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    Colemak at Portugal, opinions needed :)

    • Started by Bee
    • 3 Replies:
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 02-Jun-2007
    • Posts: 7

    Hi, i am very new here (just a few minutes), hope you  dont flame me for making a thread so fresh after registering.
    In my defense i am shy and  dont create a thread in several years. And that life is short too :)
    Is for a good cause, to help my whole country suffering from  Qwertism... 

    I think i am the first Portuguese registered here, but surely must be other people that type in Portuguese that can benefit from this thread.

    The people that speak Portuguese are the 5th language in the world:
    http://geography.about.com/od/culturalg … guages.htm

    1. Mandarin Chinese - 882,475,389
    2. Spanish - 325,529,636
    3. English - 311,992,760
    4. Hindi - 181,780,905
    5. Portuguese - 178,557,840 <<<<<<<<<<<<
    6. Bengali - 172,756,322
    7. Russian - 146,327,183
    8. Japanese - 128,278,015
    9. German - 96,047,358
    10. Wu Chinese - 77,998,190

    We use qwerty keyboards here at Portugal. We also need to write: ç á à é í ó ú ê ã â õ
    That is provided by a key ç
    by use ^ (ê...
    by use of ~ (ã...
    and by use of ´ (ú...
    and ` (à
    ....................
    Our frequency of letters is also different from the english.

    Here i provide a pic using the colemak layout and the key % distribution at Portuguese.

    4pn88ew.gif

    As you can see by that pic i already robbed a pic from a member of this forum (can you forgive me DreymaR :) )
    And also stole the layout from the administrator. I am badddd :)

    What is your opinion? Please help a poor Portuguese, very ignorant, and not-keyboard-wise?
    Have mercy, save me from a life of Qwerty-doom :)

    HELP !!

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    • 0
    • Reputation: 210
    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    The picture you used is not one of mine; Shai's?

    I hope you're not changing any main letter placements from Colemak because then this can be a suggestion for Portuguese Colemak and not just some "Bee-mak" thingy. For Portuguese, the high frequency of the letter A (and the low H frequency) will be a contraindication to that, but I'd think that you type some English anyway so it evens out somewhat. I'm Norwegian so I know a bit about writing another language with different frequencies and I think it's mostly okay. The biggest issue for me may be a few of the digraphs actually.

    Then you'll need to put in the special signs. However, the ç is so rare that I'm thinking it could well be placed on an "AltGr" key really? If not, then it could do well on the right-hand side. See my article on modding keyboards in the Technical forum, there you'll see how we've done it with the Norwegian ÆØÅ letters.

    If you use Windows, I can help you make a Portuguese Colemak installation based on the Colemak but with the typical Portuguese glyphs more accessible.

    Last edited by DreymaR (02-Jun-2007 22:13:36)

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

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    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 02-Jun-2007
    • Posts: 7

    DreymaR, hi :)

    Thanks for the answer. I know you are from Norway, i saw your site. Great pics, family and friends you have.  The pics with those Viking dresses and weapons are quite cool. And i like your posts too.
    Me ... i am a humble bee, not the super bee i wanted to bee :)

    About the keyboard... is for portuguese really. I dont write much english, emails mostly.

    I am still learning the basics of using a new layout. There are quite a lot of things that are not intuitive for me... :( Thanks for the offer DreymaR. I need to do more research.

    Two questions:
    1) Do you know software that analysis what a user writes and that can help to improve key places or so? Like how many times a key was hit, distances or so? Like create keyboard layouts, or rank configurations? I can analyse a already written text, word by word, but takes much time and is not practical.
    A bit like Andre of Romenia site, could even be simpler, only would need to gave clues to point the way of improving ?

    2) Do you know any software that can change the keys place without restart and that can do many changes quick (and save them), with a cheap price?

    Thanks :)

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    • 0
    • Reputation: 210
    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    Which operating system are you using? If it's Windows XP/Vista or a Mac system, then installing new layouts and switching between them can be made very simple and done without restart. The system allows you to switch between layouts using hotkeys if you want to.

    Research tools for keyboard layouts usually require you to do a bit of programming to define your layout suggestion; they're fairly rough. Shai has used a lot of parameters together with his experience and knowledge about layouts, and I at least think that he's done an impressive amount of work. He says that he probably has spent around 1,000 hours working on Colemak all things considered, just so you get an impression of how much work it can be to get something really good.

    Are you sure you don't type more English than you think? This board isn't an email for example.  ;)

    Last edited by DreymaR (03-Jun-2007 17:52:37)

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

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