Typing Accents

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Typing accents requires a whole lot of processing that seems counter-intuitive at first glance. For a user, “tapping the key é” and “seeing é on the screen” is so common, that one rarely tries to understand what is going on.

I am by no mean an expert in this domain, but I learned a lot and wants to share my understanding.

Note: whenever possible, simplified views of various output is given. Some of the tools used are very verbose.

Keyboard

Tue, 27 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This keyboard layout is the latest and smallest iteration in my keyboard journey. I’ve managed to fit everything into 34 keys, while removing anything superfluous.

Letting the classical QWERTY layout go in favor of one that made sense to me really helped shaping a more personal and simple layout.

See the code at https://github.com/nobe4/keyboards/blob/main/ferris/keymap.c

Glossary

[ ]: space key
GUI: “command”, “super”, or “windows”.
OS: OS layer
SY: Symbol layer

Default layer

			q w f p g j l u y '
a r s t d h n e i o
z x c v b k m , . ↵
 ⇑ [ ] CTRL SY
		

`⇑` held: Shift layer

			Q W F P G J L U Y "
A R S T D H N E I O
Z X C V B K M ; : ↵
 ⇑ [ ] CTRL SY
		

Changing the defaults to have more logical shifted characters: '", ,;, .:.

Keyboard on nobe4

Typing Accents

Keyboard

Default layer

⇑ held: Shift layer

`⇑` held: Shift layer