Lately, I've written about the ergonomics of the "6" key and given the vast popularity of that post, I decided to compare the ANSI and ISO keyboard layouts in the same manner from an ergonomics standpoint. Let's start with ANSI.
As you can see, the keys of the home row on which our fingers reside in touch typing position are filled with red. There's a thick red line in between to show the center of the keyboard for measurement purposes. I also painted Left Shift and Enter in green and Backslash in blue because these keys differ on ANSI vs ISO.
Now let's take a look at ISO.
(Please note that we won't provide a full-blown ISO layout, but a half-ISO layout featuring the extra ISO key and a bar-shaped Enter key.)
Now we have an extra ISO key painted in yellow, but Left Shift and Enter got farther from the center of the keyboard which is a bummer given their frequent use. How much farther, exactly?
| Enter distance | Left Shift distance | Backslash distance | |
| ANSI | 6 | 4.5 | 6.75 |
| ISO | 6.75 | 5.5 | 4.5 |
Based on the above, it's hard to argue that ISO is more ergonomical. Enter and Left Shift is pressed at least hundreds, if not thousands of times per day and they're about 1 unit (20 millimeters = 0.8 inch) farther from the center on the ISO layout. Backslash is closer by 1 unit and there's an extra ISO key but they aren't that frequently used so it's not a great tradeoff.
Regardless of ergonomics, many of you have made it clear that the ISO key is a necessity for you and some of you are too used to the L-shaped Enter and aren't willing to unlearn your muscle memory. I get it, we're creatures of habbits.
On the other hand, it's also interesting to see that a fair number of people use the opposite standard that they should be using based on their home country. For example, I as a Hungarian should use ISO but using ANSI. On the Hungarian layout the ISO key translates to "í" which is a Hungarian accented character, but I write Hungarian text almost solely with US characters, without accents. Also, as a developer, I strongly dislike that my native layout unnecessarily remaps dozens of characters like !, @, # compared to the standard US layout.
How about you in this respect? Let us know in the following poll until it's open!
80 Comments
Czech person here, here we also have standard ISO layout, I was really used to it because of my generic membrane keyboard. But one day I ordered a mechanical keyboard with ANSI layout, it was weird at first, I kept hitting backslash instead of enter all the time, but after some time with this layout I wouldn't go back.
Thanks for your story! It's pretty much how I transitioned from ISO to ANSI a long time ago.
Czech person, I'm used to ANSI layout since 90s and hate ISO for exact opposite reason. No matter what I try to write, I'm hitting backslash instead of enter and shift.
Hopefully Microsoft and Dell offer keyboards with ANSI layout. I don't think it's possible to buy any ANSI Czech keyboard from Logitech or Genius (likely most common brands).
By the way I remember keyboards with short backspace and backslash next to it or short right shift and backslash was rightmost key next to it.
Hello László!
I'm an ISO keyboard layout user (Spanish), I've been using ISO layout since the very beginning I started my computer related career. Wouldn't know if one layout is more ergonomic than the other, but definitely I find the ISO one to be more versatile / flexible; I say this because the ability of the ISO layout to adapt to many more different keymaps than the ANSI one, for example, I can map my ISO keyboard to the English (US, GB, etc.) language without losing any characters, but it isn't the same story the other way around, If I map any ANSI keyboard to the Spanish (Spain, Latin-America) language I wouldn't be able to use the '' characters (since they are assigned to that extra ISO key), and for that matter, would be the case for any language that uses more characters than the English language. That's whay I vote for the ISO layout, in my opinion, it can adapt to more keymaps without issues (or at least, less issues than the ANSI layout presents).
P.D. Maybe the bigger frequently pressed keys in the ANSI layout are easily to reach and find without looking and, like you say, minimize the fatigue, but after a while using an ISO keyboard, it is just a matter of time and muscle memory. Also, one always can map the Enlgish and "Native" keymaps in one's operating system, while using an ANSI keyboard and change to each keymap as needed, just to be able to write in the desired manner, but I tend to think that, that implies more strain to your fingers.
Thanks for the attention!
I love the UHKB concept!
Didn't scape the characters, but the '<' and '>' are lost on ANSI keyboards with a Spanish keymap.
The UHK is a little different in this respect because you can emit the scan code of the ISO key by binding it to Mod+Z for example. But in general, you're totally right.
