People on non-US keyboard layouts, how do you use keybindings?

Question

Hello hackers,I have recently re-discovered my love for using my keyboard as my primary mean of on-screen navigation. However, it appears as if many (web) application shortcuts are not configured with an international audience in mind. Even more annoyingly, the option to change those keybindings seems to be increasingly rare.For me, using keyboard shortcuts for layer reordering in Figma is completely impossible due to the way [ & ] are pressed on a German keyboard. Even for everyday programming languages, commonly used keys such as "(){}[];" are in a less convenient position than they are on a US layout.So I am wondering, for anyone else who's used to a non-US layout, how do you deal with it? Do you remap key bindings? Do you adjust to not being able to use some shortcuts? Have you taught yourself using a different layout?I'm interested in your experiences!

DemocracyFTW2 · Accepted Answer

To me it looks indeed as if we after decades on computers are still grappling with two of its most fundamental tools, text input and text rendering. As Exhibit A I offer the almost unusable and bordering obsolete state of affairs around xmodmap &cpp on Linux; as Exhibit B, the soul crushing complexity yet utter failure that is fontconfig, and the community's denial of these two facts.