16 ms·

Efficient keyboard layout for English and Spanish

34 points by CanaryLayout 3y ago

CanaryLayout 3y ago
Instead of counting distance like Workman does (and totally ignoring weird+painful finger stretches), good `ol community-debate among layout experts, who have collectively switched layouts thousands of times, was done to make Canary. Introducing Canaria (spanish for "canary"). This version moves the J to make it faster to type in Spanish, without sacrificing English speed or ergonomics. It's rare for an ergo key layout to be good in two languages. This one is.
- yepguy 3y ago
  Why is Canaria better than other alt layouts for Spanish? As a Spanish learner, Colemak-DH seems to be pretty good for both languages (although my usage is still overwhelmingly dominated by English).
  - CanaryLayout 3y ago
    the inner columns are not great and you do need to get Z out of the same column as A to free up that SFB. Interestingly, Spanish might be easier to optimize as a solitary language if the punctuation keys are moved away from the vowel cluster. You can get insanely-low SFB scores. Spanish is a higher-syllable density language with better spelling conventions than English. What some of the alt-Spanish layouts have done is just take an EN-optimized layout and add diacritics (and Canaria is not an exception here either, it just restored some ergo sanity to Spanish vs. pushing Q and J to bad spots like most EN ergo layouts do). For those who work entirely in Spanish most of the time, EN-ergo layouts are not ideal.
- 000ooo000 3y ago
  Could you clarify the 'weird/painful' remark? I have small/average hands, been on Workman for 6-7 years and I wouldn't say I've found anything weird or painful about it yet (assuming I have interpreted your comment as you intended it).
  - CanaryLayout 3y ago
    It's noted in the README.md Workman has a bad vowel cluster and one of the more annoying bigrams is LY. The letter P in Workman is on the wrong side of the board. If you are making a vowel cluster (or close to one if you leave out A), then P goes opposite of where O and U go.
  - CanaryLayout 3y ago
    Let's go into why P is on the wrong side of the board in Workman (and in QWERTY, too). It is true that P is a vowel-hugging consonant. A distance analyzer that the creator of Workman used to look at travel distance would of course conclude that it should be one with the vowels. But look how often P shows up as a double letter, which stops you from rolling the keys because of the double-strike: opposition oppression stopping appendage application applying appreciate --- there's a lot. So in Workman the word PEOPLE is a painful SFB-fiesta, and that is a Top 200 word in English, and it does not feel good at all! That's because P needs to be opposite of the vowel cluster, not just because of PEOPLE, but because you need to use one hand to take care of the double-letter strike while the other hand is setting up the vowel cluster roll that is coming.
    - 000ooo000 3y ago
      >But look how often P shows up as a double letter, which stops you from rolling the keys because of the double-strike: opposition oppression stopping appendage application applying appreciate --- there's a lot. Why isn't the location of a letter commonly struck twice only a problem when the finger used to strike the letter is also used for preceding and following letters? E.g. 'stopping' in Workman has right ring finger hit all of 'opp' which, yes, isn't great, but that's the only example I can think of - *opp* words.
      - CanaryLayout 3y ago
        apply application apprehension rapping snapping snooping double letters stop the rolling action, and P is one of the biggest offenders. Putting P next to a vowel cluster does nothing for rolls. It makes more sense to swap to the other side of the board so while you are dealing with whatever P is doing, your other hand is teeing up the rolling keys that will start after P. For instance: application. In Canaria your roll would look like this, with the keys being rolled in [brackets] opp[ortun][ity] Or, if you're slower: opp[or][tuni][ty]
SomaticPirate 3y ago
Until I see a study that actually shows that “ergo” keyboard layouts actually make a difference I will continue to use QWERTY. I still believe the actual contour of the keyboard (ie Kinesis or Microsoft’s ergo keyboard) have a much larger impact than key layout.
- CanaryLayout 3y ago
  Microsoft's split board keyboard mostly only-addresses the wrists. It does not deal with redirects, SFBs and doesn't eliminate stretching (keyboards that reduce the number of keys help with that). QWERTY is an alternating layout. It wasn't designed for comfort. It was designed in the 19th century for a particular purpose that no longer exists (how many documents do you need to prepare that require a non-electric typewriter?) Changing your keyboard layout does play a big role in relieving hand pain than just shelling out money for boards.
