What's with the new bilingual keyboards?

[Dylan Leblanc]

Recently I've decided to buy a new laptop and I've been looking around at a few stores but much to my dismay it seems that just about all laptops available have switched to a bilingual keyboard which have some different keys and a lot of extra and unnecessary printing on them. As an Anglophone this is a big disappointment.

In addition to the visual clutter of the French wording all over the keys (I don't need to know that Caps Lock in French is Verr. Maj.) the physical difference in these keyboards from the standard US keyboard we have always used causes typing problems, as outlined by this quote from a blog - http://notavailablein.ca/2011/03/death-to-the-canadian-multilingual-bilingual-keyboard/

If you’re a touch typist like myself, your first sentence typed on this keyboard will begin with a backslash, followed by a lowercase letter, and your first paragraph will end with another backslash. It sounds odd, I know. But the cause of this becomes clear when you take a closer look at this keyboard.

The first problem is that the right hand side of the left shift key you’ve spent your entire life becoming used to has been replaced with a new key. On it you’ll probably see printed the following characters | » « and a small circle.

The second problem is that the deceptively large enter key suffers the same affliction. The left hand side of the enter key you’ve spent your entire lift depending on has been replaced with another new key!. On it you’ll probably find a | | < >.


Ye6WK0r2gI0


This does not make me a happy or proud Canadian! :hell:

[SignalHillHiker]

| » « and | | < > are both common French letters that necessitate re-arranging the keyboard's familiar layout. :haha:

[cormiermax]

I have one, didn't even notice to be honest.

[kwoldtimer]

I've only now realized that the keyboard to my new computer, which I have been using with no problems for about six weeks now, has the bilingual keyboard.

Now, what was the problem again??? :shrug:

[SignalHillHiker]

My biggest pet peeve is that I always end up hitting some button (no idea which) and switching my keyboard settings to Canadian French. Then my apostrophes are weird and a few other things get effed up.

I selected ENGLISH when I set this ****er up. Not "Bilingual", not "English with French hotkey Support", ENGLISH! So don't make some random combination of keys change the setting.

[JHikka]

I have the exact keyboard (Laptop) in that video and I had no problems changing to a bilingual keyboard and honestly never noticed.

After further investigation the other videos that the guy complaining about the keyboard has uploaded generally revolve around conspiracy theories and hearing trumpet sounds from the sky.

Nothing to see here folks.

[SpongeG]

My biggest pet peeve is that I always end up hitting some button (no idea which) and switching my keyboard settings to Canadian French. Then my apostrophes are weird and a few other things get effed up.

I selected ENGLISH when I set this ****er up. Not "Bilingual", not "English with French hotkey Support", ENGLISH! So don't make some random combination of keys change the setting.

ne too i wish i knew what key it was that switches it - the fix is easy enough but i lose my ? (question mark) a lot it gets replaced with an accented E

[Nicko999]

She's trolling all of us...

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/768888/thumbs/s-PAULINE-MAROIS-HITLER-PHOTO-large.jpg
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/768888/thumbs/s-PAULINE-MAROIS-HITLER-PHOTO-large.jpg

[Dylan Leblanc]

There's even a website selling a sticker to combine the (now smaller) left shift key with the strange weird useless character key beside it - http://pressshift.ca/

It works because the character key can be remapped to become a shift key.


BTW this isn't a government regulation, it's computer manufactures from what I have read.

[artvandelay]

That's it, I've had it. Time to kick out the French! I could live with the bilingual cereal boxes but this is the last straw!

[Dylan Leblanc]

Globe and Mail article - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/french-keyboards-frustrate-computer-buyers/article544374/

[MTLskyline]

I have a bilingual laptop keyboard and bought a separate U.S. English wireless keyboard and mouse for use at home with my laptop. I hate using laptop keyboards anyways...

[vid]

The Toshiba that he has is the same model I have, and then the Thinkpad he has is pretty much identical to 1ajs'. That's weirdly surreal. :haha:

The bilingual keyobard allows stores to not have to stock two different models of laptop in Canada. It's to "save money". If stores had to order two models for their customer base, they wouldn't be able to reach higher price points, and costs would be higher. And being able to type §, ¶, °, «, », µ, ±, £, ¢, ¤, ¬, ¦, ², ³, ¼, ½, and ¾, is pretty cool too.

You'll notice the keyboard option widget is also enabled on the Windows OS on that computer, with US, Canada French and Canada Multilingual pre-set to it. A certain combination of alt+shift and something will change which keyboard you're set to, and that often has us ending questions with É. You're going to have to manually change that, because it is annoying.

His complaint about that one key is seriously trivial. You get used to it within hours. Personally, the most annoying aspect of the Toshiba Satellite keyboard layout is the position of the delete key. At work I have a standard keyboard and I am always hitting F12 instead of delete. Compared to other laptops though, the Satellite laptops have pretty good keyboards. The trackpad is annoying though, it has a rough texture on the lower end models and makes it unpleasant to use, so I have a wireless mouse. Another issue is that I am always hitting 7 instead of enter, because there is just a very thin gap between the keyboard and the number pad. At least this laptop has a number pad!

The guy in that video has a really dusty laptop (smoker?) and is obviously fairly old. Just a bitchy old white guy who hates French people.

Another problem with this keyboard is that the function key takes up space on the bottom row of the keyboard, making the space bar rather small. Only four keys wide instead of 7 or 8 on most keyboards. Also, the thinkpad has that little red mouse thingy in the middle, that is really handy for scrolling. Having to gingerly slide along the very edges of the trackpad to scroll is annoying.

[vid]

To turn off the keyboard mode shifting (which causes the É to replace the ?)

In Windows 7, go to Control Panel > Region and Language > Keyboards and Languages > Change Keyboards > Advanced Key Settings > Change every key sequence to "none". Hit OK. (The method is very similar in XP, I think this is only an issue in XP SP3 and later.)

If you want to remove the keyboard icon from the taskbar, Go back to the Language Bar tab. Select "hidden".

As for removing the duplicated pipe/backslash key, I honestly don't recall ever hitting it as I was always one to hit the left side of that shift key instead of the right, but there are ways to re-map (or custom-map) your keyboard, and that is built into the Windows OS, you don't need to download anything, you just need to look for that option in the control panel.

[Dylan Leblanc]

This issue has nothing to do with hating French speakers :sly:

The increased visual clutter on the keyboard and the reduction in size of the Shift and Enter keys to accommodate keys which are rarely if ever used are valid things to complain about.

[SignalHillHiker]

I think we should follow the traditional Canadian way of dealing with these things.

In the ROC, all computers must have two keyboards - one English closest the monitor, with a French one of equal size below it.

In Quebec, all computers must have two keyboards - one French closest to the monitor, with a much smaller English one underneath it.

[JHikka]

This issue has nothing to do with hating French speakers :sly:

That dude's video certainly did. :haha:

[Dylan Leblanc]

What? No it didn't. At no point in the video does he say he hates anyone.