Hi Alfonso!
Thanks for the detailed reasoning, it makes a lot of sense. ISO is certainly more flexible in this respect, no doubts about it.
I live in Brazil and we have the ABNT layout over here, which is a variation on a theme based on the ISO layout. The ABNT layout is great because it's the only way I can properly accentuate certain Brazilian Portuguese words. With that being said, I absolutely despise it. I've used ANSI since living in the US for some time, and using accentuation on my MBP with the pok3r just makes sense. I can't use the same method on my Windows desktop, however, but most word processors and browsers have autocorrect plugins to fix this while I type, and it makes no difference when I'm programming because you don't want to be using accentuation marks anyways.
I've programmed my pok3r to use HHKB Professional 2's layout, and it is the best layout I've ever used. Every time I go back to an ABNT keyboard I end up pressing Enter instead of backspace more times than I care to admit, and also pressing caps lock instead of control, which is simply annoying. That key shouldn't exist at all. Also, using an ABNT keyboard for an extended period of time gives me hand cramps because of the awkward placement of semicolon, forward and back slash, and interrogation keys. It's just a mess and the pinkies are definitely overloaded.
Thanks for your insight, Isaac! Your experience regarding ANSI vs ISO definitely reflects mine. Also, this is the first time I hear about ABNT.
I've had similar problems with caps lock on ISO but it's the best way by far to get capitalised umlauts, accented, circonflexed and tilde letters without relying on autocorrect.
The argument presented in the blog that ANSI is more ergonomic than ISO may be true for people who use a standard keyboard with standard mappings. But surely the whole point of the UHK is that it attracts people who want a more ergonomic and optimized experience. Such people are less likely to just accept the default mappings anyway.
I would argue that the whole idea of using pinkies for shift keys is flawed. Given that the UHK is configurable, I wouldn't totally buy this "left shift is further away in ISO argument". One possibility I would be strongly interested in is to define the left space bar to be a shift key, so that it could be easily pressed with the left thumb.
The fact that there are many more thumb keys is a great feature of the UHK. Thumb keys are definitely the way to go for modifiers in my view. I would use the ISO version but it would certainly not be less ergonomic when used with my mappings!
Very good point, Steve! It definitely makes sense to bind Shift to some of the thumb keys. There are people who take this idea even futher. For example, John Lindquist has come up with a very original layout in which Shift, Ctrl, Alt is bound to S, D, F on the Mod layer.
I'm Italian, I use both ISO and ANSI layout. I find ANSI better by far for coding, but ANSI is also terrible for writing, accents and apostrophes need 2 key strokes and writing something like c'é («there is» in Italian), so a quite common word combination I have to do 5 strokes on ansi (c+mute ' + space + mute ' + e) versus 3 on italian-ISO keyb.
The «ç» and «§» symbol are now possible only by a combo, of course uncommon, but I use them quite often in my passwords, just because are shift + key symbols.
But with ansi I earned ~ symbol (on italian iso i have to use ALT+126 or the charmap) «» and «`» (backquote) that I've never know their existence before I had an ANSI «backquote».
In everyday life I configure italian or US-international layout on italian iso keyboard so I have efficency when programming and and also when writing. Only on my desktop I have full ANSI, but it's only to get used with that layout.
PS never had problem hitting backslash instead of enter or backspace when looking for ì.
The only 2 things I find really frustrating on ANSI is that arithmetic symbols are farther then on Italian ISO and the absence of the «» key next left-shift. that button, for me, is thousand time mor useful than having bigger shifts
Same feeling for me: used to Italian ISO layout due to the need of accented letters (à, è, é, ì, ò and ù) for daily writing (emails and the like).
Being a software developer, I'm not using § and ç at all, but as for you I need the backtick (`), tilde (~) that I have configured using the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator, mapping them with Alt+' (for `) and Alt+ì (for ~).
Having a self-programmable board, with onboard memory would be lovely. And even though I'd need and extra software to program/customize the UHK, I think it seems a great keyboard, worth trying, at least.
After 20+ years on a IBM Model M, I'm now on a FILCO Majestouch-2 TKL but wondering about the UHK because of the plain PBS quality of the caps, that started shining right after a week or two of usage. Then everything else is perfectly fine, though.
