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Main projects
CortLayout
| State: | active |
| Timeframe: | since June 2005 |
| Project type: | internal |
| Client: | — |
| Role: | designer |
| Languages: | Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator |
Description
CortLayout is an alternative keyboard layout created with the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator.
The US keyboard layout is vastly superior for software development, but most German users avoid it because they can't
type the German umlauts and other special characters on it.
CortLayout is a US keyboard layout with added German and French umlauts and other non-English characters. It also includes some common
typography characters which are unfortunately not commonly available on keyboard layouts, despite being supported by most fonts.
The general layout can be looked up in the screenshots below. The alphabet keys are almost the same as on the German
keyboard, just 'y' and 'z' are switched over. Software developers will love to hear that the so important ';' is right
under your pinky finger. '[', ']', '{' and '}' don't require pressing AltGr—I always feel like breaking my hand when
trying to type those on a German keyboard. For '[' and ']' you don't even have to press Shift. '(' and ')' are moved one
key to the side, which takes a while to get used to, but doesn't make a difference for typing.
Even admins using the console a lot will enjoy this a lot, because both '/' and '\' don't require any modifier.
Now to the umlauts. There are two ways to enter them. You can either press the respective character ('a', 'e', 'u') with the AltGr modifier (AltGr-'a' = 'ä', etc.) or you can use the dead keys. Dead keys are keys that don't directly show any output when you press them, but wait for the next button you press and show a result depending on that. There are three dead keys on CortLayout:
- Dead key #1, the \-key right left of or right above the Enter key [labelled '#' on my German keyboard]: creates umlauts when followed by 'a', 'o', 'u', 'A', 'O', 'U' and the 'ß' when followed by an 's'. (Example: \, Shift-a = Ä)
- Dead key #2, the '-key when pressed with AltGr (for acute accents) or Shift-AltGr (for grave accents) [labelled 'ä' on German keyboards]: allows you to enter various accented characters from French and other languages. (Example: AltGr-Shift-', e = è)
- Dead key #3, the `-key (labelled '^' on German keyboards): can be used to enter characters with a circumflex. (Example: `, o = ò)
Additional typography characters (Germans can read up on proper German typography here):
- '–' (Ctrl--): the n-dash, a longer dash
- '—' (Ctrl-Shift--): the m-dash, an even longer dash
- '•' (Ctrl-Alt--): a dot to be used in enumerations
- '…' (Ctrl-.): a proper ellipsis, the official typography character that should be used instead of three periods
- '»', '«' (Ctrl-[ / Ctrl-]): alternative quotation marks
All the AltGr functionality can also be reached by pressing Ctrl and Alt.
Please note that if some characters don't appear on your screen (or only as squares), the font used might just not contain the respective character.
Screenshots
Screenshot 1: The keyboard layout without any modifiers.
Screenshot 2: The keyboard layout with the Shift modifier.
Screenshot 3: The keyboard layout with the AltGr (or Ctrl+Alt) modifier.
Screenshot 4: The keyboard layout with the AltGr and Shift (or Ctrl-Alt-Shift) modifiers.
Screenshot 5: The keyboard layout with the Ctrl modifier.
Screenshot 6: The keyboard layout with the Ctrl and Shift modifiers.
Screenshot 7: The options for dead key #1 (the backslash key).
Screenshot 8: The options for dead key #2 (apostrophe with AltGr on the left, with AltGr+Shift on the right).
Screenshot 9: The options for dead key #3 (the grave accent key).
Downloads
| Name | Version | Application type | Distribution type | Release date | Release Notes | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CortLayout | 1.0 | Windows keyboard layout | KLC-generated installer in ZIP archive | 2005-10-14 |  |
 0.25MB |