[vid]

It's anti-bilingualism, which is linked to anti-Trudeauism, which is a root cause of some types of anti-Quebec/anti-Francophone sentiment. The guy went on and on about how "most Canadians speak English so English should be the only language". He is one of those 55+ Conservative voting whiners.

It really isn't an issue once you get used to the keyboard. You get used to the shift and enter buttons. It's hitting 7 instead of enter, and getting used to delete being on the top right, that are the real issues with laptop keyboards.

[niwell]

Apple is anti-quebecois. As my macbook has a monolingual keyboard.

[Dylan Leblanc]

The French language requirement on a keyboard can be isolated to a specific geographic part of the country. Computer manufactures and distributors don't need to subject the entire country to keyboards containing French language keys.

[vid]

Tell that to the retail stores that import just one kind of computer. I am sure that if you ask them to import a different kind of computer they would do it. There are lots of people here with Chinese keyboard computers and they have to be getting them from somewhere.

[Aylmer]

Do people actually use the US keyboard? I thought that was why they made the Canadian Multilingual Standard. I find it's much easier since I never need to change keyboard layouts to switch between English and any other West-European language (French, German, Dutch, Spanish...).

I find the US keyboard so restrictive.

[rousseau]

This is an issue that I confronted last year when I bought a new laptop. I do a lot of typing as a translator every day. Somehow I didn't notice that almost all of the units on display in the store had Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboards, but when I got it home and started doing some work, all of a sudden I found myself saying...WTF? I took the laptop back the next day. The guys at Bestbuy just shrugged their shoulders. Who types that much anyway, right?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/KB_Canadian_Multilingual_Standard_comment-en.svg/800px-KB_Canadian_Multilingual_Standard_comment-en.svg.png

The manufacturers apparently decided a few years ago that if Quebec requires that the Left Shift key be split in half and the right Enter key be split in half and extended up one row, then all keyboards sent to Canada will be thus.

Which is stupid, but then, obviously the Americans can't be bothered with complications related to distribution to foreign countries. Canada is Canada, they figure. But I hit those two very keys thousands of times a day, and I don't want to have to extend my two pinkies over a key to get to them. It's irritating and painful. Repetitive stress injuries are a serious concern for me. So I won't buy a Canadian laptop or desktop keyboard again, and will have to make my purchases in the U.S. to ensure that I get the U.S. keyboard.

Obviously the outcry at this idiocy isn't large enough to merit the attention of the manufacturers and retailers, so the loss of my business makes barely a ripple in the commercial sea. Times have changed: most people now thumb smart phones to update their Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the idea of sitting at a beige-coloured computer workstation to look at lol catz would seem embarrassingly pre-millennial to your average 15-year-old.

[vanatox]

Apple is anti-quebecois. As my macbook has a monolingual keyboard.

My macbook, bought in Montréal, has a monolingual French keyboard.

[Boris2k7]

I guess that since all I ever use are gaming keyboards, I have never once encountered this. I've never seen or used a keyboard which wasn't entirely in English.

[Dylan Leblanc]

I think it's really only laptops which suffer from this.

[niwell]

My macbook, bought in Montréal, has a monolingual French keyboard.

Haha - they are just catering to the majority then!

Probably a good move.

[Rusty van Reddick]

Ugh. Learn to make a youtube video and turn off that quote from that hideous, horrible Fraser Institute.

Yes, policies cost money. Stop your bitching and live with French.

[bobi]

This does not make me a happy or proud Canadian! :hell:

Wow, turning the inconvenience of tinkering with a bilingual keyboard into a national identity issue... That's rich.

If you can't stand being exposed to any other language than English when playing with your toys, why don't you consider moving to the US or to the UK (where the Leblanc family obviously originates from)?

Oh, and before giving me your dissonant schpiel about "I'm no racist, I have nothing against French speakers; it's their language that I just cannot stand being exposed to. But no, I really have nothing against the French language, but why does it have to be visible on my own fucking keyboard!?" (and yadi yadi yada until ad infinitum e absurdum), just think of the reactions from this board if I had started a similar thread, bitching about the English wording all over the keys of my keyboard and eh, this is Canada, we all know French in here, why ramming English down my throat?, this doesn't make me a happy and proud Canadian, and all that stupid crap (I'm currently typing this on an English only keyboard bought in Toronto - and no, I'm not inconvenienced by it).

[manny_santos]

Why can't these companies just ship laptops for the US market to parts of Canada where almost nobody wants a French keyboard?

[rousseau]

If you can't stand being exposed to any other language than English when playing with your toys, why don't you consider moving to the US or to the UK (where the Leblanc family obviously originates from)?
It's amusing how this issue brings out the idiots. It's a physical problem, it has nothing to do with being exposed to other languages. By contrast with the multilingual keyboard in my post above, the Left Shift key and the Enter key on the U.S. keyboard are two keys wide. Electronic keyboards in English-speaking North America have been this way for decades. With the new multilingual keyboards you have to extend your pinky fingers on both hands across an extra key to get to the Shift and Enter keys.

No big deal, you say? Try doing it two thousand times per day, every day.

You don't find that to be a physical problem? Lovely. I imagine most people don't really care about it. But I and many others who type a lot do dislike the new physical layout of the keyboard. The manufacturers, in their lack of wisdom, have decided that all Canadian retailers shall be sent the keyboards that are mandated in Quebec. It's hard not to be a little pissed off that a bureaucratic decision has led to a whole scale imposition of something that nobody needed or wanted. But while most people don't really type all that much, or they have simply adapted and accepted the new keyboards, some of us don't like the new keyboards because they are clearly inferior.

We're a small and somewhat vocal minority who will be buying laptops from the U.S. Oh well, so it goes. I suppose I get worked up about the issue because it hits close to home--keyboards are critical to how I make my living. So I find myself reacting when idiots who have misunderstood the issue smear us as xenophobes or linguistic bigots.

[vid]

But I hit those two very keys thousands of times a day, and I don't want to have to extend my two pinkies over a key to get to them. It's irritating and painful. Repetitive stress injuries are a serious concern for me.

Dude... I have the same keyboard and look at how many posts I've made in the past year without complaining about this!

I guess I really don't type that much? :rolleyes: Honestly, if you're spending all day typing, you should have a more ergonomic keyboard than a laptop keyboard anyway.

Keep hitting equals ina=stead of bax=ckspace. God, hate the Fe=rench.

[Nantais]

I love reading threads about these typical canadian issues.
IMO, it's the sole reason for why Québec should stay in Canada. It provides some good entertainment.
"Why my cereal box has French on it ?"
"What's with the new bilingual keyboards ?"
"Why should we go with a English/French keyboard instead of a English/Chinese one ? It would make so much more sense !"

:haha:

[Andrewjm3D]

I have one, didn't even notice to be honest.

Same here.

[GORDBO]

That's it, I've had it. Time to kick out the French! I could live with the bilingual cereal boxes but this is the last straw!

:cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers:

[brannelford]

"The bottom line appears to be, for less expensive consumer systems where they really need to keep cost down, most vendors are settling on the one keyboard that works for all of Canada: the multilingual keyboard. With premium consumer products or business systems, there is usually still a choice."

The quote above is from the Globe & Mail article.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/french-keyboards-frustrate-computer-buyers/article544374/


So, to make a less expensive computer, manufacturers opt to go for multilingual keyboards.
Funny that people never complain about paying lower prices....


Also, that argument about the "flocons de mais" on the cereal box is getting really tired.
First, most people don't even read the print, they look at the image and graphics on a box.
Secondly, packaging costs are reduced with bilingual or trilingual print, since less inventory is required.

Note - it's not more expensive to print bilingual packaging, since we're long past the days when the monks hand-printed every single box.

........


As for the bilingual keyboard... I've had one since last February, and while initially annoyed at the different arrangement of keys - eight months later, I can honestly say right now that I don't even notice it anymore.

So just chill a bit :yes:

[RammerDino]

I thought bilingual keyboards were fine... until I unexpectedly typed up a bunch of accented letters on Word.

[Doug]

How many of these actually sell? I come from a Product Management background and remember launching many products with SKUs specifically for Quebec and they rarely sold anywhere even enough units to come close to justify the effort. For example, I did a voicemail product where the Governments of Canada and Quebec specifically requested bilingual variants and then proceed to buy close to 95% of their volume in the English only variant. I launched a software application where it cost $180K to do a French variant for the Quebec market and ended up with exactly 4 downloads vs. several thousand with Quebec registrations for the US English variant. Bilingualism is just ideology. Canada is not a bilingual country, never has been and never will be.

[BiloQuebecCity]

This does not make me a happy or proud Canadian! :hell:

Hahaha you made me laugh. Seriously man, a bilingual keyboard will make you feel "unpride" of being Canadian? Please explain that to us... I think you need to chill down and relax in your life if issues like that become a concern for your prideness of being canadian. You should avoid visiting Ottawa or use the Jacques-Cartier Bridge in Montreal because guess what!? The road signs are bilingual!!!!

I do have a bilingual keyboard and I am very proud to say I can use it in Canada's both official languages.

[BiloQuebecCity]

Bilingualism is just ideology. Canada is not a bilingual country, never has been and never will be.

I would add that Sept. 11 was an inside job, JFK is still alive and Elvis Presley is currently chilling with hoes on a desertic Island in the Pacific Ocean.

[Nantais]

BTW, what's the point of having an English keyboard ? I have a French keyboard and I don't have any problem typing my posts in English. But if I had an English keyboard I couldn't write in French (because they don't have accents, cédilles, and all of that).
Hence, I think that the best solution for Canadians who can't stand bilinguism is to buy a monolingual keyboard. A French monolingual one.

[MTLskyline]

^ I use an English keyboard and there are key combinations that can be used to type accents.

Holding down ALT and punching in a number between 128 and 154 will do the trick.

[Boris2k7]

BTW, what's the point of having an English keyboard ? I have a French keyboard and I don't have any problem typing my posts in English. But if I had an English keyboard I couldn't write in French (because they don't have accents, cédilles, and all of that).
Hence, I think that the best solution for Canadians who can't stand bilinguism is to buy a monolingual keyboard. A French monolingual one.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe, just maybe, the point of having an English-only keyboard is that most of the population speaks only English?

[Dirt_Devil]

Oh, I don't know. Maybe, just maybe, the point of having an English-only keyboard is that most of the population speaks only English?

Thats because most of the population is too lazy to learn another language.

My first language is french and my keyboard is bilingual. WTF? Should I be pissed about that? Ewwwwwwwwww there's "caps lock" written on my "verr. maj." button !!!!!!! Who cares dude? who could give a damn about that? That's just baby stuff. Canada is officially bilingual, like it or not. if you don't, leave the fuc**ng place dude!

Some people really like to bash on Quebec sometimes. I mean, I am getting tired of those negative comments.

[Blader]

I find the Canadian bilingual keyboard to be anything but intuitive. I've switched to the US International today. I'll give it a month to become accustomed. It's far more intuitive and has the added benefit of covering the diacritics of most European languages, while still retaining the benefit of a US english keyboard.

Still, touch typists in intensive use situations have a compelling argument when it comes to keyboard design. My Toshiba netbook with a bilingual keyboard is anything but ideal.

[kool maudit]

edit: forget it. i'm homesick for montreal and have an axe to grind. i'm not going to start a whole canada thing over it.

[vid]

Note - it's not more expensive to print bilingual packaging, since we're long past the days when the monks hand-printed every single box.

But you're forgetting the fact that it literally takes minutes, sometimes nearly half an hour, to convert English packaging to bilingual. (Doing that is part of my job. :))

Those costs add up to ones of hundreds of dollars a month for the labour costs to cover design time and the legal rights to the exclusive Adobe Photoshop CS4 programme we use to actually make that bilingual packaging—a programme that we wouldn't have otherwise had if we didn't do any design work at all, regardless of language.

I once had a situation where I had to call an acquaintance to clarify a phrase. It took seconds. If it took me a minute, that would be, like, 50 cents in labour costs right there. It's outrageous and those two quarters will definitely be reflected in the order of 25,000 labels that that task was for. It brought the price up by, like, $0.00002 per label! Customers simply can't afford this bilingual thing!

^ I use an English keyboard and there are key combinations that can be used to type accents.

Holding down ALT and punching in a number between 128 and 154 will do the trick.

Yeah but when you're typing a lot in French that becomes a pain in the ass. That's why I keep the French keyboard option on my work computer, even though that keyboard is a US English model. At the very least, being able to type an é with just one button saves a lot of time.

Some programmes will assign combinations like ctrl+6 to put ^ as an accent, ctrl+, and then typing c will get ç (faster than holding alt and pressing 231). Reducing the number of keystrokes we have to make to type these letters is important and hey I stole their argument oh no.

Still, touch typists in intensive use situations have a compelling argument when it comes to keyboard design. My Toshiba netbook with a bilingual keyboard is anything but ideal.

But is a Toshiba netbook the ideal computer for an intensive typist?

[RammerDino]

I wonder if they have bilingual keyboards on the MacBook Air...

[Blader]

But is a Toshiba netbook the ideal computer for an intensive typist?

You're right, it's anything but ideal. I should have been clear. Many, using a
decent sized laptop, who type intensively, are finding the bilingual keyboards wanting, because of added keys shrinking the size of other often used keys, and IMO, rightly so.

My netbook, for me, functions fine. I have no need to be productive in a business environment.

[Dylan Leblanc]

Seriously man, a bilingual keyboard will make you feel "unpride" of being Canadian? Please explain that to us...Because as Canadians we have to cater to special interests which, in my preferences, make life more difficult. I live in British Columbia, just about as far away as you can get from the French speaking region of the country, no one out here speaks French, yet we have to deal with the cumbersome implications of French being added to products. There is no need for this. I would gladly pay the extra $5 in additional cost for a unilingual keyboard (US layout) if it were even available.