  - rgoulter 3y ago
    > eliminate stretching (keyboards that reduce the number of keys help with that). I think the more significant detail about "keyboards with reduced number of keys" is instead "keyboards with multiple thumbkeys". On a standard keyboard, your thumbs only get to use spacebar. With these small keyboards, my thumbs get to use space, backspace, enter, escape, tab, delete. (And I put the modifier keys as Home Row modifiers). Albeit, this is almost entirely orthogonal to how the alphabetical keys are arranged. Having 2-3 keys per thumb would be a benefit to any keyboard; where the main downside is "keyboards with 2-3 keys per thumb are expensive or diy".
    - vladvasiliu 3y ago
      I agree with this, especially in the context of the MS Sculpt which GP brought up. I loved that keyboard until it stopped working, but the huge dual space bar was such a waste. They could have easily split each space bar into at least three keys.
- lawn 3y ago
Gualdrapo 3y ago
As someone who writes in both English and Spanish I'd think this can be convenient. The other day gave Coleman a try for a few days but the H key almost at its center made its usage a pain in the butt for some reason (even though QWERTY has it like in the same spot). Though I don't get the rationale for this to drop the Ñ key. Speaking about the Spanish alphabet overall I feel like having an extra letter just because the tilde is weird, but having its own key in a keyboard is convenient - and my keyboard has it. Hell, I wish sometimes one could have dedicated keys for Á, É, Í, Ó and Ú.
- CanaryLayout 3y ago
  You have an ISO keyboard. For those with ANSI boards (2 less keys) it's harder to do this. That's why in Canaria (audience is ES speakers in USA/MEX in particular) the grave/tilde key violates the principle of using it to add a grave mark and instead acts as an AltGr. This allows you to strike the ` key with the left hand while hitting N quickly. Same for the vowels. The Ü is next to Ú so that it's all in the same cluster.
- microtonal 3y ago
  The other day gave Coleman a try for a few days but the H key almost at its center made its usage a pain in the butt for some reason Isn’t this why everyone uses Colemak-DH instead? (Or is there really a layout called Coleman?)
CanaryLayout 3y ago
Some stats. Canary and Canaria are very high-roll layouts. This allows for lots of combos where 2-5 letters can be hit in a fast sweeping motion across the board (a "roll"). canaria (ASHTNEOI) (0 likes) w l y p k z j o u ; c r s t b f n e i a ' x v d g q m h / , . MT-QUOTES: Alt: 22.56% Rol: 47.83% (In/Out: 21.07% | 26.76%) One: 2.21% (In/Out: 0.89% | 1.32%) Red: 3.16% (Bad: 0.08%) SFB: 1.22% SFS: 8.59% (Red/Alt: 3.62% | 4.98%) LH/RH: 42.11% | 57.89% ------------------------ QWERTY (cmini) (0 likes) q w e r t y u i o p [ ] \ a s d f g h j k l ; ' z x c v b n m , . / MT-QUOTES: Alt: 18.40% Rol: 37.59% (In/Out: 20.22% | 17.37%) One: 2.28% (In/Out: 1.02% | 1.26%) Red: 5.84% (Bad: 0.32%) SFB: 5.17% SFS: 12.18% (Red/Alt: 6.43% | 5.75%) LH/RH: 54.65% | 45.35% --------------------------------------------- Workman (cmini) (1 like) q d r w b j f u p ; a s h t g y n e o i ' z x m c v k l , . / MT-QUOTES: Alt: 20.41% Rol: 42.34% (In/Out: 21.58% | 20.77%) One: 3.03% (In/Out: 1.52% | 1.51%) Red: 8.16% (Bad: 0.91%) SFB: 2.49% SFS: 7.73% (Red/Alt: 2.68% | 5.05%) LH/RH: 48.32% | 51.68%
grishka 3y ago
As a Russian, I'm endlessly envious to those who can get by with just one alphabet, even if in different variations — the intersection between these Latin-based alphabets is always large enough for universal keyboard layouts like this to be viable.
- trombonechamp 3y ago
  Colemak and Rulemak work nicely together.
  - grishka 3y ago
    I'm really good at typing in the traditional qwerty and йцукен layouts. The problem is that I need two and sometimes the wrong one is active. This is why I envy people who can do everything without needing non-Latin alphabets.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      I like the idea of extending Latin with some extra letters as needed to accomodate more languages. Someone would have to make a couple of new fonts probably.
cl3misch 3y ago
I find the best layout for English and German to be "German (US)". It has been such a revelation. I enjoy the comforts of accessible braces while the occasional umlaut (or greek letter) is only an AltGr away. I imagine there might be people who don't code but write a lot of German texts. They might need umlauts far more often than braces and the native "German" layout might be more sensible. Otherwise, I despise the German layout.
