not effective, since learning a new layout is extremely tough for most of us.

    My fastest typing records http://hi-games.net/profile/4314
    My switching experience https://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=970

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    18-Oct-2012 20:58:50#3 Re: French keyboard layout who tried to follow the Colemak principles

    Learning a new layout is hard for me too and sometimes I thought that it would be easier to use my original keyboard layout...  :)
    But to have a optimized and more confortable keyboard layout we need to learn a other one in any case.  In other hand I d’ont want to switch between multiples keyboard.  That why I created this layout for writing in my language.
    This script is probably useful for the Vietnamese language but this technique seems to me not very appropriate and hardly transposable for French.
    In addition I also use the compose key to type special characters like œ and æ for example.

    Last edited by ced (20-Oct-2012 07:52:32)
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    02-Nov-2012 14:48:59#4 Re: French keyboard layout who tried to follow the Colemak principles

    I hope you try Bépo before.
    Or BvoFRak if you want to keep ctrl+C/V in the same place and ctrl+X close. It's quite good for english as well.
    Do not hesitate to compare it as well  on http://robiserver.ath.cx/clavier/
    éèàê are supported.

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    04-Nov-2012 17:45:38#5 Re: French keyboard layout who tried to follow the Colemak principles

    Hello,

    Yes I tried Bépo before. I have an user page on the bepo website who explain who I made this stuff. You can look on this page on http://bepo.fr/wiki/Utilisateur:Cedricl.
    Bepo is not convenient for me for reasons explained on this page and I would like to have the benefits  of the Colemak layout like Z X C V A close to left Control key.

    I have seen your observations also and some of them are interesting and your layout  seem to be good also. Me I tried to keep a limited number of letter to provide a easy access to "technicals characters" among others things.

    Thanks for the link, I’ll tried to add my layout when I will have time to do it.

    Last edited by ced (04-Nov-2012 19:00:44)
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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    04-Nov-2012 18:30:21#6 Re: French keyboard layout who tried to follow the Colemak principles

    Ced my man: It's 'Colemak', not 'Colemark'. Notice the difference? :)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    04-Nov-2012 19:06:23#7 Re: French keyboard layout who tried to follow the Colemak principles

    Thanks to have seen the mistake, It’s corrected !

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    01-Jan-2013 23:58:21#8 Re: French keyboard layout who tried to follow the Colemak principles

    project updated v0.3.3. The xkb file is highly configurable. Your feedback and suggest are welcome.

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