Yay Canada

[Nantais]

:previous:
And yet, for some reason the Francophones don't whine about having English on their cereal boxes or bilingual keyboards, although they don't need it either.

[BIMBAM]

Because as Canadians we have to cater to special interests which, in my preferences, make life more difficult. I live in British Columbia, just about as far away as you can get from the French speaking region of the country, no one out here speaks French, yet we have to deal with the cumbersome implications of French being added to products. There is no need for this. I would gladly pay the extra $5 in additional cost for a unilingual keyboard (US layout) if it were even available.

Yay Canada

Yeah, well not everyone in BC is completely disconnected from the rest of the country! I live in Vancouver, but I've also lived in Montreal and I've worked there. I'm an Anglophone, so the vast majority of the time I write in English, but when I want to write in French or write, say, the French name of a former workplace on a CV, it's good to have the bilingual keyboard. This is Canada, love it or leave it! We don't all live in our little provincial silos and your thinking strikes me as separatist. :hell:

[mousquet]

Because as Canadians we have to cater to special interests which, in my preferences, make life more difficult. I live in British Columbia, just about as far away as you can get from the French speaking region of the country, no one out here speaks French, yet we have to deal with the cumbersome implications of French being added to products. There is no need for this. I would gladly pay the extra $5 in additional cost for a unilingual keyboard (US layout) if it were even available.

Yay Canada

:haha: Hell, Leblanc sounds more French than my own family name that's pretty close to Italian variations. Spain must have something close to it as well. Yet I swear I'm quite damn French, but parts of my ancestors are from southeastern France, pretty close to northern Italy.
You just should learn French, Dylan. It's not so hard and would make everything easier to you. It's nothing like wasting your time.

My French keyboard on a Debian system feels awesome, easily supporting anything Spanish, French and English/American. Yet it might become insufficient sometime soon...
Anyone heard of Chinese around here? :dissy:

[Dylan Leblanc]

Yeah, well not everyone in BC is completely disconnected from the rest of the country!Are you saying that although I've lived in Canada my entire life I am somehow disconnected from the country?

:previous:
And yet, for some reason the Francophones don't whine about having English on their cereal boxes or bilingual keyboards, although they don't need it either.I'm not whining, I'm complaining. There is a difference. And just because someone else doesn't complain about something doesn't mean that I shouldn't.

Would it be more Canadian of me to just shut up and be complacent with something I don't like?

[kwoldtimer]

........

Would it be more Canadian of me to just shut up and be complacent with something I don't like?

Would you? Thanks.

[Blader]

I'm curious about usage:
-who uses the the us keyboard exclusively?
-who uses the Canadian multilingual standard exclusively?
-who uses the Canadian French keyboard exclusively?
-who switches back and forth between these keyboards and maybe other keyboards?

I'm now using the US International keyboard as my default out of curiosity. As I understand, it's the default keyboard in The Netherlands in business. It has the advantage of using a typical physical US keyboard ie: no extra keys, which would quell all complaints about Canadian multilingual keyboards, if manufacturers adopted it instead of the Canadian multilingual standard.

[mousquet]

Um, can't answer your question about various peculiar keyboard uses, but be sure no one uses anglosaxon standards for "simple curiosity" or for the love of it.
That's kind of obvious, right?

[Blader]

Um, can't answer your question about various peculiar keyboard uses, but be sure no one uses anglosaxon standards for "simple curiosity" or for the love of it.
That's kind of obvious, right?

Yet I'm using the US international keyboard, with no difficulties so far. What's wrong with experimentation?

edit:
My notion, is a standard US keyboard in N. America, with the ability to use diacritics, without altering the physical keyboard by adding additional keys is a plus. If one has ever tried the Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard and uses it infrequently, I can assure you that it's a dogs breakfast. I'm testing the US International to see if it's superior.

[mousquet]

:hmmm: I don't know what you mean about "US international keyboard", we've just got to deal with the particular solutions implemented here or there. Standards are peculiar in my country, because of our keyboards.
We're in computer standards here, and solving character issues has been a damn long time problem to developers. There's definitely no easy solution when considering all human laguages, it's so freakin' huge, but when it comes to western languages/characters alone (mostly based on the latin set of characters), operating systems can surely provide easy solutions. I don't think the most popular is the easiest in that regard.

[Blader]

:hmmm: I don't know what you mean about "US international keyboard", we've just got to deal with the particular solutions implemented here or there. Standards are peculiar in my country, because of our keyboards.
We're in computer standards here, and solving character issues has been a damn long time problem to developers. There's definitely no easy solution when considering all human laguages, it's so freakin' huge, but when it comes to western languages/characters alone (mostly based on the latin set of characters), operating systems can surely provide easy solutions. I don't think the most popular is the easiest in that regard.

Agreed for the most part.
Us International keyboard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#US-International
So the above is the software keyboard I've started to use. So far, I've had no need to use diacritics, and yet I've not encountered any anomalies with English typing. Still, the keyboard covers more than French, it covers diacritics of most European languages. I'm certainly not recommending it to the French, given their keyboards. But to English, who wish to have diacritics in other languages available, I think this software keyboard is very useful. I can't think of a good reason that the Canadian standard shouldn't use this keyboard physically. Hence my questions. I could be off the mark.

[rousseau]

Dude... I have the same keyboard and look at how many posts I've made in the past year without complaining about this!
Once again, if the different physical configuration of the keys doesn't bother you, then I'm happy for you. I'm dancing a two-step and shimmying in delight because you like the new keyboards. So why is it so hard for you to understand that it is a serious problem for me and many others?

Of course, I do get what's happening here. Some people out there in English-speaking Canuckland are piggybacking on the issue and using it as yet another bully pulpit for their anti-Quebec animus. But so what? They're a crackpot minority, and anyway, that doesn't change the fact that the altered physical layout is an unwanted and unnecessary imposition of an inferior product on people living outside of Quebec. By the manufacturers and retailers, it must be noted and emphasized, not due to any federally-enforced bilingual policy.

I need the longer Left Shift key and Enter key that come with the U.S. keyboard. You don't. Fine. But I'll bet that if the change hadn't been made, neither you nor the vast, vast majority of English-speaking Canadians would be clamoring for the Canadian Multilingual keyboard. This was a top-down decision that nobody asked for. You're easy-going either way. Again, fine. But not me. Not on this issue.

So I'll take to the streets and...with righteous fury...let my voice be heard...

Okay, yeah, it's not keeping me up at night. I'll just buy my future laptops in the U.S. The retailers don't seem to care if I do, and the manufacturers definitely don't care if I do, so there we are. But I'm with Dylan on this. He's right, it's shitty that people outside of Quebec are being forced to buy keyboard layouts that they don't want. It's not the same as the bilingual cereal boxes, and you know it.

[Policy Wonk]

If you complain to Acer they will send you a US keyboard.

I had a bilingual keyboard at work for years and years and it never bothered me, but it didn't have the inverted enter key or split shift.