But this, the layout and keycaps, is quite a showstopper for me: not having my usual layout but moslty I want my accented letters and the like on the keycaps. Even if I'm not touch-typing as in http://xahlee.info/kbd/how_to_touch_type.html), I'd love to see the right letters in the right places on the keyboard.
It's worth noting that unlike the UHK 60 v1, the UHK 60 v2 contains PBT keycaps that will never get shiny. We plan to offer additional keycap sets in the future, but I'm sorry to say that Italian is not planned because the demand is too low to make them financially feasible.
Yes, I know László. Thanks.
That's the main reason why it was very hard for me to find a proper mechanical keyboard and all my first choices had to be discarded.
Are UHK keycaps compatible with something? Cherry probably?
Please see https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/layout-and-keycaps for details, Marco.
Hi, I'm Czech and I think I haven't encountered many ISO keyboards in my life even though it is supposed to be the standard here. I am used to ANSI and I prefer it over ISO. Now that I think about it, right shift is so far away from the home row, ANSI is not perfect either :P
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but 90% keyboards in shops are ISO :)
In European shops, this may be the case. :)
[…] right half still being wider than the left). As a result the L shaped Enter key would have been too small to be truly […]
Living in Canada, I have to use both English and French. Since the ANSI layout for French is complete bullcrap, I bought an ISO keyboard and use both Canadian French CSA and International English on it. Now, all I don't have to deal with pressing random keyboard shortcuts for typing accents for French. Typing English is no problem because I already have muscle memory from ANSI, just need to stretch my pinkies a little further. Sure, ANSI is generally more comfortable for one language, but it's absolute hell for two.
In Canada we transitioned to ISO layouts on laptops a few years ago, to my horror (likely because of the fact we're a bilingual company and it's cheaper to offer an ISO that can do both English and French that an ANSI which is usually only decent for English).
I had so much pain in my pinky joints from stretching to reach the enter key and the shift properly that I had to wear braces.
So I remapped the keys using a program called SmartKeys. So the backslash next to the left shift is now a left shift and the backslash next to the right enter is now right enter (the backslash - which I barely use - is one of the F keys now). I also remapped my delete key to be closer to my arrow keys since I do a lot of Excel work. It's saved me money since I don't have to do physiotherapy and I can actually type for long periods now.
Thanks for sharing your story, Jen! It's quite dramatic that the placement of merely two keys (left Shift and Enter) can cause a major injury. I'm glad you managed to solve the problem by remapping your layout. Smart move!
The "extra ISO" key is not present on every EU keyboard, only on some of them and is indeed horrible, I don't like it. It doesn't even have any function because the | are present on different keys as well :P so the most of keyboards drop this key. In my country we use US layout but you can buy either ISO or ANSI keyboards and I've always been a huge fan of ANSI but when I got a laptop with ISO keyboard (unfortunately one with the extra key :() I quickly got used to the ISO enter which is much more convenient because is much bigger.
A video about that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tJagPz-xIw&index=2&list=PL-OyjG9anZELdUONG_zL2XzPLl7PRL9-T
Just thinking about which UHK to get and game across this post. Despite living in the US, where (of course) the standard is ANSI, I'm thinking to get the ISO (or rather half-ISO) UHK. It appears from the wear marks that for left shift I nearly exclusively use the portion covered by the "ISO" key. Tell the UHK to use that for L-shift, and I've got a spare key to play with, especially since I can't think why one should ever have much reason to hit the space between the keys. If touch typing, you'll hit the ISO key, while coming from the edge for random presses, you hit the other key, but that isn't too important for normal use - or if you want it, you can just map both to L-shift.
All in all, I think the half-ISO UHK is probably the best possible option without completely doing away with the staggered typewriter legacy (or should that be curse?). I had a typematrix I liked, so I look forward to the day when the non-staggered UHK is available.
Hi Tor! Based on the wear marks of your keyboard and your preferences, I believe half-ISO is the right choice for you. We plan to create a UHK with a columnar layout in the future but not anytime soon. Thanks for considering to support us, and have a great day!
I use Fedora Linux where I can set extra iso key to behave like AltGr. Then, I set ISO shift level 3 so right hand home row behave like arrow keys, upper row like navigation keys, m key behaves like backspace and n like delete. That way my hands almost never leave home row.
