Keyboards - Availability in Canada

Amanda Yilmaz ayilmaz-e+AXbWqSrlAAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Thu Jan 14 04:21:18 UTC 2010


Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 09:45:25AM -0500, James Knott wrote:
>> Several years ago, when I was working at IBM, my department developed  
>> standard desktop systems for IBM Canada employees.  We had to create  
>> both English and French versions and configured the French systems to  
>> use the Canadian French keyboard.
> 
> Based on what I have found, most people hate the french canadian layout
> (which was supposedly designed by the IBM marketing department in Toronto
> by attempting to make as few changes as possible to the US layout and
> make it not look very french at all).  The canadian government does not
> accept it for use.  I believe Apple puts a Canadian Multilingual keyboard
> on their machines sold for use in french in Canada.  People seem to
> generally really like that one.  It's a shame about the \ and |
> positions though.  Otherwise I might actually want one.

That's true, Apple has used the CSA layout on all of its Canadian French
models since at least the late '80s or early '90s, as far as I know.

I personally dislike the CSA layout for practical reasons. I feel that
the group that developed this layout made a fundamental error by
insisting that all three French grave-accented letters (À, È and Ù) have
their own individual keys, and not using a single conveniently placed
grave accent key as with the Canadian French PC layout. If they had used
a single key for the grave accent instead, there would have been room to
allow five more characters to be accessed without using AltGr (right
Alt), and to put such commonly used characters as / in far more
convenient positions.

Even worse, since Ù is on the "extra" key which exists only on ISO-style
keyboards, you can't even type it directly if you're using a US-style
hardware keyboard (i.e., the vast majority of keyboards sold in Canada).
In order to get "ù" with the CSA layout when using a US hardware
keyboard, you must type AltGr-^ (yes, ^) to get the "dead-key" grave
accent, then type "u" - not impossible, but damned inconvenient and easy
to forget.

Amanda
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