[Xelebes]

I make sure my home computers are bilingual and my language settings to Canadian Multilingual not because I type in French (I don't), but because I type in English and the standard English layout does not have all the characters used in the English language: the æsc, the œthel, the accent (é), the diæresis (naïve), the em-dash (―), the (ç)edilla, the virgulilla (ñ), and the ring (å), as well as the macron (ā) and the breve (ă) for prosody. Also, the ¢ and © are handy characters to have on hand.

[vid]

my life is going so well that the shape of keys on my laptop's keyboard is a serious problem.

ok.

[rousseau]

my life is going so well that the shape of keys on my laptop's keyboard is a serious problem.
ok.
Ah, thanks for putting the issue into perspective. Yep, it's a first world problem. Really now, why should I have a strong opinion on the imposition of something that negatively affects my working life in a crucial way? Who the fuck cares if I get a repetitive stress injury in my hands and lose the means to support my family for a couple months? I mean, I'm not a starving child in Namibia. I'm not a single mother struggling to pay the rent.

I should just be thankful I have any laptop at all. Consider me suitably chastened.

[vid]

Actually now that I think about it, buying an off-the-shelf laptop and using its keyboard when you need something that better suits your physical needs while is like going out in the winter in running shoes and complaining that your feet are cold.

I work in a water bottling plant and wear steel toe waterproof boots. I could get regular rubber boots and risk a foot injury from a 50 pound jug of water falling on my foot, or I could get regular steel toe shoes and deal with them getting soaked almost every day, but instead I looked at what I was doing and bought an appropriate tool to perform that task safely. I had to go to a specific store to buy it and it cost more than either of the other two options, but it was what was necessary for me to safely and properly do the thing that makes money for me. Another analogy: My job put a lot of strain on my knees so I got better insoles for those boots and now my knees don't hurt when I work. Hooray for appropriate equipment to do your job safely! :banana:

You are in a specific typing situation and got a flat laptop keyboard to type on. Laptop keyboards are even less ergonomic than stand-alone PC keyboards.

You know you get a tax deduction for purchasing anything that is necessary for you to do your work, right?

[rousseau]

Now you're getting it. Yes, I know that the issue has been hijacked by the anti-bilingual mouth-breathers, but that shouldn't cloud the real issue for some of us.

Which, again, we know is a lost cause. Oh well, we'll just support the U.S. retailers.

I use a desktop most days, and for that I have a stand-alone split keyboard with the U.S. layout, but I often use my laptop for hours at a time when I'm away from the home office. I tried the multilingual keyboard the one day, and by the end of it my hands were sore. Very sore, in fact. I had to rest them for a couple of days, and consequently lost a fair bit of moolah. It pissed me off. I need to have that laptop option to do my job, I can't solely rely on the desktop.

I think I've probably bored a lot of SSP forumers with my ranting in this thread. I better stop!

[Blader]

I think I've probably bored a lot of SSP forumers with my ranting in this thread. I better stop!
No, don't stop. You're known not to be a Quebec/French hater so you have credibility.
Vids arguments are apt. But lets work it backwards. He buys work-boots that are steel toed and waterproof. What if only steel toed boots were available but not waterproofed. One solution is to buy garbage bags, another is to buy an after market product that covers the boots, if available. Neither are elegant.
The same applies to physical keyboards, before, one could buy a laptop in English Canada with a superior ergonomic keyboard. I can't think of a good reason why we couldn't have a quality multilingual keyboard that retains the physical design of the US keyboard.
Now you have four options:
use the laptop as is with its inferior keyboard
carry a separate US keyboard with your Canadian multilingual laptop
carry your desktop and its US keyboard
buy a US laptop

[Blader]

Funny story

A number of years ago, when I had a desktops running Windows 98, I advised an acquaintance to purchase a Windows XP desktop at an incredible discount. To my dismay, I received a phone call from her at the retailer. She was unable to type a question mark, instead she was getting an é. The salesperson was convinced she had a virus and wanted $80.00 to clean the system. I drove immediately to the retailer and again the salesperson insisted it was a virus. He did not understand anything about software keyboards available in Window XP. It was set to, at that time, Canadian English, which was the bilingual keyboard.

[vid]

Did she go to Future Shop? They seem to always hire the least technologically aware people they can find. I'm pretty sure the kid selling smartphones has never actually used one before.

[bobi]

It's amusing how this issue brings out the idiots.

Indeed. You didn't have to hop in to prove it (facile of me but I couldn't resist).

It's a physical problem, it has nothing to do with being exposed to other languages.

This was exactly the "idiotic" point I was making, Jean-Jacques.

If it's only physical, why is Leblanc turning this into another "This does not make me a happy or proud Canadian!:hell:"? Why is he turning the inconvenience of dealing with a bilingual keyboard into a(nother) national identity issue"? Why did he add a clip in which some guy goes on about "most Canadians speak English so English should be the only language"? Why doesn't he even see what a slippery slope this is?

Well, maybe because his problem is not merely physical to begin with, because he's actually aiming at, thinking of, insinuating something else. Ergo, the rest of my post (which you quoted, but did not understand) (or maybe because he's actually one these idiots you're talking about, but I'm leaving that sort of sensible judgment to you)

No big deal, you say? Try doing it two thousand times per day, every day.

At that rate, training wheels can safely be removed, and typing on a new keyboard shouldn't be a physical problem anymore (to anyone who is physically and mentally fit that is - computer idiots are another matter).

You don't find that to be a physical problem? Lovely. I imagine most people don't really care about it. But I and many others who type a lot do dislike the new physical layout of the keyboard. The manufacturers, in their lack of wisdom, have decided that all Canadian retailers shall be sent the keyboards that are mandated in Quebec.

Please stop, I'm gonna cry and blow my nose into my English keyboard (bought in Québec btw)...

Besides, do you have a source for this claim of yours about manufacturers and "their lack of wisdom" (which, I take it, is inconveniencing mono-anglo-canadians with feeble elbow and digits), or did you just make this up because you can't tell a fact from an assumption?

So I find myself reacting when idiots who have misunderstood the issue smear us as xenophobes or linguistic bigots.

Indeed, you are just reacting, and typing way faster than your thinking speed.

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope the rest of the Rousseau family isn't as thick as you.

[kool maudit]

rousseau isn't thick or caught up in some anti-french thing. he just wants to use a standard anglosphere keyboard. he's not one of the oafs -- far from it.

the rest of the guys are pretty much caught up in the anti-french thing, or just riding one of those charmless gusts we sometimes get from the west (my cheerios should be in mandarin or whatever).

i was out with a guy from waterloo a few weeks ago, and we were talking canada. having excised my beloved montreal from his definition of the word for political reasons, he then began talking about some "new canada" that he was very excited about. i forget the details. asian supermarkets in the ottawa suburbs maybe, a grimly-held optimism concerning the new blackberry OS; could he have mentioned the bow? i'm not sure. there was an emphasis on the west. he is moving to vancouver, and is exhorting me to sort of, you know, spread my wings or whatever, forget the spiral staircases and the heart-attack diners and the not being on linkedin and come see what this "new canada" has to offer.

i can't think of anything i am less interested in doing. i'm feeling a bit man-without-a-country-ish lately. the last few months in this section haven't helped.