Your layout does make sense to me, although I believe that the thumb is a much more ergonomic candidate when it comes to a frequent layer switcher key.
hello,
i am an israeli and i don't know what the default keyboard layout is because we have both here.
i have used both and i feel that ansi is a lot better than iso because the shift key is longer and that is more comfortable to me .
its a shame in my opinion that people use iso when ansi is much better.
If it is your PC then you can rebind key to behave like Shift key with AutoHotkey on Windows or editing layout file on Linux. Then You can rebind left shift key to behave like AltGr :) Sky is the limit when you start to hack keyboard layouts. In that matter ISO layout is better - one modifier key for free.
still not the same as having a single long shift key
Hungarian reader here, just found this 2-year old discussion via DuckDuckGo. It's a small world. I just want to add that I'd love to live in a world where the ANSI layout is much more widespread and accessible to buy, including on laptops. Clearly, the people developing the ISO standard had no clue about ergonomics, which is not at all unheard of in the world of ergonomics and standards affecting the lives of billions (I'm thinking of you, USB).
Because, what percentage of the world uses ISO and what percentage of the world uses ANSI? I see a problem/opportunity here.
By all seriousness, where should we (people) petition about this untenable situation for a change? I mean, USB-A is being phased out (sooner or later) for good, but this bad keyboard standard might as well haunt for a long, long time.
A big shootout to Laszlo for bringing this project alive!
Hi there, and thanks for the nice words!
I don't expect people to ditch ISO if favor of ANSI just because it can be proven that it's more ergonomical. People are creatures of habits, otherwise everyone would be using columnar keyboards from a pure ergnomics perspective. :)
:) talking about what is more ergonomic on standard, staggered row keyboard, is like talking does it hurt less being stabbed with flat head or phillips head screwdriver. I really hope that in the project road map is ortholinear or staggered column layout.
A columnar UHK version is very much planned. :)
Is a columnar layout still planned for UHK?
Yes, but we can't provide an ETA.
In Europe, we have a messy plethora of different keyboard layouts. As a programmer, I switched to EurKey, which is just a US keyboard, but all umlauts, accented letters, and so forth from the different European langues can be accessed by pressing the ALT-key. It works great for me for my occasional German (or French) letter, but would be interested in your experiences.
Haven't heard about EurKey yet, but it makes a lot of sense to me as a Hungarian user. On the Hungarian keyboard layout, accented letters are crowded in the upper right region of the keyboard, which results in a very cumbersome typing experience. The reason I wouldn't use EurKey is because there are easier to remember mappings for Hungarian. As a matter of fact, I planned to create such a mapping for my UHK, but don't really need it, because I use accents so rarely. I'd map e to é, and a to á, for example, but I'd probably use many EurKey key mappings as they are. I think EurKey makes the most sense when one has to use multiple European layouts.
I also think that the UHK has a great potential to enhance the EurKey experience compared to regular keyboards. It'd probably makes sense to bind the default top Mod and top Space keys to the Mod layer, the bottom Space and bottom Mod keys to the Fn layer, and bind EurKey keys to the Fn layer. Alternatively, it'd make sense to map top thumb keys to the Fn layer and bottom thumb keys to the Mod layer according to the preference of the user. This'd allow for reaching accented letters via thumb keys, instead of the much harder to reach AltGr, enhancing the typing experience significantly.
Dear Laszlo,
You may want to get into contact with the developer of EurKey: https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu/
Best Ben
Thanks Ben, appreciate the link!
ISO vs ANSI, for the location of the Enter key does not really matter: Enter is not used so frequently and generally it is even a good thing to have it a bit farther from the center, to avoid pressing it by error (and submitting data too early): even if you don't reach the Enter key when you wanted and type the last alphanum key to right of the rest row, it is still easy to correct.
However there are other more useful keys that should remain accessible:
- Backspace should be long enough (it is much more frequently needed than Enter itself) : adding another key to reduce its length is a bad idea
- Placing the extra "ISO" key reducing the left shift is a bad idea, this key (rarely used) should have better been placed by reducing the length of the RIGHT SHIFT, by putting this ISO key to the right of the right shift key: it would still be long enough for everything, and the two shift keys would be more balanced and centered on the keyboard.