- felixfoertsch 3y ago
  I have been using EURKey for a few years now. You might like it. https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu
  - cl3misch 3y ago
    Thanks! It does indeed look better than the prevalent "US intl", which places Ö on the P key in favor of accented O. I think, because I only ever need umlauts, I still prefer "German (US)" which only adds umlauts to the US layout.
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    Yeah, I love EURKey, it even includes the capital ẞ. The only thing I’d like is an easier typographic apostrophe (’ instead of ') which is on Ctrl+Alt+Shift+0 (though I do use it almost automatically, nowadays).
  - teo_zero 3y ago
    Nice project. However it makes writing in some languages merely possible but not easy. For example Portuguese uses a lot of ã and õ, which are only available via dead keys. If I have to use dead keys anyway, then I'd rather use a Compose key, aptly mapped on the otherwise-useless Insert key. Besides, Romanian language is not fully supported, lacking ț and ă, and Polish too, lacking ą and ę.
  - wink 3y ago
    The problem with eurkey is the high enter key on German keyboards, it's kinda made for US keyboards. (I usually map caps-aous to äöüß and that's good enough for me). My problem is a proper layout on a German keyboard, not some weird Umlauts on a US one :P
dusted 3y ago
hot take: keyboard layouts does not matter unless you're a professional typist.. Over the course of the day, my output is not limited by how fast I can get text out of my head, by how fast my brain can generate text.
- timbit42 3y ago
  In that case you can switch to it with no effort.
- opan 3y ago
  It's not just about total speed, but effort and comfort when you type at all. The person who can type up to 160wpm can very trivially and comfortably peck out the occasional stroke at 80-100wpm as well. Getting to know your keyboard well makes computing more immersive and reduces friction and cognitive overhead.
- richardw 3y ago
  For me it's not primarily about speed, it's about reduced finger movement. I switched to a more efficient layout and carpal tunnel dropped off instantly, and that was a very long time ago. If you're doing fine on QWERTY then you don't need to make any changes.
- lawn 3y ago
  Even if typing faster only gets you 1% more productive each day, if seen over your whole career that adds up to a significant amount of time. Further, being able to burst out snippets of text quickly and effortlessly will leave your brain free to continue thinking and generating text. Even if I'm a fast typer during these chunks I'm still limited by ny typing speed. And that's ignoring the biggest benefit for me, which is increased comfort and reduced RSI.
rcarmo 3y ago
I just use the Mac’s US layout and type accented characters using Alt. (Alt+c=ç, Alt+n=ñ, plus a few other combos to get the grave, acute and umlaut). Works for Portuguese (my native language), Spanish, French, and what little German I need. Trying to optimize beyond QWERTY might be appealing, but I’ve found the trade-off of having to set up layouts everywhere when using multiple machines to be annoying, plus application key combos are usually designed for QWERTY.
loloquwowndueo 3y ago
US international with AltGr dead keys is wonderful for this - you get the “standard” US layout plus easy access to accented characters for Spanish and French via the right Alt key (AltGr if it’s so labeled). Mostly-US layout means no finger contortions to type things like brackets (square and curly) or backslashes, which was always a painful thing in e.g. latam layouts for me.
bogdanoff_2 3y ago
Is there a good English/French (or English/French/Spanish) layout? I did some excursion in alternative keyboard layouts, but the English layout I tried was clumsy for French (biggest offender was typing "ue" with one finger) and the French layout I tried was clumsy for English+programming, and that was one of the reasons I stopped trying to learn them. Currently I use US qwerty when writing English or programming and the Canadian French keyboard (which uses qwerty for the basic letters but moves some special characters and replaces them with accents) when writing French. (There's actually at least two different Canadian layouts for writing French, both using qwerty for the basic letters but differing on whether accented characters are typed using sequences of keys or a single keys) I think switching between layouts isn't that big of an issue, as long as all the basic letters are in the same place. So the English/French layout could actually be a family of layouts, as long as the basic letter layout is made to be good enough for both languages.