[bobi]

Maybe not thick, but not too quick either.

But anyways.

I was thinking of writing a post on culture, rhetoric, emotional and situated commitment, otherness, the limits of cross-cultural understanding, and why so-called physical problems cannot be divorced from the cultural trance in which we all live - I know you well enough, from two discussion boards, that you are well versed on these topics -, but I won't. It's getting late and I have a big day tomorrow: gardening work to do (about a zillion flower pots and two gardens to empty), an 18 months old son and a pregnant girlfriend to love and take care of, family coming over for dinner, and a fat Outaouais goose to cook tomorrow afternoon + two lectures (400 students in total) to prepare (on my beloved anglo keyboard) for Tuesday.

Real life stuff as opposed to the virtual whining of mono-lingual geeky creatures about the inconvenience of having to deal with a bilingual keyboard (they really should unplug and get laid once in a while).

[Acajack]

Why is there is so much venom here directed at Quebec/French/bilingualism and so little directed at these private companies that take the easy way and cannot be bothered to serve their customers the way they want to be served?

[Acajack]

:haha: Hell, Leblanc sounds more French than my own family name that's pretty close to Italian variations. Spain must have something close to it as well. Yet I swear I'm quite damn French, but parts of my ancestors are from southeastern France, pretty close to northern Italy.
You just should learn French, Dylan. It's not so hard and would make everything easier to you. It's nothing like wasting your time.

My French keyboard on a Debian system feels awesome, easily supporting anything Spanish, French and English/American. Yet it might become insufficient sometime soon...
Anyone heard of Chinese around here? :dissy:

Many (millions) English-speaking Canadians have French surnames. It is not true for all of them but many (in spite of their origins) do not harbour even a millilitre of sympathy for the French language or French-speaking Canadians.

Not saying that this is the case of the OP but you cannot make any assumptions based on the fact that a Canadian has a French-sounding surname.

[freeweed]

My "old fartness" is really coming to the forefront today. Either most of you are not decent touch typists, or you all use iPhones for most of your day, or perhaps both - I've noticed that every single person that insists that typing on a touchscreen phone is "just fine" tends to look at their hands whilst they type on a real keyboard.

This issue with keyboards being mucked about with is not limited to "bilingual" keyboards - or whatever the hell manufacturers are trying to do. I think they're trying less for a "bilingual" keyboard and more of a "lowest common denominator" model. If we make it as shitty as possible, we can accommodate everyone, right?

The laptop thing I've almost given up on, although fortunately there are still anti-Quebcois manufacturers out there (according to some posters here) like Apple, who will gladly sell me an "English-only" keyboard. And by that, I mean "a fucking 101/104 key keyboard which has been the standard for 20 years".

But standalone keyboards - what the sweet christ happened in the past few years? I've had to shop for a replacement lately, and I'm floored by the subtle, pointless changes that seem to be creeping in. Delete keys are suddenly twice as large. The Insert key is somehow one of the function keys now. Shift keys are different sizes (sorry, modern Internet, but regular capitalization of words IS still important, contrary to your current illiterate state). Ctrl/Alt keys are being moved about. Cursor keys are being mucked with.

I actually had to go with a "gaming" keyboard just to get something I could type on without having to look at my fingers like a 5 year old. These seem to be the only wired keyboards left (pro-tip: when it sits in once place for its entire life, wireless functionality is NOT useful) that have standard keyboard layouts. The rest are some sort of post-modern experiment to see how many people actually touch type, I suspect.

And then there's the abominations of current (cheap) laptop keyboards, but that's been going on for years now. They used to have limited real estate to work with, so a bit of compromise I could understand - except they're all widescreen now. There is plenty of room to add in a dozen or 2 "extra" keys as needed.

Here's hoping OLED-remappable key labels take off some day.

I really feel like a useless old fuck. 30 years ago, I hopped between keyboards without hesitation (including typewriters both manual and electric). PCs of that era had anything BUT standard keyboards. We managed, albeit barely. Today is bringing back memories of those times.

Long story short, I think Dylan has a very valid complaint. That keyboard looks like a piece of shit to type on.

[MolsonExport]

Bilingualism is just ideology. Canada is not a bilingual country, never has been and never will be.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/000/554/facepalm.jpg

[floobie]

Heh... four pages. And the usual Quebec/ROC debate. lol.

Why do manufacturers do this?

It's cheaper. They're cheap. You're buying cheap computers. They're the assholes here. If you buy from a higher end manufacturer, you will be greeted by a more localized selection in store, and/or will have the option to order the keyboard you want that corresponds with your language preferences. Go to the Apple website. Configure a Macbook Air or whatever. You'll see the option to put a French or US English keyboard on it.

Why is the bilingual keyboard bothersome?

Because people who haven't used it before aren't used to it. When I go to Germany, I have difficulty typing on the QWERTZ keyboard. Stuff is moved around. It's weird. I don't like using it. I can speak German fine, I can write German fine, but I still find the keyboard difficult to use. Could I get used to it? Sure. Could Canadians buying computers with bilingual keyboards get used to it? Sure. But, why should they have to? What's so awful about having different keyboards optimized for different languages? Should the Japanese market have to endure a North American keyboard layout? Or maybe the entire world should just switch to the Dvorak layout? We can get used to it, right? It isn't because seeing French on a few keys is somehow hugely offensive or something. It isn't. The layout is different. It's annoying. Pretty simple.

Also, Dylan's ending line "This doesn't make me a proud Canadian" or whatever.... ever consider that maybe he was just being sarcastic? Maybe it was a joke? You know, the humour of blowing something minor totally out of proportion? Pretty common...

[Acajack]

Also, Dylan's ending line "This doesn't make me a proud Canadian" or whatever.... ever consider that maybe he was just being sarcastic? Maybe it was a joke? You know, the humour of blowing something minor totally out of proportion? Pretty common...

Could be, but he made a whole bunch of other references to French being an annoyance, blablabla...

[artvandelay]

Y'all should just buck up and buy Macs. It's only shitty PCs that seem to have this problem. :)

[freeweed]

Could be, but he made a whole bunch of other references to French being an annoyance, blablabla...

No no no, he made references to THE French being an annoyance. You know, like yourself.

(For the official record, THIS is a joke, a weak play on words to try to lighten the mood. As Acajack knows, I am arguably "French" by certain measures, so I could be insulting myself here. Which of course I am not, otherwise the joke falls flat)

I'll actually add something to the conversation - I've never ever learned to "type" in French. Written, spoken, been there, done that, but never ever on a keyboard. So when I first saw one of these "bilingual" keyboards I was a bit floored. My first thought was "couldn't you just add a modifier key(s) or six new keys for the half-dozen accented/diacriticed letters"? It's the same bloody alphabet, last I checked - with slight modifications for French (from a selfish English perspective). From memory, as I no longer own one, it seemed like 3/4 of the keys had "something" extra printed on them. Seemed to be complete overkill for what are very much the same alphabets.

