"United Kingdom Extended - Enhanced" keyboard layout
====================================================

This package contains the installer for the "United Kingdom Extended - Enhanced" keyboard layout.  Run setup.exe to install the keyboard layout.

By the way, this keyboard layout was created using the fantastic 'Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator' tool, downloadable at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8BE579AA-780D-4253-9E0A-E17E51DB2223&displaylang=en
This keyboard layout is a small modification of the "United Kingdom Extended" keyboard layout, extended by Jez:

United Kingdom
   |
   +--- United Kingdom Extended
           |
           +--- *United Kingdom Extended - Enhanced*



Why does one need this keyboard layout?  It's a great extension of the default United Kingdom keyboard layout, that allows for a wealth of accents to be added to Latin characters, allowing many European language accents to be typed easily.  But what's wrong with the regular "United Kingdom Extended" keyboard layout?  Here are the descriptions of the keyboard layouts upon which this one is based:



"United Kingdom"
The United Kingdom and Ireland use a keyboard layout based on the 48-key version defined in British Standard BS 4822. It is very similar to that of the United States, but has an extra key, includes  and  signs and some rarely used EBCDIC symbols (, ), and uses different positions for the characters @, ", #, ~, \, |. See the article British and American keyboards for details.

The BS 4822:1994 standard does not make any use of the AltGr key and lacks support for any non-ASCII characters other than  and . It also assigns a key for the non-ASCII character broken bar (), but lacks one for the far more commonly used ASCII character vertical bar (|). It also lacks support for Welsh orthography. Therefore, various manufacturers have modified or extended the BS 4822 standard:

    * The B00 key (left of Z) shifted results in vertical bar (|) on some systems (e.g., Microsoft Windows' UK/Ireland keyboard layout and Linux/X11 UK/Ireland keyboard layout), rather than the broken bar () assigned by BS 4822 and provided in some systems (e.g., OS/2's UK166 keyboard layout)
    * The E00 key (left of 1) with AltGr provides either vertical bar (|) (OS/2's UK166 keyboard layout, Linux/X11 UK keyboard layout) or broken bar () (Microsoft Windows' UK/Ireland keyboard layout)



"United Kingdom Extended"
    * Windows XP SP2 and later also offer a "United Kingdom Extended" keyboard layout which allows input for many languages (including Welsh, a UK language) without changing any of the allocations of frequently-used keys (the rarely-used grave accent key becomes a dead key). In particular, the apostrophe key is not changed into a dead key modifying the character generated by the next key pressed, as used by the US International layout.

The grave accent becomes a dead key which adds a grave accent to a subsequent a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,or Y, generating , , etc.

a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,Y with acute accent (, , etc.) are generated either by pressing AltGr and the relevant character key simultaneously, or AltGr and apostrophe (acting as a dead key combination) followed by the character. Some programs assign functions to the combination of AltGr and a letter, in which case the AltGr and apostrophe method must be used to generate acute accents.

AltGr and 6 acts as a dead key combination to add a circumflex to a subsequent a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,Y (, , etc.). The shifted 6 key generates the caret (^), which looks like a circumflex.

AltGr and 2 acts as a dead key combination to add a diaeresis to a subsequent a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,Y (, , etc.). The shifted 2 key on a UK keyboard generates the double quote ("), which looks a bit like a diaeresis.

AltGr and hash (#) acts as a dead key combination to add a tilde (~) to a subsequent a,n,o,A,N,O (, , etc.). The shifted # key on a UK keyboard generates the tilde character (~).

With Windows versions newer than Windows XP SP2, AltGr and c or C will generate the  or  (cedilla) characters, respectively.


"United Kingdom Extended - Enhanced"
Now, "United Kingdom Extended" nearly got it all right, but for one thing.  Notice, 'The grave accent becomes a dead key which adds a grave accent to a subsequent...' - this means that what was formerly the backtick key becomes an automatic 'dead key'.  It can no longer be used normally as before.  No other 'dead key' is 'dead' by default - you must hold Ctrl+Alt to activate the dead key - but the backtick is.  Although it may be used 'rarely', it IS still used sometimes, especially by programmers!  I wanted a layout that had NO 'dead' keys by default and so unless Ctrl+Alt was used, the keyboard behaved identically to normal... and yet you could quite easily add a wealth of accents to Latin characters for writing European languages.

The "United Kingdom Extended - Enhanced" keyboard layout does this.  It restores the backtick key to its normal behaviour, and instead hijacks the comma key to allow grave accents to be inserted (luckily this key was not being used for anything else on a Ctrl+Alt keypress).  The comma key becomes a 'dead key' allowing the insertion of grave accents, but only when Ctrl+Alt are held down.  Hold Ctrl+Alt+, (comma), then press one of the various keys that can take a grave accent (a, e, etc.) - you will get that letter with its grave accent!  And now, NO keys are 'dead' keys by default.
