Why Developers Should Use a US Intl Keyboard

[@alpha210]

I like the idea behind the us intl layout, but for french, missing é, à or ù is too inconvenient. Also one thing I love about the azerty layout is having the special characters by default on the number row (and numbers by pressing shit), I find it very usefull and use numpad for numbers all the time anyways.

[@muca_doo]

I would say that if you don't need or don't see yourself in the future having to write in languages other than french and english keep the azerty, but for me for instance I need to write in english french italian and portuguese so definitely the intl is a better choice.

[@alpha210]

@@muca_doo might be true yeah, but to be honest, I would suggest creating your own layout based on us int. This is what I did for a while. Basically just added the most frequent character as AltGr + character so I would get the advantage of both. (I can get à by typing ` then A, or by pressing AltGr + A).

[@muca_doo]

@@alpha210 yes but for most people including me its just easier to use a general layout than create your own and keep updating it every time you need a new character, plus its easier to setup when u change your machine

[@DMD2409]

Thank you so much for this. I've been using the regular US keyboard for ages now because the character placement is much more intuitive than on the nordic layout. Now I don't need to swap layout everytime I want to write æøå

[@lame6810]

Are you using small or big enter key?

[@willful759]

haven't even seen the video but I have to agree because I already use this layout lmao, strikes the perfect balance between easy access to programming symbols and symbols for your actual language (at least in my case), 10/10 would recommend

[@thejavaguy]

Originally from Serbia but living in Germany. My first keyboard layout was whatever Commodore 64 was using but after that it's US Intl. I install separate layouts for German and Serbian when I have to type prose in those languages.

[@catfan5618]

As a German I will never understand how my coworkers can program using QWERTZ. What I do is using both QWERTY US and QWERTZ depending on what I do. For programming and almost anything else I use QWERTY. I only ever switch to QWERTZ when writing something in German (like mails or researching German topics).

[@MRApht]

I have a nordic keyboard and while it is very annoying that I have to press for instance alt gr + 7 to get square brackets I think a nice benefit is that you have a bunch of easily accessible keys to rebind that are not used for anything else in vim normal mode. For instance, I have rebound æ (which is beneath my right pinky) as / (search) and shift + æ as ? (search backwards).

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

That's true, same for German with äöü, I guess :) I'd argue as programmers we need the special characters like ;'{[(" more often than the language specific letters, but that depends, of course. These days, I write much more English than German, so the extra AltGr movement for umlauts doesn't bother me, but for the coding characters it would

[@rezmed1144]

before getting start with programming I was an Azerty user but programming is so adapted with the qwerty layout that I had to switch and never look back

[@Meek2001]

I have switched over to using US keyboard after enrolling to a coding school bc the laptop that i had in the sprint had a us layout and cuz we dont have estonian keyboards so we have to use nordic keyboard so every time i want hash i get something else and till today i used us and est keyboard on windows but thanks to your video i added the 4 special charecters from my language to the altgr so now i can go fully us keyboard

[@Loppy2u]

Great video, I was curious to know differences in US International Vs UK layout. Really educating video showing what the Alt gr key can do. As am non programmer, typists.

[@ke30_]

I like the idea, I've been wanting to switch to Qwerty for development (Vim, mostly). During the period where you switched to the US layout, did the markings on your physical keyboard bother you a lot ? I get the feeling they would be distracting.

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

For me, not really, I try to not look at the keyboard. In the long run, I bought only US keyboards, because then I have the flat (ANSI layout) enter key. But I also have some keyboards with blank keys (no description) that helps as well 😉

[@EnriqueSanchez-tf3bs]

That's amazing, I didn't know its existence, could you make a tutorial for newbies, like me, on this topic? I appreciate it a lot, It really caught my attention.

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

What exactly would you like a tutorial for?

[@EnriqueSanchez-tf3bs]

@@SebastianDaschnerIT it could be how to set up this layout. I guess the option is there, but I've never seen it, maybe is because I'm a Windows user the majority of the time. And how did you access to the dead keys in this layout?.

