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    Physical keyboard layout issue with German keyboard

    • Started by JLuber
    • 15 Replies:
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    • Registered: 06-Jul-2007
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    Hi!

    I've just discovered Colemak a few ago and decided to give it a try. I saw that Hooleon provides one with stickers on key tops for labeling purposes, but while thinking about the actual requirements I had suddenly the notion that my German keyboard layout may have additional key tops. So I started to count the key tops. My model has 60 keys due to a missing Win key (I've had this keyboard for roughly 1 1/2 years and never noticed this before :) compared to this image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KB_ … tional.svg .

    Then I noticed that the German enter key is differently formed and goes over two rows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_ … zerland.29 . So I've been wondering which key is differently located on my keyboard. Looking closely, I believe that the '\'-key is moved right to the '''-key. Does this deteriorate Colemak in any significant way? Or can I proceed with creating key labels as planned?

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    • From: NYC
    • Registered: 02-Feb-2007
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    Hey JLuber,

    I don't have any data to back my claim up, but I don't think it deteriorates Colemak in any way since those keys aren't really used often and they weren't even changed from the QWERTY position. Basically, in my opinion, you can go ahead as planned.

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    Thanks for your fast reply!

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    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
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    Hooleon has German stickers among other options:
    http://hooleon.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Sc … de=OV-0346

    To use Colemak well and follow its intentions, a German user will probably want a German Colemak install. That is, an install that keeps your symbols in place but changes all the letters to their Colemak positions. The ü and ä keys stay where they are, while the ö has to move one row up because it's too rare to defend a home position placement. For comparison, look at my Norwegian board (the one I'm typing this on!) which is fairly similar.

       ColemakNo_Saitek-SL-MM.jpg

    I'm not sure whether we got around to making a German Colemak Windows install? Vilem on this forum can answer that, unless he's on vacation. If there isn't one, I could make one but not upload it in a couple of weeks.

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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    DreymaR said:

    Hooleon has German stickers among other options:
    http://hooleon.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Sc … de=OV-0346

    Thanks! I didn't think that I could use the normal German keys, so I didn't look at the language options.

    DreymaR said:

    To use Colemak well and follow its intentions, a German user will probably want a German Colemak install. That is, an install that keeps your symbols in place but changes all the letters to their Colemak positions. The ü and ä keys stay where they are, while the ö has to move one row up because it's too rare to defend a home position placement. For comparison, look at my Norwegian board (the one I'm typing this on!) which is fairly similar.

    You mean the O with a slash, which has the same position as the Ö would have? That would mean that the O receives the place of the Ö, doesn't it?

    DreymaR said:

    I'm not sure whether we got around to making a German Colemak Windows install? Vilem on this forum can answer that, unless he's on vacation. If there isn't one, I could make one but not upload it in a couple of weeks.

    The wiki didn't mention that there is any German layout available. And thanks for your offer!

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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    The non-English Colemaks aren't official, but more of a fan project. Shai will chime in if he thinks we're doing anything wrong with one of them; so far he's only been positive. The general principle is to keep all the Colemak letters, and all the rare stuff of the standard (QWERTY) national layout as far as possible. Punctuation is rare and therefore hard and unnecessary to relearn.

    As mentioned, the Ö is too rare to be on a home position key. The O deserves this space much much better. It also means that the only deviation from the standard Colemak within what I consider the main key block of 3x10 keys will be the semicolon and minus keys.

    Yes, the ö is the same as our Norwegian ø - we just never learnt how to write töddeln.  ;)  On a side note, my personal opinion is that all the countries (Scandinavian and Germanic) that use the äöü and æøå letters should change to one conform and easy-to-write standard! Such as a line above or directly on top of the uoa instead of lifting the pen to write two dots. (The å has to stay I guess.) Like that'll ever happen.  :D

    One issue is whether a layout optimised for English is really that good for other languages? My and others' searches have suggested that it is surprisingly good for the European languages - see for instance the forum topic by Checkit at https://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=128 which contains both figures and much discussion, or my own stuff at http://folk.uio.no/obech/Files/Keyboard … encies.zip (if you're especially interested). At any rate, most Germans type a lot of English too these days I believe.

    I found Vilem's layout image, by the way:

       germancolemakoa7.jpg

    Vilem has done an impressive job for the German Colemak, including a Wikipedia article. Unfortunately, it got deleted. We'll have to wait a bit before trying again I guess.

