Alternative Keyboard Layouts

A windows keymap for using an US-layout to enter German umlauts. The umlauts are accessed by typing a diaeresis via a dead key (Ctrl and semicolon in that particular case) followed by the (capital or lowercase) umlaut of choice. The sz is selected using the 's' key.

Download the keymap

One major annoyance with this keymap is that MS Excel has something mapped to Ctrl-;, that's why I have this alternative layout with the dead key mapped to Ctrl-' (single quote)

us_gr0_4.zip

Both keymaps are most effective when remapping the Caps-Lock key to Left Control, e.g. via keytweak.

Using the above layout is so annoying with M$ products (mostly Word, Outlook and Excel) that I decided to change the layout.

• this KeyTweak Map maps the caps lock key to right alt key (which is ctrl+alt, at least on german systems). it also maps the calculator key to scroll lock, which I find rahter nifty
• this alternate layout us-gr-08.zip maps the diaeresis to Ctrl+Alt+' (single quote), which does not interfere with M$ Office. Combined with the above KeyTweaks map, I can just continue to type as before. The layout also has the Euro-sign at Alt+Ctrl+E.

While being a great linux keyboard, the Happy Hacking Lite 2 is not so great for working on windows, especially for left handed people (or anybody else who chooses to use the mouse with their left hand), because there's to control key on the right side of the keyboard, and you can't really use cut/copy/paste with the right hand because the control key on the left is to high up to be reached comfortably.

And then there's the issue of backspace and delete, if you set the dip switch to map the delete key to backspace, there's no delete key to be reached without the funtction modifier. Download KeyTweak and my re-map to achieve the following:

• Left and right alt keys are mapped to left and right control (so you have a control key on either lower side of the keyboard)
• Left and right windows keys are mapped to left and right alt (so the keys are, from outside to inside: Fn, Ctrl, Alt)
• The tilde '~' is mapped to Delete
• Caps Lock is mapped to Windows Key