34 points by CanaryLayout 3y ago

Instead of counting distance like Workman does (and totally ignoring weird+painful finger stretches), good `ol community-debate among layout experts, who have collectively switched layouts thousands of times, was done to make Canary. Introducing Canaria (spanish for "canary"). This version moves the J to make it faster to type in Spanish, without sacrificing English speed or ergonomics. It's rare for an ergo key layout to be good in two languages. This one is.

yepguy 3y ago
Why is Canaria better than other alt layouts for Spanish? As a Spanish learner, Colemak-DH seems to be pretty good for both languages (although my usage is still overwhelmingly dominated by English).
- CanaryLayout 3y ago
  the inner columns are not great and you do need to get Z out of the same column as A to free up that SFB. Interestingly, Spanish might be easier to optimize as a solitary language if the punctuation keys are moved away from the vowel cluster. You can get insanely-low SFB scores. Spanish is a higher-syllable density language with better spelling conventions than English. What some of the alt-Spanish layouts have done is just take an EN-optimized layout and add diacritics (and Canaria is not an exception here either, it just restored some ergo sanity to Spanish vs. pushing Q and J to bad spots like most EN ergo layouts do). For those who work entirely in Spanish most of the time, EN-ergo layouts are not ideal.
000ooo000 3y ago
Could you clarify the 'weird/painful' remark? I have small/average hands, been on Workman for 6-7 years and I wouldn't say I've found anything weird or painful about it yet (assuming I have interpreted your comment as you intended it).
- CanaryLayout 3y ago
  It's noted in the README.md Workman has a bad vowel cluster and one of the more annoying bigrams is LY. The letter P in Workman is on the wrong side of the board. If you are making a vowel cluster (or close to one if you leave out A), then P goes opposite of where O and U go.
- CanaryLayout 3y ago
  Let's go into why P is on the wrong side of the board in Workman (and in QWERTY, too). It is true that P is a vowel-hugging consonant. A distance analyzer that the creator of Workman used to look at travel distance would of course conclude that it should be one with the vowels. But look how often P shows up as a double letter, which stops you from rolling the keys because of the double-strike: opposition oppression stopping appendage application applying appreciate --- there's a lot. So in Workman the word PEOPLE is a painful SFB-fiesta, and that is a Top 200 word in English, and it does not feel good at all! That's because P needs to be opposite of the vowel cluster, not just because of PEOPLE, but because you need to use one hand to take care of the double-letter strike while the other hand is setting up the vowel cluster roll that is coming.
  - 000ooo000 3y ago
    >But look how often P shows up as a double letter, which stops you from rolling the keys because of the double-strike: opposition oppression stopping appendage application applying appreciate --- there's a lot. Why isn't the location of a letter commonly struck twice only a problem when the finger used to strike the letter is also used for preceding and following letters? E.g. 'stopping' in Workman has right ring finger hit all of 'opp' which, yes, isn't great, but that's the only example I can think of - *opp* words.
    - CanaryLayout 3y ago
      apply application apprehension rapping snapping snooping double letters stop the rolling action, and P is one of the biggest offenders. Putting P next to a vowel cluster does nothing for rolls. It makes more sense to swap to the other side of the board so while you are dealing with whatever P is doing, your other hand is teeing up the rolling keys that will start after P. For instance: application. In Canaria your roll would look like this, with the keys being rolled in [brackets] opp[ortun][ity] Or, if you're slower: opp[or][tuni][ty]

SomaticPirate 3y ago

Until I see a study that actually shows that “ergo” keyboard layouts actually make a difference I will continue to use QWERTY. I still believe the actual contour of the keyboard (ie Kinesis or Microsoft’s ergo keyboard) have a much larger impact than key layout.