- The space bar should remain centered (its center should be exactly at the same horizontal position as the center of the main rest keys (F and J): ISO incorrectly suggested adding the [Fn] to the left of the the space bar instead of to the right:
- to avoid reducing again the lenghth of the left control key (used in very frequent shortcuts and sometimes pressed by the palm rather the smallest finger of the left hand), manufacturers have decentered moved the space bar (notably since the introductiion of the [Windows] key that has also reduced the space bar, needlessly on BOTH sides when we just clearly need only one!)
So in summary:
- the [Enter] key on two rows (with shorter width on the rest row) is a good decision (the alphanum key above it on US keyboard is needlessly long and inacessible, when it is used for more frequently used punctuation or asterisk). It is reasonnable to have to move the right hand a bit before pressing [Enter], but it is stiull reasonnably accessible with the rightmost small finger of the right hand, on one of the two rows
- the [Backspace] key should remain long, with 3 keys (not more) after the [9] key on the top row (only Japanese keyboards will place an extra Kana mode key by reducing it on the right side to fit a standard-size or narrow key)
- the [extra ISO] key of all international keyboards should have been placed to the right of the [Right shift] key. If you don't want that, then use that position to place the [Fn] Key, or to fit some cursor keys (such as [Insert]) on compact keyboard (laptops)
- there should be NO MORE than 3 keys on the left side of the space bar: [Left Ctrl], [Left Win], [Left Alt]. Note that the [Left Win] key can be narrower to have the [Left Ctrl] a bit larger and more accessible for frequent combinations (text selection and shortcuts).
- the [Space Bar] MUST be centered with [F] and [J], starting below the center of [X] to preserve its length. Ban those keyboards that offset the space bar (especially on Japanese layouts that now use really too short and decentered Space bar: Japanese needs spaces frequently even if this is not the case for typing only Kanas, or Kanjis with an IME !)
- you can easily fit 5 keys to the right of this long spacebar: [AltGr], up to three modifiers keys (no alphanum character), and [Right Ctrl].
- the [Right Ctrl] MUST remain at end (except if you need to fit a cursor keypad on laptop)!
- [Left Alt] and [AlrGr/Right Alt] must remain sticked to the centered spacebar. They need to a be bit larger than alphanum keys to allow easy combinations with alphanum keys.
- One of the modifiers is taken by the new [Menu/App] key, there still remains 2 positions for the Japanese keys, you don't need a second [Win] key, and one of these keys can be the [Fn] key.
- on Japanese keyboards, the [Fn] key can be placed elsewhere (to fit the two extra mode keys), on the row of small keys for F1..F12.
- you can do it also on non-Japanese keyboards if you really want the second [Win] key on the right of the [space bar], or you want to pack a cursor keypad on compact (laptop) keyboards to fit the [up cursor] key - You never need the [Fn] for typing text fast in any layout !
- On Mac keyboards, the [Cmd/Apple] key replaces the [Win] key, but also you don't need to have two [Cmd/Apple] keys, the [Alt] key is replaced by [Option].
- Shortcuts are modified in applications (press Cmd+C maps physically like Win+C on the layout, but maps to be equvalent in software as Ctrl+C) ;
- as a Mac does not have a [App/Menu] key, the [Option] key can be moved to the right where you would find an [App/Menu] key on PC keyboard, so the [Left Alt] key (unused in MacOS UI), can also be kept to the left of the space bar, symetric to the [AltGr] key. MacOS applications may then accept [Alt] or [Cmd/Apple/Win] as equivalent.
For me as a big-handed Mac user, ANSI has one huge advantage over ISO: the window-swapping key combination on a mac is Command-˜. On an ISO keyboard, the ˜ key is located on the row immediately above command, and slightly to the left. This makes it an extremely awkward combination. On ANSI, it's top left, just below ESC and above Tab, which you use to swap between apps – a logical location. Of course, this is primarily due to Apple's US-centric key combinations, but in daily life it makes all the difference in the world
I used and still use quite unique keyboard (everything changes... everything but my keyboard) layout for most of my life and now it would be hard to change. For most of the time I do not look on keyboard while I type (I do it mostly in cases when I do not remember where is rarely used by me symbol or I'm terribly tired and make too many mistakes without looking).
It's basically ISO key layout with ANSI symbols layout. Theoretically there is ISO based layout for Poland but it's rather trivia because I haven't met single peson using it. Everybody is using ANSI based one.