And I think this is what pisses people off. Instead of a smart, obvious solution that inconveniences neither group much, we end up with an ugly convoluted mess that's the worst of all worlds. Kinda like multilingual product labelling, which I know we've discussed to death here. There are ways to do that "nicely", and sadly in Canada we often don't. Of course the obvious solution is 2 product lines, you know, seeing as there's this huge country that speaks French somewhere in a far off land, and I heard a rumour that right next door we have a very large English-speaking country. It might actually be possible to source parts from these 2 hypothetical lands and produce 2 different versions for the 2 different markets that exist in Canada. But of course this would interfere with Future Shop/Best Buy's ability to have 60000 custom SKUs so that you can never price match correctly.

Incidentally, I'm typing this on a Lenovo Thinkpad - which for those that do not know, use the exact same keyboard layout as everyone else. EXCEPT that IBM in all of their wisdom decided to swap the Ctrl and Fn keys (supposedly laptop users use the Fn key more often, something which I find perplexing). It's such an annoyance that they finally implemented a BIOS-level key swap function - but they've now made the keys different sizes so that you can't just swap the caps. They've left that permanent reminder that your keyboard "just ain't right".

[Nantais]

What's so awful about having different keyboards optimized for different languages? Should the Japanese market have to endure a North American keyboard layout? Or maybe the entire world should just switch to the Dvorak layout? We can get used to it, right? It isn't because seeing French on a few keys is somehow hugely offensive or something. It isn't. The layout is different. It's annoying. Pretty simple.


Come on, I have no problem typing in English on my French keyboard (I type in English as fast as in French) so I really don't think it's a real issue to have a bilingual keyboard.

It becomes an issue because some people want to use this to make a point about bilinguism in Canada and its relevance. Because it's obvious it's not really about the keyboard's ergonomics.

[vid]

Either most of you are not decent touch typists

Excuse me! :stunned: I didn't get to 32,300 posts by hunting and pecking!!! If I am hunting and pecking 85+wpm then I must be a pretty damn good pecker hunter! ;)

It's cheaper. They're cheap. You're buying cheap computers.

Exactly. I have the receipt for the Toshiba C670 that I have, which is nearly identical to the one the guy in Dylan's video has, and it came to, after tax, $485.80. You'd actually be hard-pressed to find a 17" laptop for that price today (and I know because I have been looking for a second one!)

This was actually $214.20 under my budget, so I also got a camera, and that's cheap, too! (But better than what it replaced.)

The layout is different. It's annoying. Pretty simple.

Yeah but all of the computers I use on a regular basis have differently laid-out keyboards, so when I got the laptop with the bilingual keyboard, I just considered it to be one more in a seemingly endless variety of keyboards. Even when I was in school there were maybe 5 or 6 different keyboard layouts, mostly changing the size of the enter keys and whether or not there was a Windows key. (Remember when there was just that buttonless space?)


Also, Dylan's ending line "This doesn't make me a proud Canadian" or whatever.... ever consider that maybe he was just being sarcastic? Maybe it was a joke? You know, the humour of blowing something minor totally out of proportion? Pretty common...

He's made similar comments before. Not as blatant, but I think it is pretty safe to say that Dylan falls on the right side of the spectrum compared to most people on here.

Incidentally, I'm typing this on a Lenovo Thinkpad - which for those that do not know, use the exact same keyboard layout as everyone else. EXCEPT that IBM in all of their wisdom decided to swap the Ctrl and Fn keys (supposedly laptop users use the Fn key more often, something which I find perplexing). It's such an annoyance that they finally implemented a BIOS-level key swap function - but they've now made the keys different sizes so that you can't just swap the caps. They've left that permanent reminder that your keyboard "just ain't right".

I think I mentioned this in my previous post about why this keyboard layout is bad; I hit the Fn key instead of Ctrl all the time. I don't think I have ever used the right click menu key. And the Ctrl and Fn keys are two different sizes. I usually use the right Ctrl key anyway because I most often use it while working in Inkscape (it's used very frequently in that program). My hand is centred over the direction keys when I'm drawing, I almost wish that part of the keyboard was able to rotate to fit my hand better. I used to just turn the keyboard 90° so that it was facing to the left of me instead of directly at me but my laptop isn't one of the swivel screen ones. (You also can't find those anymore; that was a very short-lived trend, unfortunately. Combine that with touchscreen and you'd have an awesome laptop though.)

Also, I hit the Caps Lock instead of A all the time. They should move the Caps Lock somewhere else, and make the A key wider. :yes: Keys used to be thick enough that they could have a little gap there to prevent that but they don't make keyboards like that anymore.

[Aylmer]

I never actually knew that there was a difference between an English and French keyboard... Throughout the week, I've noticed that I spend about half my time typing on a French one and half on an English, but with the computer keyboard always set to Canadian Multilingual Standard. I thought the Shift/Enter buttons were just differences in the style of the keyboard and never payed much attention to it.

For the record, I am a touch-typist. I guess I've just grown up with both layouts and have just developed typing habits that are possible in both, i.e I've never used the left Shift key and my pinky always jumps to the right end of the Enter key.

However, now I know why it's sometimes so friggn' hard to find the 'ù' on some keyboards. Since I've always touch-typed, I guess I never bothered to remember consciously where it was and whenever it wasn't where my fingers thought it should be, I just figured I was mistaken and that it was somewhere else. Plus, it's only ever used in one word in French: 'où'.



Besides that one key, I've never had trouble switching from one to the other without even having to glance down to see which one it was.

HOWEVER, try doing THIS on an English computer layout:

The learnèd Ængles coöperated with Œdipus in the conquer of Eßling, Malmö, Færøerne and the Þjóðvengur by ways of Årland and Tōkyō. But how drŏll that they should be so naïve as to forget the piñata and the Fish ʼn chips in the entrepôt in Mâçon! They'll have to return through Wrocław and Český ― where the temperature was no more than -4°ĸ ― to presént their excuses to Franjo Tuđman.

And here comes the killer:

♪

¡Amazing!

[vid]

alt+13 and alt+14 ♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫

The degrees symbol is alt+248 °, I use that all the time. If you don't know the alt codes, though, the alt-cr button in French mode is helpful.

[freeweed]

HOWEVER, try doing THIS on an English computer layout:

Quote:
The learnèd Ængles coöperated with Œdipus in the conquer of Eßling, Malmö, Færøerne and the Þjóðvengur by ways of Årland and Tōkyō. But how drŏll that they should be so naïve as to forget the piñata and the Fish ʼn chips in the entrepôt in Mâçon! They'll have to return through Wrocław and Český ― where the temperature was no more than -4°ĸ ― to presént their excuses to Franjo Tuđman.

