French keyboard

[tmtisfree]

Hi,

The French AZERTY keyboard now has 2 simple quote ( ' ) keys, see screenshot. I suggest changing the new one (the one on the left to the erase key) as a dot ( . ) key as this is a really badly missing one on the French keyboard.

Cheers, TMTisFree (French translator of ASK)

[menny]

That's a good point.

[menny]

@Fabiensk @friesenkiwi @gmontcheuil @milouse thoughts?

[Fabiensk]

I don't use this layout (only the French bépo), but I can give my opinion. I would rather put the dot/full stop at the bottom-right (next to the search button), so it is available in all modes (digits, email…) because it's always useful. But it would mean that in some modes the point would be present twice. So we would need to remove it from the main block(s).

[milouse]

I agree @Fabiensk

[tmtisfree]

Why not replace the (?) key at the bottom with the (.) key then? The (?) key is not that useful and could replace the duplicate quote ( ' ) key a row above.

[menny]

There was a design decision which was taken early in the development of AnySoftKeyboard which prevents this solution. Just to explain a bit, since you can change the global bottom row look across all layouts, it is imposible to change the the bottom/top row for specific language

[schodet]

I have a dot on my bottom bar, why having a dot on the keyboard be better than the apostrophe?

The dot and the apostrophe are also useful in English but they are not on the QWERTY layout, this key could just be removed on AZERTY layout too.

[gmontcheuil]

NO NO NO, don't remove the apostrophe/single quote from the FRENCH layout !

As @menny explain, the top/bottom row are not language specific. You could have the apostrophe on your bottom row of the "global layout" of your choice, but it's not the case of every "global layout"... and various global layouts haven't it. So it's not a duplicate key.

As @schodet remarks, "apostrophe[s] are also useful in English" and other languages too (b.e. Italian), but not all languages (for my knowledge Spanish, German or Portuguese didn't use it). So its place is without doubt in the "language layout", that why I added it in the French layout (both Azerty and Qwerty if I remember well). And if other languages requires the apostrophe, it's better to add it to their layout(s) that remove it because English layout haven't it and/or some global layouts have an apostrophe. It's up to the language users/developers to decide if the apostrophe is useful for them - not only the English-speaking users/developers, and as a French-speaking users I require the apostrophe at least as much as the hyphen.

@tmtisfree, if the duplicate apostrophe is annoying, and you want a dot, look for another "global layout". I totally agree with you that in some "global layout" the "." is missing or have indirect access (it seem that a long press to "," will propose you the "." in your screenshot)... but it's out of the concern of French language pack.

[tmtisfree]

@menny

Or you could just add a new global layout like the one in the image (New generation - In test) but with a new dot key in the bottom row. I don't care much of the single quote key duplication, but I badly miss the dot key. Edit: the French Azerty keyboard misses the 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 0 indices. Also all number indices should also be put in the optional top (number) row (much easier to select).

@gmontcheuil

There is no global layout with 123!#(), emoticons, comma, quote, dot (without micro). It's pita to have to press 2 times to get such so often used key as the dot.

[BoFFire]

I suggest to turn this to a 0x2019 since french is using this in writing. Example : L’école and not L'école

[Pizzacus]

@BoFFire if they add that I hope they make it optional

0x2019 is known as a ’ RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK and ' is APOSTROPHE in the Unicode standard, which is the very standard defining what characters exist in computers.

So if Unicode says ’ is a Single Quotation Mark and ' is an Apostrophe, then it is. No one can say otherwise. Not even the Académie Française or whatever stupid organization decided French people should use ’ as an Apostrophe. Unicode made their standard to decide what characters would be what on computers, so you cannot contradict them.

So on that regard, it is actually more correct to use ' as an Apostrophe in French texts. And also, when English people use ' as a Single Quote, they're wrong too xD So France isn't the only one that needs to be re-educated a little about how letters work.

To clarify, I'm not against adding this, I can understand some people may feel better about adhering to the French typography standards, even if those go against the very standard defining how characters work on computers. What I'm saying is that it is justified to not want to use this, so it should be optional.

This XKCD comic is very relevant now

[BoFFire]

Hi @Pizzacus : You got everything wrong. Read more sources.

[Pizzacus]

Thank you for your very high effort reply?

