3 ms·

Thanks for making this, but small note: On QWERTZ, backtick ` is: a dead key, situated left of backspace, and it's in the "upper row", too. So there the combo

Thanks for making this, but small note: On QWERTZ, backtick ` is: a dead key, situated left of backspace, and it's in the "upper row", too. So there the combo is actually Alt+Shift+´+Space, in need of two hands - it's very hard to imagine a worse default key combo choice for this task, compared to Alt+Tab. I'm glad you made it configurable. Fun fact: one of the first public drafts for multi-line Strings in Java expected the delimiter to be ```, until I pointed out the issue as above to Brian Goetz at JAX in Mainz where he had presented said draft. My proudest professional moment. Take away: If you deal with keyboard magic and ergonomics, spend a couple minutes to check your assumptions behind your defaults in the other big keyboard layouts.

Kichererbsen 2y ago
this. i'm on the swiss german keyboard layout. backticks are hard to do as a keyboard shortcut. they barely work as a character (e.g. for markdown formatting) but with a bit of pracitce that _does_ work. try getting default vim bindings to work on a swiss german keyboard... i eventually gave up.
- Twelveday 2y ago
  I'm in the same boat as you and after 15 years of coding I finally switched to the US layout 3 weeks ago. Got a Wooting 60HE and installed the EuroKey layout and so far I'm super happy about the switch and many default shortcuts make a lot more sense (e.g. no more acrobatics needed for ctrl+b+[ to enter tmux copy mode). The first few days are a little rough to unlearn all the muscle memory but I found this neat site to practice typing with your own public gists: https://www.codetyper.io/ https://www.codetyper.io/
- nrr 2y ago
  I've long used the US international layout with Alt-Graph deadkeys. (For the full experience, you can perhaps buy an ANSI format keyboard from the Netherlands?) It takes some practice getting AltGr+y as ü and AltGr+w as ä and AltGr+p as ö into your muscle memory, let alone AltGr+circumflex instead of just circumflex to get the dead key (raison d'être requires AltGr+Shift+6 to type properly), but I've found it's otherwise a remarkably workable tradeoff.
diffeomorphism 2y ago
Wait, it is not simply "key in the top left" regardless of layout? That is how it works in any Linux desktop at least.
- nrr 2y ago
  No. On German and Swiss layouts, that key is a dead key: it doesn't type anything by itself when you press it. It's meant to combine with another subsequent keypress in order to yield a whole glyph with a diacritic as in, e.g., backtick followed by "e" giving "è." It's been a while since I've been at a proper QWERTZ layout aus dem Sprachgebiet over a US QWERTY keyboard, but my memory is that the dead keys have odd behaviors when you try to incorporate them into shortcuts.
- ale42 2y ago
  What key are you referring to, the backtick key, or the Alt+[KEY] used by the app?
  - diffeomorphism 2y ago
    The alt+[key]. On linux it is alt+tab (between different apps) and alt+[key physically above tab] (between windows of the same app), regardless of keyboard layout. Moving the shortcut away from there or even to convoluted things like "Alt+Shift+´+Space" seems very strange, hence the the question.
INTPenis 2y ago
I don't know what QWERTZ is but as a life long Swedish Linux user I can tell you that backtick is a terrible key to use as a keyboard shortcut. It's often relatively hard to find and hard to generate.

Kichererbsen 2y ago

this. i'm on the swiss german keyboard layout. backticks are hard to do as a keyboard shortcut. they barely work as a character (e.g. for markdown formatting) but with a bit of pracitce that _does_ work. try getting default vim bindings to work on a swiss german keyboard... i eventually gave up.

Twelveday 2y ago
I'm in the same boat as you and after 15 years of coding I finally switched to the US layout 3 weeks ago. Got a Wooting 60HE and installed the EuroKey layout and so far I'm super happy about the switch and many default shortcuts make a lot more sense (e.g. no more acrobatics needed for ctrl+b+[ to enter tmux copy mode). The first few days are a little rough to unlearn all the muscle memory but I found this neat site to practice typing with your own public gists: https://www.codetyper.io/ https://www.codetyper.io/
nrr 2y ago
I've long used the US international layout with Alt-Graph deadkeys. (For the full experience, you can perhaps buy an ANSI format keyboard from the Netherlands?) It takes some practice getting AltGr+y as ü and AltGr+w as ä and AltGr+p as ö into your muscle memory, let alone AltGr+circumflex instead of just circumflex to get the dead key (raison d'être requires AltGr+Shift+6 to type properly), but I've found it's otherwise a remarkably workable tradeoff.

diffeomorphism 2y ago

Wait, it is not simply "key in the top left" regardless of layout? That is how it works in any Linux desktop at least.

nrr 2y ago
No. On German and Swiss layouts, that key is a dead key: it doesn't type anything by itself when you press it. It's meant to combine with another subsequent keypress in order to yield a whole glyph with a diacritic as in, e.g., backtick followed by "e" giving "è." It's been a while since I've been at a proper QWERTZ layout aus dem Sprachgebiet over a US QWERTY keyboard, but my memory is that the dead keys have odd behaviors when you try to incorporate them into shortcuts.
ale42 2y ago
What key are you referring to, the backtick key, or the Alt+[KEY] used by the app?
- diffeomorphism 2y ago
  The alt+[key]. On linux it is alt+tab (between different apps) and alt+[key physically above tab] (between windows of the same app), regardless of keyboard layout. Moving the shortcut away from there or even to convoluted things like "Alt+Shift+´+Space" seems very strange, hence the the question.

INTPenis 2y ago

I don't know what QWERTZ is but as a life long Swedish Linux user I can tell you that backtick is a terrible key to use as a keyboard shortcut. It's often relatively hard to find and hard to generate.