Efficient keyboard layout for English and Spanish

Instead of counting distance like Workman does (and totally ignoring weird+painful finger stretches), good `ol community-debate among layout experts, who have collectively switched layouts thousands of times, was done to make Canary.<p>Introducing Canaria (spanish for &quot;canary&quot;). This version moves the J to make it faster to type in Spanish, without sacrificing English speed or ergonomics.<p>It&#x27;s rare for an ergo key layout to be good in two languages. This one is.

As a Russian, I&#x27;m endlessly envious to those who can get by with just one alphabet, even if in different variations — the intersection between these Latin-based alphabets is always large enough for universal keyboard layouts like this to be viable.

Some stats. Canary and Canaria are very high-roll layouts. This allows for lots of combos where 2-5 letters can be hit in a fast sweeping motion across the board (a &quot;roll&quot;).<p>canaria (ASHTNEOI) (0 likes) w l y p k z j o u ; c r s t b f n e i a &#x27; x v d g q m h &#x2F; , .<p>MT-QUOTES: Alt: 22.56% Rol: 47.83% (In&#x2F;Out: 21.07% | 26.76%) One: 2.21% (In&#x2F;Out: 0.89% | 1.32%) Red: 3.16% (Bad: 0.08%)<p><pre><code> SFB: 1.22% SFS: 8.59% (Red&#x2F;Alt: 3.62% | 4.98%) LH&#x2F;RH: 42.11% | 57.89% </code></pre> ------------------------<p>QWERTY (cmini) (0 likes) q w e r t y u i o p [ ] \ a s d f g h j k l ; &#x27; z x c v b n m , . &#x2F;<p>MT-QUOTES: Alt: 18.40% Rol: 37.59% (In&#x2F;Out: 20.22% | 17.37%) One: 2.28% (In&#x2F;Out: 1.02% | 1.26%) Red: 5.84% (Bad: 0.32%)<p><pre><code> SFB: 5.17% SFS: 12.18% (Red&#x2F;Alt: 6.43% | 5.75%) LH&#x2F;RH: 54.65% | 45.35% </code></pre> --------------------------------------------- Workman (cmini) (1 like) q d r w b j f u p ; a s h t g y n e o i &#x27; z x m c v k l , . &#x2F;<p>MT-QUOTES: Alt: 20.41% Rol: 42.34% (In&#x2F;Out: 21.58% | 20.77%) One: 3.03% (In&#x2F;Out: 1.52% | 1.51%) Red: 8.16% (Bad: 0.91%)<p><pre><code> SFB: 2.49% SFS: 7.73% (Red&#x2F;Alt: 2.68% | 5.05%) LH&#x2F;RH: 48.32% | 51.68%</code></pre>

I just use the Mac’s US layout and type accented characters using Alt. (Alt+c=ç, Alt+n=ñ, plus a few other combos to get the grave, acute and umlaut). Works for Portuguese (my native language), Spanish, French, and what little German I need.<p>Trying to optimize beyond QWERTY might be appealing, but I’ve found the trade-off of having to set up layouts everywhere when using multiple machines to be annoying, plus application key combos are usually designed for QWERTY.

I find the best layout for English and German to be &quot;German (US)&quot;. It has been such a revelation. I enjoy the comforts of accessible braces while the occasional umlaut (or greek letter) is only an AltGr away.<p>I imagine there might be people who don&#x27;t code but write a lot of German texts. They might need umlauts far more often than braces and the native &quot;German&quot; layout might be more sensible. Otherwise, I despise the German layout.

Is there a good English&#x2F;French (or English&#x2F;French&#x2F;Spanish) layout?<p>I did some excursion in alternative keyboard layouts, but the English layout I tried was clumsy for French (biggest offender was typing &quot;ue&quot; with one finger) and the French layout I tried was clumsy for English+programming, and that was one of the reasons I stopped trying to learn them.<p>Currently I use US qwerty when writing English or programming and the Canadian French keyboard (which uses qwerty for the basic letters but moves some special characters and replaces them with accents) when writing French.<p>(There&#x27;s actually at least two different Canadian layouts for writing French, both using qwerty for the basic letters but differing on whether accented characters are typed using sequences of keys or a single keys)<p>I think switching between layouts isn&#x27;t that big of an issue, as long as all the basic letters are in the same place. So the English&#x2F;French layout could actually be a family of layouts, as long as the basic letter layout is made to be good enough for both languages.

US international with AltGr dead keys is wonderful for this - you get the “standard” US layout plus easy access to accented characters for Spanish and French via the right Alt key (AltGr if it’s so labeled).<p>Mostly-US layout means no finger contortions to type things like brackets (square and curly) or backslashes, which was always a painful thing in e.g. latam layouts for me.

As someone who writes in both English and Spanish I&#x27;d think this can be convenient. The other day gave Coleman a try for a few days but the H key almost at its center made its usage a pain in the butt for some reason (even though QWERTY has it like in the same spot).<p>Though I don&#x27;t get the rationale for this to drop the Ñ key. Speaking about the Spanish alphabet overall I feel like having an extra letter just because the tilde is weird, but having its own key in a keyboard is convenient - and my keyboard has it. Hell, I wish sometimes one could have dedicated keys for Á, É, Í, Ó and Ú.

Until I see a study that actually shows that “ergo” keyboard layouts actually make a difference I will continue to use QWERTY.<p>I still believe the actual contour of the keyboard (ie Kinesis or Microsoft’s ergo keyboard) have a much larger impact than key layout.

hot take: keyboard layouts does not matter unless you&#x27;re a professional typist..<p>Over the course of the day, my output is not limited by how fast I can get text out of my head, by how fast my brain can generate text.