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Changing keyboard layout it's tricky, when I'm writing code I want the most important keys (parenthesis, brackets, braces, semicolon etc) where I'm used to find

Changing keyboard layout it's tricky, when I'm writing code I want the most important keys (parenthesis, brackets, braces, semicolon etc) where I'm used to find them, but I often need to write comments in Italian for auto generated documentation. Constantly switching keyboard layout can be almost as disruptive as waiting for a dropdown to appear.

klodolph 4y ago
I use a keyboard shortcut for swapping between the two most recently used layouts. Something like ctrl+space (or something else if I'm using Emacs a lot). Is this disruptive? The most common scenario is that I'm writing a mixture of English and Japanese, and I can't do that without switching layouts.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > Is this disruptive? what's disruptive is that keys are in different places ; on IT keyboards needs SHIFT ~ is not present | is on the other side of the keyboard etc etc
  - klodolph 4y ago
    Is there a system you like to use? If I'm switching keyboard layouts, I'm not programming in both layouts. I'm programming in a variation of the US layout, and writing natural language text in a different layout. I'm sure it is disruptive at first, but I got used to it such a long time ago at this point. There are also a lot of games that don't work except in the QWERTY layout, so I am always switching if I play a game. I have gotten used to it. I've only ever figured out how to type accents for foreign languages on Macs. Windows has the ALT+1234 gibberish that you have to memorize. I've been fighting against layouts and IMEs on Linux for at least two decades at this point and there are at least three different ways to set the keyboard layout, each of which affect different applications, and some applications seem to ignore the keyboard layout I set. As a result, I often just kind of give up on typing accented characters except on a Mac.
    - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
      > Is there a system you like to use? I use UK/US layout everywhere and dead keys for the occasional accented letters (on Linux), except for email and chats where I can copy/paste the code

klodolph 4y ago

I use a keyboard shortcut for swapping between the two most recently used layouts. Something like ctrl+space (or something else if I'm using Emacs a lot). Is this disruptive? The most common scenario is that I'm writing a mixture of English and Japanese, and I can't do that without switching layouts.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> Is this disruptive? what's disruptive is that keys are in different places ; on IT keyboards needs SHIFT ~ is not present | is on the other side of the keyboard etc etc
- klodolph 4y ago
  Is there a system you like to use? If I'm switching keyboard layouts, I'm not programming in both layouts. I'm programming in a variation of the US layout, and writing natural language text in a different layout. I'm sure it is disruptive at first, but I got used to it such a long time ago at this point. There are also a lot of games that don't work except in the QWERTY layout, so I am always switching if I play a game. I have gotten used to it. I've only ever figured out how to type accents for foreign languages on Macs. Windows has the ALT+1234 gibberish that you have to memorize. I've been fighting against layouts and IMEs on Linux for at least two decades at this point and there are at least three different ways to set the keyboard layout, each of which affect different applications, and some applications seem to ignore the keyboard layout I set. As a result, I often just kind of give up on typing accented characters except on a Mac.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > Is there a system you like to use? I use UK/US layout everywhere and dead keys for the occasional accented letters (on Linux), except for email and chats where I can copy/paste the code