CanaryLayout 3y ago
Microsoft's split board keyboard mostly only-addresses the wrists. It does not deal with redirects, SFBs and doesn't eliminate stretching (keyboards that reduce the number of keys help with that). QWERTY is an alternating layout. It wasn't designed for comfort. It was designed in the 19th century for a particular purpose that no longer exists (how many documents do you need to prepare that require a non-electric typewriter?) Changing your keyboard layout does play a big role in relieving hand pain than just shelling out money for boards.
- rgoulter 3y ago
  > eliminate stretching (keyboards that reduce the number of keys help with that). I think the more significant detail about "keyboards with reduced number of keys" is instead "keyboards with multiple thumbkeys". On a standard keyboard, your thumbs only get to use spacebar. With these small keyboards, my thumbs get to use space, backspace, enter, escape, tab, delete. (And I put the modifier keys as Home Row modifiers). Albeit, this is almost entirely orthogonal to how the alphabetical keys are arranged. Having 2-3 keys per thumb would be a benefit to any keyboard; where the main downside is "keyboards with 2-3 keys per thumb are expensive or diy".
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    I agree with this, especially in the context of the MS Sculpt which GP brought up. I loved that keyboard until it stopped working, but the huge dual space bar was such a waste. They could have easily split each space bar into at least three keys.
lawn 3y ago

Gualdrapo 3y ago

As someone who writes in both English and Spanish I'd think this can be convenient. The other day gave Coleman a try for a few days but the H key almost at its center made its usage a pain in the butt for some reason (even though QWERTY has it like in the same spot). Though I don't get the rationale for this to drop the Ñ key. Speaking about the Spanish alphabet overall I feel like having an extra letter just because the tilde is weird, but having its own key in a keyboard is convenient - and my keyboard has it. Hell, I wish sometimes one could have dedicated keys for Á, É, Í, Ó and Ú.

CanaryLayout 3y ago
You have an ISO keyboard. For those with ANSI boards (2 less keys) it's harder to do this. That's why in Canaria (audience is ES speakers in USA/MEX in particular) the grave/tilde key violates the principle of using it to add a grave mark and instead acts as an AltGr. This allows you to strike the ` key with the left hand while hitting N quickly. Same for the vowels. The Ü is next to Ú so that it's all in the same cluster.
microtonal 3y ago
The other day gave Coleman a try for a few days but the H key almost at its center made its usage a pain in the butt for some reason Isn’t this why everyone uses Colemak-DH instead? (Or is there really a layout called Coleman?)

CanaryLayout 3y ago

Some stats. Canary and Canaria are very high-roll layouts. This allows for lots of combos where 2-5 letters can be hit in a fast sweeping motion across the board (a "roll"). canaria (ASHTNEOI) (0 likes) w l y p k z j o u ; c r s t b f n e i a ' x v d g q m h / , . MT-QUOTES: Alt: 22.56% Rol: 47.83% (In/Out: 21.07% | 26.76%) One: 2.21% (In/Out: 0.89% | 1.32%) Red: 3.16% (Bad: 0.08%) SFB: 1.22% SFS: 8.59% (Red/Alt: 3.62% | 4.98%) LH/RH: 42.11% | 57.89% ------------------------ QWERTY (cmini) (0 likes) q w e r t y u i o p [ ] \ a s d f g h j k l ; ' z x c v b n m , . / MT-QUOTES: Alt: 18.40% Rol: 37.59% (In/Out: 20.22% | 17.37%) One: 2.28% (In/Out: 1.02% | 1.26%) Red: 5.84% (Bad: 0.32%) SFB: 5.17% SFS: 12.18% (Red/Alt: 6.43% | 5.75%) LH/RH: 54.65% | 45.35% --------------------------------------------- Workman (cmini) (1 like) q d r w b j f u p ; a s h t g y n e o i ' z x m c v k l , . / MT-QUOTES: Alt: 20.41% Rol: 42.34% (In/Out: 21.58% | 20.77%) One: 3.03% (In/Out: 1.52% | 1.51%) Red: 8.16% (Bad: 0.91%) SFB: 2.49% SFS: 7.73% (Red/Alt: 2.68% | 5.05%) LH/RH: 48.32% | 51.68%

grishka 3y ago

As a Russian, I'm endlessly envious to those who can get by with just one alphabet, even if in different variations — the intersection between these Latin-based alphabets is always large enough for universal keyboard layouts like this to be viable.

trombonechamp 3y ago
Colemak and Rulemak work nicely together.
- grishka 3y ago
  I'm really good at typing in the traditional qwerty and йцукен layouts. The problem is that I need two and sometimes the wrong one is active. This is why I envy people who can do everything without needing non-Latin alphabets.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    I like the idea of extending Latin with some extra letters as needed to accomodate more languages. Someone would have to make a couple of new fonts probably.

