AZERTY
In 1976, a QWERTY layout adapted to the French language was put forward, as an experimental standard (NF XP E55-060) by AFNOR.This standard made provision for a temporary adaptation period during which the letters A, Q, Z and W could be positioned as in the traditional AZERTY layout.A circumflex can be generated by first striking the ^ key (located to the right of P in most AZERTY layouts), then the vowel requiring the accent (with the exception of y).In order to obtain characters, the Alt key must be pressed and held down while typing the relevant code into the numeric keypad.Additionally with the ibus input method framework enabled, users may enter these characters into those applications that accept it by using Ctrl+⇧ Shift+U followed by their Unicode code points: either AB or BB, respectively.In X11, the window system common to many flavors of UNIX, the keyboard interface is completely configurable, allowing each user to assign different functions to each key in line with their personal preferences.Apart from these gaps, the French AZERTY layout has some strange features which are still present in the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system: In January 2016, the French Ministry of Culture, which is in charge of language affairs, expressed a will to offer an alternative to the AZERTY layouts traditionally proposed by the industry.[5][8] The project, led by the French national organization for standardization AFNOR, released both this improved AZERTY and a BÉPO layout.It allows typing words in many languages using dead keys, which are in blue on the picture, to access a variety of diacritics.The Belgian AZERTY keyboard allows for the placing of accents on vowels without recourse to encoding via the Alt key + code.The key to the right of 0 on the numeric keypad corresponds either to the full stop or to the comma (which is why there are two distinct keyboard drivers under Windows).It is the only keyboard layout provided by Microsoft Windows that allows to type the grapheme "Œ/œ", needed by French spelling.Some programmers prefer it over AZERTY, as it is closer to an international standard and allows easier input of ASCII punctuation characters which are used pervasively in programming languages.As of 2024, only a few specialized manufacturers sell keyboards with the BÉPO layout printed on it; however, its practitioners use to type blindly, without looking at the keys, for increased efficiency, if at a higher learning cost.QWERTY and QWERTZ adaptations of the layout are available for the physical keyboards used by major Amazigh (Berber) communities around the world.
layoutLatin alphabettypewriterkeyboardslettersQWERTYFranceBelgiumDvorakBÉPO layoutde factoCulture MinistryFrench national organization for standardizationCaps lockAlt Gr keyAlt keywindowsdead keydiacriticsvowelscircumflexdiaresisgrave accentacute accentAlt codeoperating systemscharactersnumeric keypadGuillemetFrench CanadianUnix-likeX Window Systemkeyboard layoutMicrosoft Officenon-breaking spaceoperating systemOpenOffice.org WriterMicrosoft Windows VistaMinistry of Cultureguillemets « »alt codesdead keysFlandersFrenchthe keyboard layout of Portugalguillemets"US-International" QWERTY layoutprogramming languagesDvorak's principles for ergonomic typingtype blindly, without looking at the keysApple'sArabic keyboardArabicAfricanAlgeriaComorosDjiboutiMauritaniaMoroccoTunisiaArab communitiesTamazight (Berber)BerberTuaregTifinaghHigh Council for Amazighity (HCA)VietnameseGardey, DelphineWayback MachineSchofield, HughBBC News OnlineLatin scriptHistorySpreadRomanizationRoman numeralsAlphabetsClassical Latin alphabetISO basic Latin alphabetInternational Phonetic AlphabetX-SAMPASpelling alphabetMultigraphsDigraphsTrigraphsTetragraphsPentagraphsQWERTZColemakISO/IEC 646Western Latin character setsUnicodeDIN 91379: Unicode subset for EuropePrecomposed Latin characters in UnicodeLetters used in mathematicsList of typographical symbols and punctuation marksPalaeographyKeyboard layoutsBritish and AmericanIcelandicItalianPortugueseRomanianGermanAlbanianQZERTYnot QWERTY-likeSvorakHCESARBengaliDzongkha (Tibetan)InScriptMeitei (Manipuri)SinhalaChineseJapanesethumb-shiftDubeolsikIntellarkGeorgianHebrewRussian (pre-reform)Russian (post-reform)LetterWiseMulti-tapSureType