In case you misunderstood what I meant, let me restate:

• I know in correct French typography, you are recommended to use ’
• I understand people may want to do that
• I disagree with the fact that you should do that, for reasons I believe makes sense
• This isn't a question about if you should use ’ or '
• The point I'm making is that you may be justified to use either of them, so it should be togglable

Also, I would really want you to point me towards the "sources" showing I am wrong. As I linked to the https://codepoints.net pages, which come from the official Unicode standard, and I believe this is highly reliable and objective. If any of the "sources" you are talking about are related to French typography and not the Unicode standard, you are missing my point.

[BoFFire]

Hi, @Pizzacus I'm not the developper of the projet and actually I don't care I use U+2019 in my own forked ASK layout :) I'm not french either :)

You're right keep it ' :) can I have your sources? Instead of points of view and personal feelings? Thanks !

[Pizzacus]

Yes! Of course! I linked them, but here they are if you missed!

Look at those pages showing information from the official Unicode project!

’ is labelled RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK https://codepoints.net/U+2019 ' is labelled APOSTROPHE https://codepoints.net/U+0027

Yet, we are using ’ as an Apostrophe, isn’t that weird!

It is fine if you do that, and I can understand, but its also fine to use ' as an Apostrophe

In the end, this is a question of if you want to respect the Unicode or the Académie Française.

As Unicode are the one who designed the whole standard of characters we use on computers, I prefer to adhere with what they say, you may think different, but you must understand that this means both ways are justified. So both should be supported.

[BoFFire]

Hi @Pizzacus :) The French government and AFNOR were working on standardised keyboard since 2017, this includes œŒæÆ and the apocalypstrophe

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Thematiques/Langue-francaise-et-langues-de-France/Politiques-de-la-langue/Langues-et-numerique/Les-technologies-de-la-langue-et-la-normalisation/Vers-une-norme-francaise-pour-les-claviers-informatiques

Check Bépo : https://bepo.fr/wiki/Apostrophe

[Pizzacus]

Why did you post this? That doesn't prove me anything.

All this shows is that we can now type ’, which we already could on Linux.

Using ’ is not complying to the Unicode standard, and the French government, nor AFNOR, can change that, they don't have authority over the standard.

This does show that using ’ is correct, and I never said it wasn't.

What this doesn't show, would be that using ' is incorrect in accordance to the Unicode standard.

[Pizzacus]

Look, let's settle on this, we both agree both ways are fine, or at least there are reasons why you would wanna do it either way, so both apostrophes must be handled

It doesn't matter which is best, because there are reasons why you could do both apostrophes so debating will go nowhere, the important is that both must be supported

Edit: And if you want to keep debating with me about which apostrophe is the best, please send a message to the email on my profile so that the mods don't have to lock this convo because it's getting out of hand xD

[milouse]

I dislike feeding troll, but your debate leverages my curiosity on one point. @Pizzacus you use codepoints as reference source. On the other hand, I find really quickly two other sources: https://r12a.github.io/uniview/?char=2019 which states that « this is the preferred character to use for apostrophe » and https://unicode.org/cldr/utility/character.jsp?a=2019 which states (hiding in all the garbage) « subhead | Quotation marks and apostrophe ». I should admit your argument seems valid, but I'm now really confused. What do you think of these sources?

Disclaimer: I'm french, bepo-ist and until now, proud member of the U+2019 team ;)

[Pizzacus]

You raise a good point!

For the Unicode CLDR, it makes sense for them to recognize the right quote as an apostrophe because the CLDR is meant to help programmers make sense of language. So it has to recognise characters as the way that are used, not how they should be used.

However, your other website is interesting, but it wasn't the official Unicode website, so I wasn't sure, but actually, turns out that sentence is present in the official charts: https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2000.pdf

So I started digging and found this in Chapter 6, Section 6.2 of the Core Implementation of Unicode: http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode11.0.0/ch06.pdf

But... that raises so many questions, mainly

So, U+0027 APOSTROPHE is an overloaded character as it used for quoting and apostrophes, and the way Unicode fix it is by making another character act as both a quote and an apostrophe?

What is this?! This makes no sense, I thought Unicode was better than that, they shouldn't define one character to do multiple unrelated things.

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But then does that mean we have to do it in English too? I've never seen anyone do it in English, only in French.

