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I type English and French in Windows on the same QWERTY keyboard. I once learned to type on Azerty, but I mainly type English now on a standard US keyboard layo
by 205guy 6y ago
I type English and French in Windows on the same QWERTY keyboard. I once learned to type on Azerty, but I mainly type English now on a standard US keyboard layout. For the French, I find the windows alt-numbers works the easiest for accented characters. Alt-130=é, Alt-133=à, Alt-135=ç, Alt-137=ê, Alt-138=è which covers 95% of the accented character usage. I have a little chart next to my desk with all the others (ï,ô,ù) they’re nearly all Alt-14x and Alt-15x. And then I’ll put é in the paste buffer because it is the most used and a bit quicker that way (for words like “préféré”).
The Alt-13x codes are not as quick as the Azerty keys, but good enough and once memorized are fairly easy with a keyboard that has a keypad (most PCs do, even my laptop). This is especially true because they are done with both hands simultaneously, as opposed to something like Cmd-e+e on a Mac. Actually, they are faster than finding the accented characters on my QWERTY virtual keyboard as I type this comment on iOS.
Those AltGr- combos seem complicated to me, I would much prefer a system such as AltGr-e =é, then AltGr-ee=è, AltGr-eee=ê, etc. To me that would be more intuitive than remembering the composing character (slash for aigüe, etc).
- jakub_g 6y agoReminds me of when the 'D' key broke in my physical keyboard long time ago. I liked that keyboard a lot and couldn't find a good replacement so I learnt to type Alt-100 do get 'd'.
- cassepipe 6y agoYou seem to be quite used to your Alt combination but as you said they really are not straightforward. I found another very simple solution, on Linux you can set a compose key (typically Alt gr or the contextual menu key). You type one after another, the compose key and then any two keys that make sense like ' followed by e (et vice versa), it will give you a é. It is both fast and easy to work with.