[@atanas-nikolov]

I have to use cyrillic, but thankfully, they've invented something called a phonetic keyboard, which basically maps all the cyrillic characters to their phonetic counterparts in latin. There are some extras necessary, which get mapped to brackets, slashes and accents, but that's fine. I'm so used to alt+shift that even with changing layouts I'm typing quickly. That being said, I find qwerty awful for development in general. It's could be that my right hand isn't trained well enough, but I have no problem touch typing with it. However, when it gets to all the brackets, slashes, and signs I constantly mess those up, probably because they were never intended for quick use anyway, and get your fingers in awkward positions away from your homing keys. I'm seriously considering just learning colemak dh with layers.

[@thierrybo6304]

How do you type a "à" with this layout? It is very common in French and it seems there is only a with &eacute (sorry I can't type it on my tablet). At least with "US int. with deads keys" I can.

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

Here, I just did: à :) There is the AltGr+` (which in fact is a dead key) and then "a". You can type the whole French alphabet with US Intl AltGr

[@Hublium]

Another German speaker here and I don't like the AltGr key either... so I tried this too. Turns out I hate the AltGr key so much I don't want to use even when writing e-mails in German. I tried having two layouts on the system, but I kept forgetting on which one I was on at the moment. So here is what I did, using German QWERTZ as a base: 1. Make the Caps Lock function as Ctrl. This is important and everybody should do this anyway. 2. Let Ctrl work as AltGr when pressed together with a number key, so Ctrl+7 = "{", Ctrl+0 = "}", etc., but Ctrl+C is still Ctrl+C 3. Let the Windows key work as Ctrl, so Win+0 = "Ctrl+0", etc., but Win+L is still Win+L. 4. For convienience, move @ and | also up to somewhere on the numbers row. Maybe € and µ too, if you need them often. So I now have one key that does almost everything important and it's right by my left pinky. What do you think of this suggestion? I use AutoHotkey on Windows and AutoKey on Linux to achieve this. I will publish the scripts online when I get around to it.

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

Hallo :) Ah ok interesting, definitely a thought out approach. I partly agree on remapping Caps Lock, but I remap it to Esc (also because of Vim). I personally don't mind pressing AltGr, I somehow got used to it in my muscle memory so that's not an issue for me, but that said I'm not writing that much German, so my Umlaut usage is really limited... If you have Ctrl working as AltGr, why do you need Caps Lock (and partly Win) to be a Ctrl too then?

[@Hublium]

@@SebastianDaschnerIT I find the modifier keys in the bottom row hard to reach without moving my fingers off the home row. It's all a bit hard to explain, let me try again: Barring "@" and "|", you only need AltGr for the top row. On the other hand, you rarely ever need Ctrl plus a number, just Ctrl + letter. So in my setup, CapsLock+R sends "Ctrl+R" and CapsLock+0 sends "AltGr+0", i. e. "}". For the rare case that I actually want Ctrl+0 (like resetting zoom in the browser) I press Win+0. Escape is Ctrl+ü (I mean CapsLock+ü), reminiscent of classic terminals' Ctrl+[ and does usually not conflict with anything.

[@pfodtakem9536]

Thank you very much Sebastian. I'm French and I need several accented letters that aren't included in this layout (è, ô, etc.). From what I understood I need to use dead keys, but this would alter my dev experience since I'd have ' or " as dead keys, right? Or would this just require me to type twice to get two single/double quotes? I'm about to buy a QWERTY keyboard with ANSI layout but I'm kind of confused if I'll be able to code and write French without too much trouble...

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

Bonjour :) Yes, so this also works with the US Alt Intl (at least on my Linux system), by pressing AltGr+Shift+6 (which makes ^ act as a dead key) and then o. One more keystroke for these accented letters but that should do it. This seems to make them only a dead key when AltGr is used, not Shift, which I think is a great combination. Not sure however if supported by all operating systems. Same for à, etc (AltGr+` a).

