ficode

Why

The Finnish QWERTY keyboard layout is horrible

It's even horribler for writing code. Many of the most common symbols are on the AltGr layer behind some carpal tunnel acrobatics. The US QWERTY layout lacks Å, Ä and Ö.

• On the Finnish layout the brackets are a bane in the ärse. Repeatedly pressing AltGr with our thumb while reaching for 7890 with the same hand to get {[]} is beyond uncomfortable. It's difficult to come up with a worse configuration.
• \ is as bad, sitting next to 0 on the AltGr layer
• $ is also on AltGr, under 4. Instead on the Shift layer is this: ¤. Well, it's a currency symbol, but when has anyone ever used this? (What do I know, maybe your job is writing tables in Microsoft Word)??
• Using Shift and reaching up to 7 for / multiple times per filepath written is tedious.
• The backtick \ is a dead key: you have to press Shift and = (next to BackSpace) and finally Space to produce it. You use backticks all the time with Markdown and quoting string literals (in Go) etc. Instead its keyboard real estate is occupied by symbols § and ½. I think I once used § in 2019.
• Tilde ~ also dead.
• WHO NEEDS CAPSLOCK!?

What

Combine The Finnish and the US layouts into a better version

• []{} use the US layout positions.
• The symbol row is the same as US's excluding @. The ? is moved there instead. (Next to !, resembling 2?).
• Shifted , and . are Finnish: ; and :. Next to them forward slash /, which becomes backward slash \ when shifted. Nice.
• Ääkköset in their regular Finnish position, but Å & å moved to AltGr layer under o.
• Between Ä and Return there's the single quote '. Becomes " when shifted, naturally.
• <, >, and | are between z and Shift keys. (On ISO keyboards: ANSI vs. ISO)
• CapsLock is now Esc. Use it to exit Insert mode in Vim (First step of exiting Vim).

Default layer

,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,-------,
| ` | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | - | = | <-    |
|---'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-----|
| ->| | q | w | e | r | t | y | u | i | o | p | [ | ] |     |
|-----',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--'|    |
| Esc  | a | s | d | f | g | h | j | k | l | ö | ä | ' |    |
|----,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'---'----|
| LS | < | z | x | c | v | b | n | m | , | . | / |  Shift   |
|----'-,-',--'--,'---'---'---'---'---'---',--'---',--,------|
| Ctrl |  | Alt |                         | AltGr |  | Ctrl |
'------'  '-----'-------------------------'-------'  '------'

Shift layer

,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,-------,
| ~ | ! | ? | # | $ | % | ^ | & | * | ( | ) | _ | + | <-    |
|---'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-----|
| ->| | Q | W | E | R | T | Y | U | I | O | P | { | } |     |
|-----',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--'|    |
| Esc  | A | S | D | F | G | H | J | K | L | Ö | Ä | " |    |
|----,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'---'----|
| LS | > | Z | X | C | V | B | N | M | ; | : | \ |  Shift   |
|----'-,-',--'--,'---'---'---'---'---'---',--'---',--,------|
| Ctrl |  | Alt |                         | AltGr |  | Ctrl |
'------'  '-----'-------------------------'-------'  '------'

AltGr layer

,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,---,-------,
| ~ | ¡ | @ | £ | ¤ | ‰ | ^ |   | ∞ |   | ° | ˇ | ≠ | <-    |
|---'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-----|
| ->| | q | w | € | r | þ | y | u | i | å | p | [ | ' |     |
|-----',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--',--'|    |
| Esc  | α | s | d | f | g | h | j | k | l | œ | æ | ` |    |
|----,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'-,-'---'----|
| LS | | | ʒ | × | c | v | b | ŋ | µ | , | . | – |  Shift   |
|----'-,-',--'--,'---'---'---'---'---'---',--'---',--,------|
| Ctrl |  | Alt |                         | AltGr |  | Ctrl |
'------'  '-----'-------------------------'-------'  '------'

Pinky variant

• Ä and Ö swapped: Ä is much more common than Ö

Symbol variant

• Numbers are demoted to Shift layer

Quickstart

• Clone repo

git clone https://github.com/quunnb/ficode && cd ficode

• Copy files

# cp ficode /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/

• Load keymap

setxkbmap -config ficode.conf

TODO

• Consider adding more stuff to the AltGr layer