I wouldn't have problem with ANSI keyboard if not old injury of right hand that makes it quite uncomfortable to use small ANSI enter. As to ISO key - I do not remember using it single time other than checking if it works after general cleaning of keyboard.
Getting new keyboard with identical layout is impossible for me (I could buy ISO keyboard and ANSI keycaps, but it would be expensive or just do not care about it, but it would annoy me). Finding ISO mechanical keyboard is enough of problem on it's own.
I'm a ISO user (Italian), I'm stick with it, but I made a couple of modifications: I added backtick and tilde (mysteriously missing on italian layout), and also made a "meta" dead keys to insert stressed (upercase) letters. So now I can insert stressed letter and also the ability to insert the accent with only a single keystroke. I tryed ansi but I'm unconfortable with it as almost everythong is in misplaced compared to IT layout.
If you want to try my "customized Italian layout" here is the driver on github: https://github.com/DavideDaSerra/Italian-Programmer-Layout.
Anyway I don't think a layout is superior to another, it's only a matter of what someone is used to.
I wonder why the appearance of the ISO layout of UHK 60 in the shop seems to differ from that ISO layout shown in this article. What is now the truth: does the ISO layout UHK has really a different ENTER key like shown above or is the ultimatehackingkeyboard shop right where there is just the left SHIFT key split into two keys?! So I would have an extra key and could easily remap the upper left key to ESC. In this case I would really prefer the ISO layout for that extra key ....
The shop page is the correct one. The ISO layout has the same bar shaped Enter as the ANSI layout. There's the extra ISO key next to the left Shift, and you can easily remap the upper left key to Esc. Please read the product description of the UHK60 for more.
My current, non-uhk keyboard (I haven't bought on yet) Combines the worst of both keyboards.
I don't have the extra ISO key (good or bad is subjective).
But my Enter key englobes both, it contains the lower bar of ANSI, and the top part of ISO. Instead, that missing key is subtracted from my backspace.
Basically, I have no yellow key, the green part in both pictures are morphed together, and my backspace is split into the blue key and backspace.
I find the UHK very interesting, but I would miss the num block that is on my laptop. I am German but because most of my writing is done in English my keyboard is US international ANSI. However my OS is UK English. A combination that seems to be quite common in India, but Microsoft kindly corrects that a couple of times per day and switches over to the UK keyboard layout. For the German umlauts and other accented letters I use the Alt + ascii on the num pad. A bit old fashioned I guess but fast.
Glad you find the UHK interesting, Vera! It's possible to set up macros with the UHK to invoke Alt codes with a touch of a keypress or key combination, so the num pad is not actually needed for this use case. You can set up Mod+0 for example to trigger the Alt code of the umlaut character. I've written an article on the subject which you're welcome to read.
I suggest you to do a 'custom' remap on alt-gr layer, I did it on my italian layout to have back-tik (`) and tilde (~), characters missing from standard IT layout, ...but we still have the very useful (§) and (ç). I added also uppercase srtoked letters and 'dead key' mode to some of my keys. I suggest you, to apply dieresis when writing German, to just set the colon (:) key as dead-key when combined with altgr, then 'combining' it with vowels to print modified characters. In this case you have to push (altgr)+(:) then hit the vowel you need the dieresis on. To do this I used (and I suggest you to use) the free MS tool: Microsoft Layout Creator. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=22339
Using that, once it made your custom layout file, you can save it and use it on all PCs you need
How do I scroll with the trackpoint? Normally it's performed by holding the middle button, but there's no such button on UHK trackpoint module.
You'll be able to move the pointer vs scroll on a per layer basis. For example, hold Mod while using the trackpoint to scroll.
The only keyboard layout suitable for efficient typing here in Croatia is ISO layout with big Enter, small left Shift and AltGr but these are not easy to find anymore. 90% of keyboards these days in the stores are ANSI and even if there is some ISO keyboard it has big left Shift (no additional key right to the left Shift) or the Enter is inverted (in that case the last button in the 2nd row is moved to the place of the right Shift which is then smaller than it should be) or the keyboard does not have additional Croatian layout labels. This is the only layout which works well for using in Croatia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTZ#South_Slavic_Latin (the '' labels are missing from ',' and '.' keys, these can be typed both by using AltGr or by directly pressing the key next to the left Shift).
