keyboard-layout interview questions
Top keyboard-layout frequently asked interview questions
In the default German keyboard layout ^ and backtick/forwardtick are deadkeys.
However, as a programmer I usually do not need to write áccênts, but the characters itself. Being required to press the key twice and backspace or the key and space is pretty annoying in this case.
So I'd like to know if (and how) it's possible to change those keys so they immediately create the character instead of waiting for a second character.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I have a laptop which I use an external keyboard with. When I type using the external keyboard I want to use a US keyboard layout, since that's the type of external keyboard I have. On the other hand, when I type using the integrated keyboard I'd like to use a Swedish layout.
Is this possible? And how would I go about doing it?
I'm asking here as I think we'll find most Linux expertise here.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I installed Windows 7 with the QWERTY keyboard layout, but have recently started using DVORAK layout so I changed it from Control Panel -> Regional and Language Settings and it set DVORAK to default keyboard layout.
Recently I added a password to log into the administrator account, the problem is that this password field is set to the QWERTY keyboard layout. When I log into Windows the keyboard layout switches back to DVORAK. How can I set the password field on the log in screen to use the DVORAK layout
Source: (StackOverflow)
In Windows (XP at least), when there are two or more keyboard layouts for the same input language, pressing Ctrl+Shift switches the keyboard layout. Where can this be disabled or changed to another keystroke combination?
A similar feature is changing input languages. Alt+Shift is the default keystroke and that can be changed and disabled through the Regional and Language Options in the Control Panel. The keyboard layout switch (Ctrl+Shift) cannot be found in that panel.
Source: (StackOverflow)
A colleague has just come into possession of a large number of IBM PC 3270 keyboards (don't ask!). These keyboards have a number of very interesting looking keys, but the one that most intrigued us is the one at the bottom right of the block illustrated here:
In the absence of knowing its purpose, we've nicknamed it the "person in a wheelchair being chased down a hill by a boulder" key. We are relatively confident, however, that this isn't its actual name.
Any PC/mainframe history buffs able to help us out?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I read somewhere that the Alt Gr key found on some layouts is a substitute for Ctrl + Alt.
However, what can this combination be used for? Are there any documented shortcuts using Ctrl + Alt?
Source: (StackOverflow)
In Mac OS X, there is a keyboard shortcuts to switch between activated input sources.
Is it possible to switch to a specific language? So if you have 3 input methods, you could have 3 shortcuts: Ctrl-1 for English, Ctrl-2 for Spanish and Ctrl-3 for Russian.
Source: (StackOverflow)
Forget all the rants about Caps Lock, Num Lock is the most useless key of them all. It's never, ever useful. You don't want to use your numpad as an arrowpad, since the arrows are 1cm away from it. Ever.
There was a time when some keyboards had a numpad but no dedicated arrow keys. They don't exist anymore. You can find keyboards with no numpad but with arrow keys, but not the opposite.
Therefore, Num Lock is useless, and it only serves to aggravate me and, I presume, others. Please note that I do not want to know how to turn Num Lock on at startup, I do not want to know how to tear the key off, I want to disable it so that it stays on all the time and can't be turned off by mistake. Any idea how to do that?
Ideally I'd like to be able to reclaim the key for another use, such as a modifier that allows me to type hex on the numpad.
Additionally I'd love to know how to turn off the equally useless mouse emulation triggered by Shift + Num Lock.
Source: (StackOverflow)
How to delete a custom keyboard layout in Windows?
If the keyboard layout was installed using a Windows installer, you would normally uninstall it using its entry in the Add/Remove Programs dialog.
The custom keyboard layout I want to delete was installed using a Windows installer (.msi). Due to an installer problem, it does not have an entry in the Add/Remove Programs dialog. However, it appears in the keyboard drop-down list in the Keyboard And Language Options dialog. I want to remove it from this list since this particular layout has some problems.
If you are curious how this happened: I was playing around with the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator tool. I created an installer for my custom keyboard layout and some things got screwed up over multiple install-uninstall testing sessions of this layout.
Source: (StackOverflow)
Hi this is a new problem that I did not have a few weeks ago.
I have a Logitech Illuminated Keyboard running on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
The problem is that I cannot type a tilde.
Instead when I press the tilde I get this character:
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
I cannot for the life of me figure this out, except that I vaguely remember I can asked to redetect the Mac keyboard layout for this keyboard and I think i chose the wrong one.
Now I get this weird character when pressing tilde. How can I fix this? Or how can I redetect this keyboard layout? Thanks.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I would like to remap the Caps Lock key to some other unused key (in a system-wide fashion).
Being a MacVim.app user, I always liked to idea of remapping the Caps Lock key to some other key such as the "Help" key or the "End" key in order to use that piece of keyboard real estate to enter and exit insert mode.
Previously, in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, several options existed to do this, such as the excellent PCKeyboardHack which enabled the user to chose the key code that the caps lock key would send to the OS and operated at the driver level it seems. Or the other tool called DoubleCommand. None of these options work anymore under Mac OS X Lion (Gold Master). I tried to install them none the less and ended up with a kernel panic.
The "Keyboard" preference pane in the system preferences of both versions of Mac OS X has the possibility of remapping the caps lock key built-in as you can see in these pictures. But only to one of the other three modifier keys: namely "Control", "Command" and "Option". This is evidently not sufficient for creating a macro in vim. The Caps Lock key needs to be remapped to some other non-modifier key.
Other answers found in previous questions often contain a suggestion to use the Ukulele tool. This program has never had the ability to remap the Caps Lock key.
Other keyboard modifying software such as Consistent Keyboards has similar functionality but will not solve the problem.
Any help greatly appreciated !
Source: (StackOverflow)
I'd like to use multiple keyboards (all USB or one USB and one PS/2) with a different keyboard layout on each. Is this possible in Windows 7 or XP? Is there any software that can make it work? I'd prefer to avoid a hardware-based solution if possible.
My specific issue is that I prefer to use a Dvorak layout, but most of my colleagues use QWERTY. I'd quite like it if they could use my computer with a QWERTY layout by using a second keyboard, without affecting the layout of the primary one.
Source: (StackOverflow)