    Last edited by DreymaR (08-Jul-2007 07:59:00)

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    • Shai
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    DreymaR, yes, that's the way I recommend doing national variants of Colemak.

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    • From: Köln, Germany
    • Registered: 01-Apr-2007
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    DreymaR said:

    I'm not sure whether we got around to making a German Colemak Windows install? Vilem on this forum can answer that, unless he's on vacation. If there isn't one, I could make one but not upload it in a couple of weeks.

    No, I didn't get round to making one, as I am perfectly happy with the standard cmk. I rarely type german on my computer anyways, perhaps only for chatting and that kind of stuff. I could make one, but not right now. JLuber, why don't you download the M$ keyboard layout creator and all of the other required programs [clenching_fists]stupid microsoft[/clenching_fists] and make the german variant yourself? On the contrary you could of course wait for DreymaR or me to find time and patience to make it.

    DreymaR said:

    On a side note, my personal opinion is that all the countries (Scandinavian and Germanic) that use the äöü and æøå letters should change to one conform and easy-to-write standard! Such as a line above or directly on top of the uoa instead of lifting the pen to write two dots. (The å has to stay I guess.) Like that'll ever happen.  :D

    This definitely won't happen, I agree, but I don't think that's too bad. The different symbols for the umlauts give you a pretty good clue which language you're dealing with. If you see ö and å in the text, that's swedish, for instance. Therefore, I think they're quite convenient for those ignorant of the scandinavian and german languages for differentiation between them.

    DreymaR said:

    ColemakNo_Saitek-SL-MM.jpg

    The german and norwegian keyboards seem to be nearly identical! I think placing the semi-colon on the comma key makes more sense than giving it it's own one, although I don't like how < and > are placed on the same key, as I never know whether I need to press shift to produce >, or not.

    @JLuber: Gut zu sehen, dass es auch Landsmänner gibt, die cmk benutzen!

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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    Norway used to be a quite Germanic country before that tragic war. Now the American influence is strong, but unfortunately one notices mainly the bad sides of it such as CocaColonialism. Seems most Norwegians nowadays are somewhat unaware of many of the strong links we have with German culture since it became taboo to praise anything German after WWII.

    Differentiating language based on typography seems unnecessary compared to the problems it creates. Funny story: Every time I write a ß in a Microsoft Word document the stupid language recognition routine becomes absolutely convinced that I am now writing German! No amount of æøå will impress it though - go figure. You guys have the Überbuchstab, it seems...

    I'll probably make a German Colemak install for Windows if nobody beat me to it, but as mentioned it'll have to wait a couple of weeks until my vacation's over and I return to my upload facilities at work.

    Last edited by DreymaR (09-Jul-2007 07:14:45)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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    vilem said:
    DreymaR said:

    I'm not sure whether we got around to making a German Colemak Windows install? Vilem on this forum can answer that, unless he's on vacation. If there isn't one, I could make one but not upload it in a couple of weeks.

    No, I didn't get round to making one, as I am perfectly happy with the standard cmk. I rarely type german on my computer anyways, perhaps only for chatting and that kind of stuff. I could make one, but not right now. JLuber, why don't you download the M$ keyboard layout creator and all of the other required programs [clenching_fists]stupid microsoft[/clenching_fists] and make the german variant yourself? On the contrary you could of course wait for DreymaR or me to find time and patience to make it.

    I've tested the MKLC and was totally surprised that it was so easy to to do the remapping. The only problem I have is that one can't remap caps lock with backspace. Is it it possible to modify the layout without using registry tricks, which probably have to be redone every time the layout is freshly installed? Otherwise one can use the layout already. If there is enough interest it can be uploaded somewhere. Any hints?

    vilem said:

    @JLuber: Gut zu sehen, dass es auch Landsmänner gibt, die cmk benutzen!

    Nun, ich habe erst heute mir Colemak installiert, aber ich hoffe, dass das Umlernen recht schnell von der Hand geht. :)

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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    There is no way to remap the CapsLock with a layout; it can only be done by editing the registry. There are programs which facilitate this, and of course there's Shai's Colemak installer which I believe does the job. So what you can do is install the standard Colemak which takes care of the CapsLock, then install your own layout and use that.