While this argument was originally for French, I bet you didn't know we have to do it in English too :thinking:

Wikipedia doesn't use typographical apostrophes in French, they polled for it, it failed

Google don't use the typo apostrophe either, while they never clearly said they did not, you can see they don't in practice.

Honestly, my biggest problem with the typo apostrophe is that it's also used for quoting, and those should be separate characters, I thought Unicode were aware of that and separated them, but I had too much faith in them...

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But in the end, this argument is as worthless as Tabs vs. Space, the best solution is use the one your project uses, or the one you prefer, I won't stop using U+0027 :p but I don't really care if others don't.

For example, the guy that translated one of my website, satania.moe used typo apostrophes so I left it as it is because it's his translation he does however he wants.

[tmtisfree]

Standards are mere propositions [1]. If some have faith in then it is convention, but no more that the theory your wife is beautiful and your children intelligent.

Anyway, I am all for replacing the single quotation ' (U+0027) by the right quotation mark ’ (U+0029) on the French keyboard and close this issue.

[1]

[milouse]

To close the debate, the initial question was « can we replace one of the two ' by a dot? ». Many of you argue that the last line was fixed by design, thus is it possible to replace the single quote/apostroph from the second line (the wxcv… one) by a dot?

[BoFFire]

Hi, Actually the last bottom range can be customised in a specific language pack. If you add a dot there, you will get two dots :) Here's my layout : https://misskey.xyz/notes/5bfd419961a1d800278a5d89

[Pizzacus]

Anyway, I am all for replacing the single quotation ' (U+0027) by the right quotation mark ’ (U+0029) on the French keyboard and close this issue.

No no no no NO NO WAIT xD

I was originally supposed to be bringing up the apostrophe debate (even if I kinda lost it) to justify the fact that it should up to the user to choose which apostrophe they want.

I'm all in for adding support for the typographic apostrophe since that will make people happy, and that's good, but please make it optional xD

Actually, because of the Unicode thing, you could argue all languages should have that as an optional option, but since French is the only one that has a few people that actually apply it, I can see why that would mainly only concern it.

[gmontcheuil]

Personally I use my phone to write messages to non-typography-orthodox people that mainly don't care if the apostrophe is the right one for their local norm and/or for any more universal one... but appreciate that an apostrophe like sign appears where it should... that why I add one in the French language layout.

I'm happy to discover that the AFNOR and other government organizations are hard working on a norm - it's their usual purpose - but we haven't to wait for their result (in a couple of years) to offer virtual keyboards that fit users need.

Make how many virtual variants of the French keyboard you want : AZERTY. QWERTY, BEPO, ABCDEF, etc., with or without apostrophe, and combining with the variety of apostrophe characters you can found : they are just virtual keyboards, with a very few cost to maintain... so the more important thing is describe each one to help the users' choice.

[gmontcheuil]

Nota: For a phone, I will prefer the U+0027 apostrophe because using U+2019 seem to change the encoding for the SMS (from LATIN-1 to UTF-8 I suppose), increasing its length. That can have an effect on the final price.

[Pizzacus]

Well already, LATIN-1 doesn't have œ for French but no one uses it anyway and its probably gonna be the next thing to disappear from the French language.

And I don't think encoding in SMS is a big issue nowadays, as SMS is getting very cheap, and people are using more and more characters, just look at emojis! The support for LATIN-1 is really becoming more legacy than anything else, and this is great as Chinese, Korean and Japanese users, for instance, require UTF-16 encoding which is twice as long!

So yeah now people don't care about their SMS length, other websites with length limits are clever enough to count characters beyond 8-bit as one character, we shouldn't be afraid to use characters outside the 8-bit range.

And yes it is maybe great AFNOR is working on new keyboards, I did not think we would ever find something useful to make those guys standardise.

Edit: But I'll still use AZERTY because it's a great tradeoff for me, as I mostly type in English but still need the French letters often enough so it's relevant to have them at hand on their own keys. Maybe I'll learn Colemak one day but right now I'm focused on learning another skill so I'll wait to be done.

[fxstbg]

Hello, First I'd like to thank all the team for the developpement of this app and layouts... I noticed two "bugs" on French AZERTY Kb :

• Long press on letter u should bring the number 7 as a first choice, but instead it brings a u with to comas on it...

• Then, long press on letter l should bring the ) just as the letter k for (, but instead it brings a strange l' as first choice.

Do you think you can correct this ? Thanks a lot !