[@pfodtakem9536]

@@SebastianDaschnerIT Alright thanks, I just ordered a Keychron K6 Pro (ANSI layout), I'll figure it out when I get it! (I use Windows)

[@fazigames277]

@@pfodtakem9536 As tu trouvé une solution pour avoir le US Alt Intl ? (sans le ' et " en touche morte) stp ?

[@HGGdragon]

Cool. I was looking at some custom Keyboards for programming but all models I looked at cone in ANSI Layouts. This would be a good compromise. 2 questions I have: Are you able to use both layouts interchangeable? I often work with Servers where I sometimes need to connect Keyboards to bate metal and would have to use qwetz again and have 2 laptops with iso qwertz layout. Ik I could just not care about the labeling, but some rare symbols I don't want to memorize everytime. Would it be feasible to learn "multilayout"-typing? And why do you chose not to use deadkeys? I think Ä being modified Q is quite counter intuitive instead of Shift + ' + A, isn't it?

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

1) Depends a bit how "flexible" your brain is :) I struggled a bit even with the different Enter keys on ISO vs. ANSI keyboards, which is why I only have ANSI now... And then there is qwerty vs. qwertz :) But in general, I'd optimize for what you use the most (and then struggle a bit when you're using the other computer's keyboards). 2) For umlauts and the like yes, but I type ' or " and even ` waaaay more often and I want them to appear immediately.

[@PSKuddel]

Maybe I missed it, but one of the takeaways should be, that you want a keyboard with an ISO layout (that‘s what „international“ basically means in your specific layout), NOT with the in the US commonly used ANSI layout. Only the allocation of the characters should be from the US (mapped for the ISO layout, of course). A very good, or even better, alternative is to use a keyboard with a british setting, as this also has an ISO layout (like all european countries and the vast majority of the rest of the world as well) and has nearly exactly the same character allocation as your international setting here.

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

IMO it doesn't matter that much if you prefer the (physical) ISO or ANSI layout. As a matter of fact, I'm using an ANSI one (harder to get in EU, but possible), simply because I like the flat Enter key more. How you map the keys is a different thing, of course.

[@PSKuddel]

@@SebastianDaschnerIT Really? I think, the ANSI layout is a horribly bad design and according to other stuff I‘ve seen about this topic, I don‘t seem to be the only one.

[@amitev]

I'm using the US layout and a combination of alt and an ascii code for the German umlauts (i.e. alt+132).

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

Oh interesting, I've done that a few times for other Unicode characters. Isn't that too cumbersome over time (pressing a number combination instead of an AltGr+sth keystroke)?

[@MichaBerger]

What would you recommend Asian developers? (I am not one, but my second most used language is Hebrew. Not only non-Latin, but right-to-left to boot!)

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

I'd say the same as for Cyrillic, Arabic, Japanese, etc., which is to have a second layout that is easily switchable via keystroke. Adds yet more to the learning curve, but don't know a better way; I'm typing Cyrillic from time to time and do the same.

[@leafyascent]

I just found out there were more characters you could type with the right alt key and shift but how do I write a freaking em dash without an alt code or unicode number? I love that they have the letter Þþ þough.

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

Yes, that one isn't there... If you like the Linux Compose key, that might help (it's - - - or so), otherwise I'd just remember the 2014 unicode code TBH...

[@Aliessil]

I'm English so I use that layout, but It's almost the same as the US English one. I now live in Sweden though so it's physically a Swedish keyboard. Most of the time the incorrect visuals don't bother me, but occasionally I'll hit a mental block of where a specific character is, and go hunting - usually I'm only 1 or 2 keys away though /shrug

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

I feel you, when I started using a US layout (where the special chars are very different from an DE one) I even had a small printed out cheat sheet for the first days. But the benefit is: You're learning it faster when you don't have a possibility to look at the (incorrect) key caps :)

[@kabiskac]

Where are ő and ű? I guess I'm gonna stick with the Hungarian layout, qwerty is annoying to me and in my opinion it's not that hard to press those special keys used for programming.