:haha:

I'd just as soon be typing Kanji on an English keyboard. For the 0.01% of the population that needs to do this, I'm sure they can buy their own fancy custom keyboard (or learn to do soft key re-mapping).

[Symz]

No bilingual keyboard here!

:fireworks

[Aylmer]

:haha:

I'd just as soon be typing Kanji on an English keyboard. For the 0.01% of the population that needs to do this, I'm sure they can buy their own fancy custom keyboard (or learn to do soft key re-mapping).

:haha: No, I'm not saying it's useful, just fun. My point is that it's entirely possible to live with both without contracting the bubonic hand plague which, judging from the fervor with which some of the forumers here have posted here, seems to be the underlying fear and concern.

So no worries! There are bigger challenges in life than using the right shift key!

[freeweed]

:haha: No, I'm not saying it's useful, just fun. My point is that it's entirely possible to live with both without contracting the bubonic hand plague which, judging from the fervor with which some of the forumers here have posted here, seems to be the underlying fear and concern.

So no worries! There are bigger challenges in life than using the right shift key!

I find this style of hyperbolic rhetoric perplexing in the extreme.

Believe it or not - and this may shock some - it's actually possible to have concerns and complaints about things in life that are not as serious as the plague. And it's equally possible to discuss solutions for things of this nature without dismissing said concerns simply because you as an individual have no issue with it.

I mean, for shit's sake - we just saw how many weeks of whining about subtle problems with a cellphone's mapping utility? Something that probably 5% of the userbase actually uses, for maybe 1% of their day.

Yes yes, First World Problems and all that. Still doesn't mean they're not annoying for those of us that actually care about this stuff.

[Acajack]

I find this style of hyperbolic rhetoric perplexing in the extreme.

Believe it or not - and this may shock some - it's actually possible to have concerns and complaints about things in life that are not as serious as the plague. And it's equally possible to discuss solutions for things of this nature without dismissing said concerns simply because you as an individual have no issue with it.

I mean, for shit's sake - we just saw how many weeks of whining about subtle problems with a cellphone's mapping utility? Something that probably 5% of the userbase actually uses, for maybe 1% of their day.

Yes yes, First World Problems and all that. Still doesn't mean they're not annoying for those of us that actually care about this stuff.

All of this is true, but it still doesn't take away from the fact that this discussion went off in the wrong direction for the wrong reasons.

(Some) Canadians can't get the keyboard they want. Bad on the companies.

Not "Quebec/French/bilingualism = bad for Canada". Which is how the OP couched it. It wasn't necessary to do that.

What do he want us to do? Go away? Stop typing in French so that it doesn't influence some company who might want to save bucks by providing hybrid keyboards than they ship from coast to coast without giving it a second thought?

Complaining about French "being around" in the political entity that is Canada is like complaining about snow, or rain in England, or kimchi in Korea.

It may or not be intolerant or xenophobic, but one thing it is for sure is dumb.

[Dylan Leblanc]

If the bilingual keyboard is being sold in Quebec I wonder how Quebecers feel about French appearing secondary to English on them?

[Acajack]

If the bilingual keyboard is being sold in Quebec I wonder how Quebecers feel about French appearing secondary to English on them?

They are used to it. Probably 90% of the devices they use (appliances, TVs, DVD players, phones, controls in their cars, etc.) actually have no French on them at all. And in rare cases where they have French on them it is below the English wording.

Same goes for 80% of product labelling (that is - anything not made in Quebec, and even some stuff from Quebec has English first French second) - English first, French second.

[BlackRedGold]

Same goes for 80% of product labelling (that is - anything not made in Quebec, and even some stuff from Quebec has English first French second) - English first, French second.

As it should be!

[vid]

As it should be!

Oui, à Dieu ne plaise que la français est plus dominant contre les anglais sur votre "lecteur des rayons bleu"! :rolleyes:

[PhilippeMtl]

Oui, à Dieu ne plaise que la français est plus dominant contre les anglais sur votre "lecteur des rayons bleu"! :rolleyes:

No idea what you are talking about. :(

[vid]

No idea what you are talking about. :(

Je non suisse pas le parleur de france, paroles.

[vanatox]

No idea what you are talking about. :(

Moi je t'ai compris Vid!! haha, lecteur de rayons bleu!!

Pour toi PhillipeMtl,

Oui, à Dieu ne plaise que le français soit plus dominant que l'anglais sur votre lecteur Blu-ray...

[Scruff Bucket]

My biggest pet peeve is that I always end up hitting some button (no idea which) and switching my keyboard settings to Canadian French. Then my apostrophes are weird and a few other things get effed up.

I selected ENGLISH when I set this ****er up. Not "Bilingual", not "English with French hotkey Support", ENGLISH! So don't make some random combination of keys change the setting.

ne too i wish i knew what key it was that switches it - the fix is easy enough but i lose my ? (question mark) a lot it gets replaced with an accented E

Sorry for my late entry ...

Holding LEFT <CTRL> key and pressing LEFT <Shift> key (above) seems to toggle between the keyboard modes. I'll do this keystroke combination whenever I type and see I'm getting those alternate characters as I type! -- Sometimes I'll have to repeat the <CTRL><Shift> a few times to get to the desired mode.

[Dado]

I always love these threads. Such entertainment.

People criticizing manufacturers based in Asia for - get this - following defined national standards! That's so silly! How dare those manufacturers do that! They should just pick some other standard to send our way! Who do these companies think they are? Who do they think we are? They're supposed to know that English Canadians are so intolerant of anything French even though Canada has this vaunted reputation for tolerance, dammit!

:rolleyes:

To my mind, the people who should be bearing the brunt of this are those who came up with the Canadian Multilingual Keyboard design.

In typical bureaucratic Canadian fashion, someone looked at the French alphabet and concluded that every single accented character combination had to be included somewhere on the keyboard without regard to its frequency of use. Except, for some reason, those with a circumflex (e.g. Ô).

The most common accented character in French is 'É'... so where do the geniuses put it? Down at the lower right in place of the '?/' key. How helpful.

I'd have put 'É' as a new key to the left of the 'A' key by cutting the Caps Lock key in half. No harm done there to anglos while being quite useful on the home row to francophones.

The '[]{}' characters could all have been assigned to the '9' & '0' keys as R-Alt-accessed characters (i.e. put them on the same keys as the regular bracket characters), while the '\' and '|' characters could be reassigned as R-Alt on the '/' key, freeing up those three keys on the upper row.

So what is now the '[' key could become the 'Ç' key and what are now the ']' and '\' keys would then be available for circumflex and grave (e.g. È) accent dead keys, with the shift versions being assigned to other accent deadkeys like the diaeresis (e.g. Ë) and the acute (e.g. Ó (not found in French - É is the only acute accented character in French)). The '<' and '>' key positions could be assigned to the French quote characters '«' and '»' with '<' and '>' being accessed with R-Alt instead.

And there you would have a minimally-intrusive Canadian Multilingual keyboard that provides French writers and anyone else needing to write out French names a means of doing so without serious impediment to Anglophones.