Re: [tlug] Peripheral hardware hunting

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2008-08-31 21:08 +0900 (Sun), Ian Wells wrote:

> - A UK keyboard
> US keyboards and JP keyboards are widely available, but UK ones have
> more keys than US ones and using a UK mapping loses access to critical
> characters, JP ones are annoying because of the undersized backspace
> key.  And mentally switching between the two layouts is unbelievably
> annoying (@ and " get swapped).

Note that what codes the keys generate is independent of the physical
layout of the keyboard; you've probably noticed that a Japanese keyboard
will use something pretty close to a US layout unless you specify
explicitly that it should use the Japanese keymappings.

You can also modify the codes beyond the standard ones; for example it's
not hard (using xmodmap or whatever nice visual tools you get in your
Linux distribution) to make the yen/vbar key be a backspace key as well.

Personally, at this point I always use a Japanese physical layout, if
possible, but use a logical layout similar to a US layout with a few
extensions. In particular, these are:

    - swap left ctrl and caps lock
    - swap esc and backquote/tilde (zenkaku/hankaku on keytop)
    - yen/vbar keytop produces tilde/yen
    - backslash/underscore keytop produces underscore/underscore
    - two keys on right of space bound to window manager drop-down menus

The purpose of the third and fourth items is just to make typing a
little more convenient, by avoiding some shifts and longer reaches.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974   
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