    If you have a ready and complete German Colemak install, please upload and point to it so that other users may benefit. I hope you looked into the possibilities of implementing a few extra AltGr signs, like for instance those Shai uses (minus the ones that are already elsewhere on a German keyboard).

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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    DreymaR said:

    There is no way to remap the CapsLock with a layout; it can only be done by editing the registry. There are programs which facilitate this, and of course there's Shai's Colemak installer which I believe does the job. So what you can do is install the standard Colemak which takes care of the CapsLock, then install your own layout and use that.

    I'll try that.

    DreymaR said:

    If you have a ready and complete German Colemak install, please upload and point to it so that other users may benefit. I hope you looked into the possibilities of implementing a few extra AltGr signs, like for instance those Shai uses (minus the ones that are already elsewhere on a German keyboard).

    I have only mapped the keys which are shown in the keyboard layout you posted a few days ago. But looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KB_ … tional.svg shows that the German layout has a lot collisions with original layout. So this leaves me with three problems: The first one is that I don't know where I should place those characters. As I'm not knowledgeable in the reasons why Shai put them there in the first place, I have no idea what kind of damage I'd cause. The second one that I didn't manage to figure out how those special Windows and Macintosh keys are supposed to work. So I couldn't add them even if I wanted. And lastly, where should I upload my file? I haven't seen an upload possibility here (could have missed that though) and I'd prefer an official server instead some web space I have access to.

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    Two other things I discovered while perusing my solution: The windows logon screen still uses QWERTZ, as the keyboard shortcuts. I haven't used Shai's install program yet, as I prefer having caps lock available. What did I do wrong?

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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    Ah yes, that bit is tricky. Only change it if you're the absolute master of your computer of course, and make sure you know your passwords the way they're typed in Colemak! (I use passwords that are compatible with both layouts - there's a thread down the page on that subject.)

    What you'll need to do is fool around in the registry. It's a bit messy, but doable and fairly safe. Press Win+R for a run window and run Regedit, then look up the key HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Keyboard Layout\Preload where you'll find a number of entries numbered from 1 and up. These are the codes of the layouts you have active on logon. Now find your own user (which, unfortunately, may be just a cryptic number like S-1-5-18) and note how the corresponding entries look there. If you're in doubt, you could always look at the users, then change your layout settings (activate or unload a layout, or make another layout the default) and look at them again to see what changed in the registry entries.

    Now change the .DEFAULT user's Preload values to look like your user's Preload values, and logon should start using the same layout settings as you have!

    Hope that's helpful.

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

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    DreymaR said:

    Ah yes, that bit is tricky. Only change it if you're the absolute master of your computer of course, and make sure you know your passwords the way they're typed in Colemak! (I use passwords that are compatible with both layouts - there's a thread down the page on that subject.)

    I'm not quite clear on one thing: If my QWERTZ password is "ASDF", do I have to type also "ASDF" or "ARST"? And does this affect the keyboard shortcuts, too?

    DreymaR said:

    What you'll need to do is fool around in the registry. It's a bit messy, but doable and fairly safe. Press Win+R for a run window and run Regedit, then look up the key HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Keyboard Layout\Preload where you'll find a number of entries numbered from 1 and up. These are the codes of the layouts you have active on logon. Now find your own user (which, unfortunately, may be just a cryptic number like S-1-5-18) and note how the corresponding entries look there. If you're in doubt, you could always look at the users, then change your layout settings (activate or unload a layout, or make another layout the default) and look at them again to see what changed in the registry entries.

    Now change the .DEFAULT user's Preload values to look like your user's Preload values, and logon should start using the same layout settings as you have!

    Hope that's helpful.

    It looks at least like that. :)

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    • From: Köln, Germany
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    JLuber said:

    I'm not quite clear on one thing: If my QWERTZ password is "ASDF", do I have to type also "ASDF" or "ARST"? And does this affect the keyboard shortcuts, too?

    Well that depends what layout the logon screen is in, you see? But I too reccomend cmk-qty compatible passwords like for example

    C073MA|{

    or, since you are using kohlmak, I believe ;D,

    C073MAX

    (not as safe as the other one though!)

    Edit: Oops, sorry, I forgot that you use qtz and not qty, so that unveils many more possible cross-layout compatible passwords!

    Last edited by vilem (12-Jul-2007 00:25:47)
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