Am Dienstag, 29. Mai 2012 um 11:30 schrieb Asmus Freytag: AF> Some of the features in those keyboard standards seem of sufficient AF> complexity that I can't imagine anyone other than specially trained AF> typists to ever be using them.
Exactly this user group is the primary audience for whom at leat the new German keyboard standard DIN 2137:2012 was developed. When you type a private SMS to your friend which contains an "ç", you may "picking characters" by holding your finger one second on the "c" on your iPhone, look which variants are displayed then near your finger, and then move your finger there accordingly. But if you are a secretary who has to deliver your 210 strokes per minute the whole working day from 9 to 5, this is no option. Then you are happy if you can rely on a new standard to write all names of your business partners in the European Union correct, just by learning some additional fingerings for your touch typing. AF> That would presumably dampen the AF> enthusiasm of anybody in the business of catering to "average users". As "average user", you can decide by yourself what (if any) of the added features you want to use, and you have the choice to learn only the characters which are important for you. E.g., if you are one of the 2 million Turks living in Germany, you may learn how to type çğıİş. If you are a Fraktur enthusiast, you probably will learn how to type the long s and how to work with the Zero Width Non-Joiner enterable by AltGr+".", without caring about the Turkish letters at all. If you care about typography, you may be happy that you now can type the true apostrophe and the en/em dashes with ease. If you care about nothing of these (or if you use such features only occasionally, thus a "character picker" is still a better tool for you), you can simply type like before (we deliberately changed no feature, but only added features, thus even for the touch typist, in no case a fingering was changed). - Karl