On Tue, Jan 01, 2019 at 11:37:09AM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
| From: James Knott via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
| On 01/01/2019 12:48 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote: | > + I like the keyboard. US, not the Bilingual Canadian layout. | | It's bilingual because English and French speakers hate it equally! ;-)
It's complicated. I will now demonstrate this.
STOP READING HERE IF YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN MINUTIAE.
We'd all think it was fine if we grew up with it. But most of us have not.
To the extent that one hunts and pecks it would probably be OK.
Those who think that being able to type other languages is important, should support this keyboard. I guess that "Knott" indicates scots ancestors <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic_orthography>
But my fingers learned to touchtype more than 50 years ago and are set in their ways.
It's actually annoying to try to figure out the standard these keyboards are supposed to conform to.
The bilingual keyboard is apparently an instantiation of an ISO standard where the US keyboard is an ANSI standard. <https://deskthority.net/wiki/ANSI_vs_ISO> By default, I'd like to conform to ISO vs ANSI since I'm not a US Citizen (even so, I once was a member of an ANSI committee).
The actual standard for the keyboard is probably CAN/CSA Z243.200-92. That is dated 1992 and reaffirmed in 2016. It costs money (roughly $100!) to get a copy.
"All CSA PDF's now have Digital Rights Management (DRM) features: - Unlimited PDF access on any internet browser connected devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile phone). One License can be shared among many users. Use will be restricted to one concurrent session at a time. -Ability to download an offline browser accessed PDF on up to 3 devices. -Ability to print one complete copy on paper or as a standalone PDF. -All PDF's will be watermarked with your license information.
For more informaiton call 1-(888)-361-0003"
I hate DRM.
The most useful discussion I've found is from the Quebec government. <https://www.tresor.gouv.qc.ca/ressources-informationnelles/architecture-dentreprise-gouvernementale/standards-et-normes/standard-sur-le-clavier-quebecois-sgqri-001/>
Fun fact: the Quebec page gives alternative names for the keyboard, and one is "clavier LaBonté". LaBonté is a guy I've actually talked to (years ago). He's one of the committee members who managed to get iso8859-1 depricated (in favour of iso8859-15) because of a fight amongst francophones over OE (dipthong or ligature?). Of course the intro of the Euro symbol helped a lot.
This does not match the engravings on any keyboard I have: <http://www.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/images/ti/clavier.gif> It seems telling that this is from Quebec's Office de la langue francaise.
LaBonté wrote <https://www.tresor.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/PDF/ressources_informationnelles/standard_clavier_quebecois/ISO_9995-7.pdf>
Among its dubious claims is that in Canada, English writers use '.' or ',' as the "decimal sign" in "general usage" but French writers always use ','. I'd suggest the reverse.
He also suggests replacing / and * for division and multiplication. Good luck with that.
If the laptops shipped with the Canadian Multilingual keyboard, I might actually not mind. But they don't. They ship with Canadian French, which is a totally different thing and is NOT a version of the ISO international keyboard. At least last time I saw a laptop in a store it was Canadian French, not Multilingual. I have read a claim that someone at IBM in Toronto that hated Quebec invented the Canadian French keyboard. I think I believe the story. Canadian French has « and » on the key taking up half of the left shift. A Canadian Multilingual instead has Ù and | on that key. Usually Canadian French has a vertical enter key, while the Multilingual usually has the horizontal enter key (like most US layout keyboards have too). -- Len Sorensen