The following keyboard layouts offer practical functionality to Dvorak typists and users of small keyboards on macOS.
Since these layouts run on your macOS machine, they can be used simultaneously to any custom firmware you've installed on an external keyboard, no configuration necessary.
First, bundles need to be placed in the /Library/Keyboard Layouts
directory.
Restart your machine.
Then install the layout by navigating to System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard layouts
. Click on the +
button to add a new input source, then locate custom layouts in the bottommost Others
category.
Dvorak International
makes it easier to type a number of diacritics and accents used in French, Spanish, and other languages. It does this by imitating the same system of dead-keys which many QWERTY users know thanks to the U.S. International - PC
layout. These include the following:
'
for acute accent (é
) and cedilla (ç
)`
for grave accent (è
)^
for circumflex (ê
)"
for dieresis (ë
)~
for tilde diacritic (ñ
)
The layout also includes QWERTY commands.
30% International
is a diacritics-focused layout based on U.S. International
with small keyboards in mind (e.g. 30% or 40%). Its key features are the following:
- The layout offers the option to exclusively use alpha-block inputs for dead keys. This makes diacritics more accessible than in
U.S. International
, where characters like caret^
and tilde~
are used. 30% International
also includes additional inputs not included inU.S. International
in order to simplify typing guillemets and non-braking spaces.
The layout is meant to be used with external keyboards, and as such it is QWERTY; any alternate layouts can be implemented directly on the external keyboard's controller.
All regular international diacritics dead-keys remain; only additional alternatives are added. The following are the regular international dead-keys:
'
for acute accent (é
) and cedilla (ç
)`
for grave accent (è
)^
for circumflex (ê
)"
for dieresis (ë
)~
for tilde diacritic (ñ
)
New 30% dead-key alternatives for hard-to-access keys:
,
for grave accent (è
);
for circumflex (ê
):
for tilde diacritic (ñ
)
Additional features:
- The apostrophe key
'
produces a typographic apostrophe’
(U+2019
, or right single quotation mark) when tapped twice. - Using punctuation symbols like comma, colon, and semi-colon as dead keys does not impact the usual flow of writing since a space is automatically inserted behind them when they are terminated (spaces aren't added when others dead keys are terminated). This avoids having to hit the space bar twice in a row.
As an alternate approach for typing French accents on Dvorak, this layouts replaces the Dvorak number row with an AZERTY number row — or very nearly.
A few modifications have been made in order to make the number row more Dvorak compatible.
- Redundant characters are replaced (faded on the diagram above)
- An additional layer is added for more inputs and is activated with a dead key. Among other things, this layer makes typing uppercase accented letters more practical than in AZERTY.
Dvorak to QWERTY
allows an external Dvorak keyboard to be used as a QWERTY keyboard even if the QWERTY layout is not included in its firmware.
The layout achieves this conversion by mapping a QWERTY key's position to the QWERTY letter which occupies the position of that same key in the Dvorak layout.