On my keyboard layout

Current state

The caps-lock key acts as a modifier (shift, not lock) to type non-ascii characters, similar to alt-gr on some keymaps. This accesses Hungarian letters in the positions they are in the Hungarian 101-key layout. The left alt, right alt, and left windows keys all act the same, as the alt modifier. The 102th key (between left-shift and z) behaves as shift, to make it easier to type on 102 key keyboards.

In the following table, on each key, the bottom row shows the base value then the value with caps-lock, the top row shows the value with shift then the value with caps-lock+shift. Caps-lock+1 types thin space " ", caps-lock+2 types non-breaking space " ", these are represented by letters in the following diagram.

Caps-lock together with any ascii letter, comma or full stop types the same ascii letter. Caps-lock+shift together with any ascii letter types the uppercase of the same ascii letter. These two rules help typing Hungarian text, because they let me hold down caps-lock longer than necessary. Shift, caps-lock, shift+caps-lock do not change the value of space, backspace, enter. This is similarly useful for not having to release modifiers. These modified values aren't shown in the layout below.

What's free?

The following combinations are free, and I can assign a useful character to them later. Caps-lock together with any of 34/ ; caps-lock+shift together with any of 12348,./ .

Further, I can add characters to caps-lock+control combined with almost anything, and caps-lock+control+shift combined with almost anything. These can be used for adding letters easily, because I can put the uppercase letter on the shifted version.

What I want to add?

I'd like to add several more letters from the Latin script now. Specifically, I'd like the following letters, and their uppercase versions where that exists.

àèìòùâêîôûäëïçæœß + extras (less important) åø

I might put more letters and punctuation on later, but let's stick to these now.

Further, I need to add two useful punctuation signs: ×° .

Where to put these?

There's a nice place I can put the first ten of those letters. Put the vowels with grave to control+caps-lock plus the base vowel; and put the vowels with circumflex to control+caps-lock plus where the vowel with acute accent is on the Hungarian keymap.

However, there's a problem with this scheme. The letters îÎàÀèÈ are on awkward hard to press combinations. If that proves to be a problem in practice, I'll have to rethink this.

There's also a nice place to put the next two that would have mnemonic value for me. Put ë to control+caps-lock+n for Noël, and ï to control+caps-lock+m for maïs.

I'll need to find some nice place for ä, because it comes up all the time. So let's say it's on control+caps-lock+k for example, with Erich Käster as the mnemonic.

Now ç could be simply on control+caps-lock+c, and ß on control+caps-lock+s.

Let's say œ is on control+caps-lock+p for pharmacopœia, and æ is on control+caps-lock+l. I guess that could work.

This would make the layout look like this tentatively. The third column on each key shows the value with control+caps-lock and control+caps-lock+shift.

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This page last updated in 2015-11.

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