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

To type these you do actually need deadkeys with US Intl, then you can type them, at least according to this answer: askubuntu.com/a/873806 But I see your point

[@67fabs]

I already see an issue with this layout, at least for French people : no à or À maybe I missed something. So far, I'm happy with altgr-intl also available natively with Linux

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

à À (just typed them with US Intl 🙂). The ` key (top left, under Esc) acts as deadkey if you press it with AltGr, so you can AltGr+` and then a or A. I know it's a bit more effort for that character, but at least it's possible to type

[@AdroSlice]

Sadly, Windows does not ship a US International keyboard layout with no Dead Keys. Yes you could always use a third party layout, but realistically, its better to use something thats just available

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

Yes, true sadly

[@purpleParadoXon]

ich habe auf windows 11 US INTL, aber wie kann ich die dead keys entfernen?

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

Gute Frage, bei mir (Kunden Win 7 System) hat das nur damals mit Registry Edit funktioniert, leider... Vielleicht geht's mittlerweile leichter

[@purpleParadoXon]

@@SebastianDaschnerIT okay cool danke! bei meinem thinkpad auf dem ich fedora 37 laufen habe, ist das layout sogar integriert :D

[@habibdu70]

Hi nice advises, thanks 🙂 For french guys like me we need the deadkeys because we need to be able to type letters like è, with an "accent grave" which is differents from the é (accent aigu). The keyboard should be an ISO or it can be AINSI one ?

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

Thanks :) If it's ISO or ANSI depends more on you - I do like the wider Enter of ANSI/US style keyboards so that's what I have. For the French à (and others -- you see, I just typed this on my US Intl :)), if you press AltGr+`, you have a ` deadkey even on a "non-deadkey" setting, so that gives you the French accent grave ones while still having the US Intl keyboard

[@JMBalaguer]

Not for me. The US international layout doesn’t have “è” or “ò” letters 😮

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

It does: è,ò (I just typed this with that layout). It does offer some dead keys (the ` one is on the ~ key, below Esc). Press AltGr + ~ and then e or o

[@JMBalaguer]

Thanks 👍

[@royaldz1273]

BoneNeo Layout gang!!!!

[@johnwt7333]

Where are you from? Let me guess...

[@sushiroikura]

the answer is on 0:06 if anyone is interested

[@arkan7rb]

or use britsh keyboard with us qwerty layout then u use us int layout + all the wonderful backslash's and other stuff on the left side from the original britsh keyboard that i have accidentally discovered when was researching why i have more keys in different places in the keyboard which are not available even in the windows touch keyboard lol sorry not my mother language thanks for the tip sir greetings from Yemen

[@limitless1692]

UK Layout is the best for coding. To me US layout is clumsy and anoying :(

[@arkan7rb]

UK keyboard with US qwerty layout is heaven try it ^_^ combines best of both but remember u have to have uk keyboard physical i mean layout ;)

[@charlessnachez4248]

But there is us and there is international, they are different

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

Yes, I'm always referring to "US International"

[@charlessnachez4248]

@@SebastianDaschnerIT is there us international? I thought there is English International and English US etc but i didn’t hear of US international

[@tomashkhamlai7243]

ANSISO is the best keyboard layout

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

I politely disagree :) I think the slim Enter is big enough since we tend to press any key at the same spot every time anyway. But yes, YMMV

[@tomashkhamlai7243]

@@SebastianDaschnerIT I had experience with laptops with ISO enter. Laptops do not have comfortable layout at all but I got the habit. ANSISO keyboards supported this habit so usually I hit "\¦" button which is expected to be under the L-shape Enter button.

[@St.Stepasha]

Das ist leider nicht gültig für Mac OS

[@fjorddenierbear4832]

I have at least 3 keyboard layouts. English, Japanese, Nordic. I hate my life.

[@SebastianDaschnerIT]

I feel you 🙂 Are you able to type all the characters for Nordic layout with the US International? Should be...

[@maktry]

no wonder I am the only view for this video, bored at the first minute.. sorry mate!

[@EwaldDieser]

I always use „English International“. Even if I have to use a German keyboard I just switch it to English in the OS. I don’t look at the labels anyway.

[@glennacasanova3584]

𝓟Ř𝔬𝓂𝔬𝐒ϻ