I understand the need for the extra ISO key next to the small left Shift for Croatian users, but ther other criterias shouldn't be nearly as important. AltGr is simply the right Alt key - it just so happens that the right Alt is labelled as AltGr on some keyboards. The L-shaped Enter key shouldn't be required either - if you can't or don't want to retrain your muscle memory then you can simply exchange the mapping of Ž (which is labelled as "\" until we offer a Croatian layout) and the bar-shaped Enter on the UHK.
Italian here, we also have the Big enter key, and the 'ù' occupying space of the iso-enter key...
So personally the miss of the l-shaped enter key is the reason why I didn't get the UHK yet (although following the project since it's early days) :-(
I can imagine that from an ergonomics point of view it's better not to have it, but the main problem I have (and I assume others as well) is that when I'm typing with ISO keyboards, even if mapping the 'ù' to the '\' would still create an issue, as I also tend to hit enter key with my annular, and so hitting the space that would be now occupied by the 'ù'.
So not only, the muscle memory will be broken by switching to 'ù' to '\' position, but I'd either would loose a key or need to re-adapt.
Another big reason is that I'm often switching from a docked-laptop setup with external keyboard to the laptop keyboard (thinkpads only) setup, and indeed you don't want your habits to change when switching your machines.
You could get any ISO keyboard and, eventually, replace the keycaps (or just use it as 'blank' keyboard).
EX: you could get an Italian, German, Swiss or British keyboard and just use it with the croatian layout.
PS: I hate the fact that here in Italy some laptop manifacturers (notabily HP) are switching from ISO to ANSI removing the right control an placing there the 'key next to left shift'
I prefer ISO just because I can have an actual Slovenian layout, to figure out the binds I'd have to go key by key what it does and the ž is so far away on ansi it's crazy. I also like the big enter key, I often press it on the top row, meaning I'd press ž instead of enter a lot of the time. And for I find myself searching for certain things like crazy because the bids are totally different than the markings and different than on ISO... I guess I'll just have to get used to it -.- but I really, really hate it, from the bottom of my heart I HATE it, the only upside is that it'll be easier to find new keycaps and keyboards in the future.
I’m using a custom ISO-based layout where the extra key is mapped to all sorts of quotation marks, ‘’“”„“«». OTOH I’m so used to the ISO Enter I don’t know how long would it take to get used to the flat one.
Brit here. I learnt to touchtype on a ANSI keyboard. I refuse to use an ISO layout and carry an Apple ANSI US qwerty keyboard with me from job to job. To worsen matters I live in Belgium where they love their ISO azerty hellboard :-)
I generally use the Swiss German keyboard layout (ISO) and without switching keyboard layouts you can type any symbol in English, Italian, French, German (except ß, which Switzerland doesn't use) and Spanish without alt-codes which is really nice. The enter key on ISO is usually 1.5 keys wide at the narrowest part on keyboards so the narrow enter key argument seems a little moot. Also it's nice to have a double-tall enter key because you make less mistakes when the enter key is one of the largest keys on the keyboard. I've tried ANSI and losing \ mapped to the ISO key is really bad when programming. Regarding the short shift, that's rarely a problem because from my experience I put my pinky on the left outer edge of the shift key anyways.
Hello, I'm José Massano, and I from Portugal,
In My country the keyboard layout frequent is ISO. But I bought a new computer, HP 15-da0036np, 399€ (4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, Intel Celeron N4000 @1,10 GHz to @2,50 GHz and Intel UHD 600). With ANSI layout in PT-PT.
Firstly I was weird, because enter key, left shift, and the key is next to Alt Gr.
After 4-6 weeks I acostumated and prefere ANSI than ISO layouts because is more simple for me.
Conclusion, for Portuguese Layouts: ANSI (line enter) only with 5%, JIS (L inverted enter) with 25% and the ISO are in remaining.
That's is my history about layouts, and specially keyboards.
#stayathome!
PS:\ I not know much english, but I think you will know.
ANSI is a joke, after all americans can't spell, so why should we care. And they never went to the moon. ISO is an international standard, it does what it says on the tin.
I'm with the "ISO key + two-row enter" crowd. I really like the UHK concept and would be glad to own one, if only there was a "full-ISO"-version, if you will.