cl3misch 3y ago

I find the best layout for English and German to be "German (US)". It has been such a revelation. I enjoy the comforts of accessible braces while the occasional umlaut (or greek letter) is only an AltGr away. I imagine there might be people who don't code but write a lot of German texts. They might need umlauts far more often than braces and the native "German" layout might be more sensible. Otherwise, I despise the German layout.

felixfoertsch 3y ago
I have been using EURKey for a few years now. You might like it. https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu
- cl3misch 3y ago
  Thanks! It does indeed look better than the prevalent "US intl", which places Ö on the P key in favor of accented O. I think, because I only ever need umlauts, I still prefer "German (US)" which only adds umlauts to the US layout.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  Yeah, I love EURKey, it even includes the capital ẞ. The only thing I’d like is an easier typographic apostrophe (’ instead of ') which is on Ctrl+Alt+Shift+0 (though I do use it almost automatically, nowadays).
- teo_zero 3y ago
  Nice project. However it makes writing in some languages merely possible but not easy. For example Portuguese uses a lot of ã and õ, which are only available via dead keys. If I have to use dead keys anyway, then I'd rather use a Compose key, aptly mapped on the otherwise-useless Insert key. Besides, Romanian language is not fully supported, lacking ț and ă, and Polish too, lacking ą and ę.
- wink 3y ago
  The problem with eurkey is the high enter key on German keyboards, it's kinda made for US keyboards. (I usually map caps-aous to äöüß and that's good enough for me). My problem is a proper layout on a German keyboard, not some weird Umlauts on a US one :P

dusted 3y ago

hot take: keyboard layouts does not matter unless you're a professional typist.. Over the course of the day, my output is not limited by how fast I can get text out of my head, by how fast my brain can generate text.

timbit42 3y ago
In that case you can switch to it with no effort.
opan 3y ago
It's not just about total speed, but effort and comfort when you type at all. The person who can type up to 160wpm can very trivially and comfortably peck out the occasional stroke at 80-100wpm as well. Getting to know your keyboard well makes computing more immersive and reduces friction and cognitive overhead.
richardw 3y ago
For me it's not primarily about speed, it's about reduced finger movement. I switched to a more efficient layout and carpal tunnel dropped off instantly, and that was a very long time ago. If you're doing fine on QWERTY then you don't need to make any changes.
lawn 3y ago
Even if typing faster only gets you 1% more productive each day, if seen over your whole career that adds up to a significant amount of time. Further, being able to burst out snippets of text quickly and effortlessly will leave your brain free to continue thinking and generating text. Even if I'm a fast typer during these chunks I'm still limited by ny typing speed. And that's ignoring the biggest benefit for me, which is increased comfort and reduced RSI.

rcarmo 3y ago

I just use the Mac’s US layout and type accented characters using Alt. (Alt+c=ç, Alt+n=ñ, plus a few other combos to get the grave, acute and umlaut). Works for Portuguese (my native language), Spanish, French, and what little German I need. Trying to optimize beyond QWERTY might be appealing, but I’ve found the trade-off of having to set up layouts everywhere when using multiple machines to be annoying, plus application key combos are usually designed for QWERTY.

loloquwowndueo 3y ago

US international with AltGr dead keys is wonderful for this - you get the “standard” US layout plus easy access to accented characters for Spanish and French via the right Alt key (AltGr if it’s so labeled). Mostly-US layout means no finger contortions to type things like brackets (square and curly) or backslashes, which was always a painful thing in e.g. latam layouts for me.

bogdanoff_2 3y ago

Is there a good English/French (or English/French/Spanish) layout? I did some excursion in alternative keyboard layouts, but the English layout I tried was clumsy for French (biggest offender was typing "ue" with one finger) and the French layout I tried was clumsy for English+programming, and that was one of the reasons I stopped trying to learn them. Currently I use US qwerty when writing English or programming and the Canadian French keyboard (which uses qwerty for the basic letters but moves some special characters and replaces them with accents) when writing French. (There's actually at least two different Canadian layouts for writing French, both using qwerty for the basic letters but differing on whether accented characters are typed using sequences of keys or a single keys) I think switching between layouts isn't that big of an issue, as long as all the basic letters are in the same place. So the English/French layout could actually be a family of layouts, as long as the basic letter layout is made to be good enough for both languages.