These keyboard layouts are intended to facilitate the typing in portuguese in ANSI keyboards.
The proposed layouts are small variations of the default US English (intl) and US English (intl., with AltGr dead keys) distributed with the most popular Linux distros. These layouts should be easy for users accustomed to the US English layout to use.
The tilde is the most used accentuation in Portuguese, and yet it requires the combination of three keys to be typed in the ANSI keyboard using the US English international layout. The table 1. shows the number of occurences of each acentuation in the books Dom Casmurro - Machado de Assis, Memorial do Convento - José Saramago, and Comédias para se ler na escola - Luis Fernando Verissimo.
Table 1: Occurences of accentuated letters in Portuguese based on the cited books.
| Accent | Occurrences | % of all accentuations |
|---|---|---|
| ã | 8959 | 29,64% |
| á | 4808 | 15,91% |
| é | 4657 | 15,41% |
| ç | 3785 | 12,52% |
| ó | 1978 | 6,54% |
| í | 1812 | 6,00% |
| ê | 1419 | 4,70% |
| à | 1040 | 3,44% |
| ú | 620 | 2,05% |
| õ | 601 | 1,99% |
| ô | 327 | 1,08% |
| â | 216 | 0,71% |
In the US Intl. layout, the acute accents can be easily typed using the apostrophe key as dead acute or with the third level AltGr plus the corresponding vowel. The c cedilla ç can be writen by "accentuating" the c the dead acute, but its place in the third level is the not very ergonomic AltGr + ,.
The third level of the keys of the letters F, G, H and J are vacant, since they hold the same characters of the first level in the US Intl. layout.
The US layout also miss the masculine and feminine symbols ª and º.
MacOS has an "international layout" with all accents. But the letters don't come with the accents.
All have ª and º added to the 4th and 3rd level of the H key .
The ã, õ, and c cedilha were mapped as follows.
ã → AltGr + F
õ → AltGr + G
ç → AltGr + c
Since the ã is very common, it is located under the third level of the letter F (key <AC04>). The õ is next to it under key ther third level of G (key <AC05>). Althouth not very common, it still would require the combination of at least three keys using the dead tilde. The ç was placed under the third level of C (key key <AB03>), as it is found in the MacOS keyboard. Placing it there is more intuitive, some other layouts like UK extended have the c cedilla there.
Although the preview shows a ISO layout, this layout is intended for ANSI (but you can use on iso, or course).
This layout is based on another layout distributed on popular linux distros, whose author arguments that it is easier (or at least it takes the same effort) to type using the already available accentuated letters under the third level of some keys then using dead keys. Programmers and people that use quotes and double quotes frequently may find this layout very useful, since the symbols \ ~ ' " ^` will neither require pressing space to be inserted, nor combination with the AltGr.
This layout has same modifications as done in the US Intl. Portuguese Enhanced, but is based on the us (intl) English (intl., with AltGr dead keys) layout, that moves all accents to the third level.
The most frequent accentuated letters (a tilde and acutes) are available on the third level (AltGr) in this layout, therefore they can be typed with the combination of two keys. Typing quotes, acute, circumflex and grave will not require typing space in the first level.
The disadvantage is that the dead circumflex still need combination, now with AltGr (which is a bit harder to reach) instead of Shift, and the dead grave will require combination with AltGr as well. But these are not very common.
The dead tilde, dead acute and dead diaeresis can be typed using AltGr plus the usual keys.
(Maybe this layout could be officially distributed replacing the current US Intl. AltGr?)
Although the preview shows a ISO layout, this layout is intended for ANSI (but you can use on iso, or course).
The same as US Intl. Portuguese enhanced with AltGr Dead Keys, except that the circumflex is dead key in the second level, as in the default US Intl. layout. The key 6 is already hard to reach, and the circumflex is not very common in programming languages. Since shift is a bit easier to reach, it is justifiable to keep it dead on the second level.
This layout is a US (english) QWERTY, but dead keys and some UTF-8 symbols, common in international layouts, are present in the 3rd level (AltGr) as it is in the Colemak keyboard. For example, the circumflex accent is under the third level of the keys of the letter X of the US layout: [AltGr + X] + A → â.
Some notable advantages of this layout is that the some accents like circumflex and in a shorter reach in comparison with the previous layouts. The õ is also more accessible in relation to the US Intl. AltGr portuguese enhanced.
The dead keys are in easy to remember positions:
- (ŭ) Breve - AltGr+[b]
- (ç) cedilla - AltGr+[,]
- (ü) Diaeresis (umlaut) - AltGr+[d]
- (ú) acuTe - AltGr+[t]
- (ű) double acute - AltGr+Shift+[t]
- (ù) gRrave - AltGr+[r]
- (ǔ) Háček (caron) - AltGr+[h]
- (ų) oGonek - AltGr+[g]
- (ū) Macron - AltGr+[m]
- (ũ) tilde - AltGr+[`]
- (ů) ring - AltGr+[k]
- (ċ) dot (.) - AltGr+[.]
- (û) circumfleX - AltGr+[x]
- Special characters - AltGr+[] (only MS Windows/Mac)
More information about Colemak multilingual support here.
The CAPS key keeps being CAPSLOCK.
Clone this repository and execute the install.sh with -hto see the options. The options are for choosing whith layout(s) to install. If no option is passed, all three layouts will be installed.
cd us-international-pt-improved-keyboard-xkb
./install.sh -hThe script inserts the layouts in the base.lst, evdev.lst, base.xml, evdev.xml`` and symbols/us files. The script creates backups of the original XKB files that must be modified and can restore them later if you wish.
After installing, restart the session or reboot the computer, and the layout will be available in the GUI settings of your desktop environment.
Using an alternative keyboard layout in Gnome
Using an alternative keyboard layout in KDE
The source code for the Microsoft Layout Creator is available under the Microsoft_Layouts directory. You can create your own DLLs with the Microsoft Layout Creator, or you can install directly the layouts using the MSI installer that I'm supplying under Microsoft_Layouts/<name_of_the_layout>/Microsoft_Package.
The proposed layouts in the main branch of this repository must follow the guidelines:
- Facilitate typing the accentuated vowels of the portuguese language, that is avoid 3-key-combinations or hard to reach keys;
- The symbols typed in the first level should correspond to the label in the key of the physical ANSI keyboard;
- All phonetic symbols available on the English (intl.) must be also availabe in there;
- Keep, when possible, the phonetic symbols of the languages (that use latin alphabet) with largest number of speakers where they are in the English (intl.) layout;
- Keep, when possible, the accents under the same key as labeled in the phisical ANSI keyboard.
- German Portuguese Keyboard Layout. Layout for iso-de keyboards improved for portuguese.
- MacOS keyboard layout for windows