Have you considered using alternate bridging in that area? Basically, two keys (where the "backslash"/blue button is in the two layouts, with a stabilizer in the bottom/right-most part of the enter key. Then you'd need two sets of keycaps, one with the ISO enter and one with the ANSI enter, and possibly a firmware for either. Still, it should be possible to provide the choice for us.
Please? :)
Hi Kristoffer, and thanks for your interest! We've considered the suggested option, and decided to not provide an L-shaped Enter version. Enter and backslash can be exchanged in Agent our configurator which can be useful for some.
Hi László
I bought the ANSI version because I thought I can use key combinations with the Mod key to replace the missing physical keys but I cant figure out how to do that?
So for example, how can I map the physical keyboard shortcut "Mod + z" to send the scancode 94 (to make my laptop type a backslash, based on my keyboard layout)? I know about macros but they work only in theory, because if you work remotely on different kinds of operating systems (windows, linux, ...) this is not a viable solution (and it feels like a workaround and not like "remap your keys in any way you want").
Generally I love the UHK but it is not usable in my day to day work life because I have to switch to my laptop keyboard to type some keys...
Thanks for your help
Hi Raphael! In the scancode dropdown you have to choose the "| ISO" item.
Thanks for your fast reply! I tried that before, unfortunately this does not work. With the Swiss German keyboard layout this types a dollar sign. It seems to send the keycode 51:
KeyPress event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0xa800001,
root 0x180, subw 0x0, time 19810840, (198,-15), root:(198,103),
state 0x0, keycode 51 (keysym 0x24, dollar), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (24) "$"
XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (24) "$"
XFilterEvent returns: False
Oh wait!! Sorry I did not press the "Save to keyboard button"! It does work :-) Sorry about that and thanks!!!
I *just* found out about this project and I'm so glad I finally found a keyboard that has everything. Well, almost. You seemed to do your research about the ISO/ANSI enter key, but it might be that you missed couple of details. I tried switching to ANSI keyboards for couple of times and for me there are few problems I'm still facing (and after couple of years trying I just use ISO and keep hoping for some keyboard(s) to buy). First of all it's not only about the enter key. If you are typing a lot of pipe characters it is very frustrating not to be able to write those for some time. Another point is that to properly retrain yourself (at least what I am thinking) you would have to replace nearly all the keyboards used which, for some people, is not that easy to do with a pair of laptops and couple of workstation stations. If you guys ever start offering (even with other caveats like a need to replace it myself because there are two keys under the bar enter or increased price) count me in. Until then, I really like what you did here, have a great life, just a shame this one thing is missing.
I had much hope in the new revision, but looks like even v2 won't make us happy.
Very interesting post with 5 years of comments 😁
I am a french developper and I'm tired of having to use Shit and alt+gr for everything...
In addition, I am typing Chinese and Japanese more and more, and the default Win10 IME input is QWERTY
IMO the best option for a french programmer is... the ANSI UK keyboard layout 😋
BTW, everyone, I abandoned the hope, completely changed my view, and bought the ZSA Moonlander Mark I. It is not GPL'd, as far as I know, but fully supports QMK and now I do not care about the enter any more as relearning the whole layout works way better than relearning two keys (at least for me). But most important is the ortholinear (columnar) layout.
[…] though comes with a bar-shaped return key. The founder of UHK has an excellent article ANSI or ISO? Which keyboard is more ergonomic that is worth a read. In a nutshell, ISO layouts force you to move further left and right hundreds […]
As a german programmer I use neo-layout which is based on a ISO layout with more MOD keys and is very ergonomic because all keys, even the arrow keys, are reachable from the main row. The use of the L shaped return key is here also less frequent but the moved backslash is used as MOD3 for the different brackets and the little finger is used more often.
Polish here. Mostly we use ANSI keyboards. I live in the UK and I really hate slim ENTER and too short left SHIFT keys here (especially playing games). Now I'd like to buy a new laptop and I think I will do it in Poland just because of the keybord layout.
ANSI is horrible for custom layouts. ISO gives ability to move keys further to right and place punctuation in the middle (it's really convient)
ANSI for me. As you say, the enter and shift keys are used extremely frequently. Having to stretch our weakest and shortest fingers to reach these 2 keys is a major design flaw.
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