Yes, most people learn and use QWERTZ. In your typical electronics store, you will only find QWERTZ keyboards and notebooks. If you want QWERTY, you have only one option, you have to buy it on the internet. But even on the internet the typical Logitech keyboard for example is hard to find in US-QWERTY in Germany/Europe, because most merchants don‘t have them on stock. In the past, I‘ve even imported US keyboards from the US, because they were and are hard to find here.
It gets even more difficult for notebooks: Any notebook you can buy here in Germany has QWERTZ. Want a notebook with US layout, because you are a developer? Your only options are BTO options from Apple or Lenovo. But even there, you have to be cautious: Dell for example will sell you „English“ keyboard layout notebooks as BTO option, but you won‘t get the real US layout (with a wide return and wide left shift key), but some kind of „International English“ ISO layout with a tall return key and a short left shift key... Lenovo has an „English“ option and thankfully you will get a keyboard layout that really resembles the US layout (but with an Euro key).
Only Apple really gives you „US“ as BTO option, and you really get the real US layout. Funny story, I wrote an e-mail to Apple, over ten years ago, when they didn‘t have US layouts as BTO option in Germany... I think it changed something, because one or two years later, Apple changed it, and you will get real US layouts ever since on their online store.
I live in Poland and we pretty much exclusively have QWERTY. QWERTZ is a historal artifact. Not sure if that's still the case but at least until recently, it was installed by default on Windows as an alternative layout, seemingly mostly to confuse non-technical people when they accidentally press the Ctrl+Shift combination to swap.
Interesting. But we have to be clear here: It‘s not only about QWERTZ vs QWERTY. Many countries still have ISO keyboard layout: a tall return key and the left shift key is short (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY). The US keyboard is different: the return key is wide and not tall, and the left shift key is also wider. If you once got used to the US layout, it‘s annoying to use an ISO layout, because your pinkies have to move a little larger distance to hit return and left shift, if you know what I mean. :-)
Oh! That's true. I think you have it a bit mixed up though.
- ANSI is the same thing as US, it's the one with a long left Shift and single row Return
- ISO is the one with a short left Shift, two row Return, and the [| \] key in two places
I've certainly used both throghout my life, it seems both are common enough that I never paid it much mind after first learning how to handle a computer during early childhood.
I just checked and out of the 5 keyboards in my home right now, 4 (laptops) are ANSI and 1 (standalone, my daily driver) is ISO.
No need to import from the US, in your friendly western neighbor (Netherlands) US qwerty keyboards are the default.
Also, when I lived in France, it was a matter of a phonecall to Dell to get a US qwerty keyboard instead of azerty. No problem at all. I think a colleague asked for an 'English' keyboard and got a UK qwerty, that's the only thing to be wary of.
Really? So it‘s real US and not some kind of ISO English?
Yeah, I‘ve seen that Dell for example sells US BTO options in the Netherlands, but in the past (when I considered an XPS 13), dell.nl didn‘t ship to Germany. But obviously the times have changed, and it‘s much easier today to get US keyboards than 10 or 20 years ago.
As far as I know Dutch keyboards have your basic US layout plus the € sign as a third glyph printed on the [% / 5] key. I've bought my US layout DasKeyboards from a German retailer online though.
Real Dutch keyboard layouts never took off unlike what happened in France and Germany. We're not that dependant on our diacritic characters (although I am a stickler for correct usage).
Personally, I prefer the standard US layout, because I use more than one language. For Dutch („éë耔), English (“—”), and German („ßöüä”) the compose key does everything I need and more. For Japanese there is a dedicated IME (Anthy).
I wish Windows and MacOS included a Compose key by default. It's so simple that everyone could easily learn it, and we wouldn't have to deal with arcane Numpad key combinations on Windows or MacOS's super unintuitive and inconsistent symbol shortcuts.
On Windows, I use WinCompose[1], which works decently well.
Even on GNU/Linux distribution it is a settings that must be enabled first, but at least it tends to be present as a first-class option right from the start.
I can't stand those weird alt-codes Windows users end up memorizing. You only know those characters for which you've learned the codes. With the compose-key, you can guess anything that is diacritic character, and lots more besides¹.
I showed a colleague on a Windows computer WinCompose when she got wanted to be able to easily type a number of special characters (like en- and em-dash) without having to hunt for them in a character map or remember arcane alt-codes. She's not a developer, but it clicked instantly. Just think of a logical sequence, and get the character you want (for en- and em-dash its [compose - - .] and [compose - - -], respectively).
1: Like superscript numbers. Once you know that [compose ^ 1] yields ¹, you know ²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹⁰ too.
I honestly prefer just using right alt as a AltGr. Even have a custom Windows layout to re-create (parts of) the "US International (with dead keys)" layout from Linux/X/GNOME/wherever it comes from.
Instead of having to type <Compose ' o> for a ó, I just type <AltGr+o> (or alternatively, <AltGr+' o>, and similarly <AltGr+` o> for a ò)
I have been using US keyboard layouts for more than 20 years. You can get them relatively easily from German online retailers, even for notebooks. I've been working with Lenovo/Thinkpad hardware for 15 years now and eventually found the US variant for each model (also because Lenovo gives exact part numbers for each variant). I also own several external Thinkpad keyboards with this layout. The only problem is that you often can't configure them when you first buy the main unit. Therefore I have a stack of German keyboards lying around here :)
> some kind of „International English“ ISO layout with a tall return key and a short left shift key
Those exist here in the US too. They're just a lot less common. I've had the misfortune of having one, in the past. Needed a new keyboard, went to the store, got the cheapest one, came home to... "what is this layout?!"
It gets even more difficult for notebooks: Any notebook you can buy here in Germany has QWERTZ. Want a notebook with US layout, because you are a developer? Your only options are BTO options from Apple or Lenovo. But even there, you have to be cautious: Dell for example will sell you „English“ keyboard layout notebooks as BTO option, but you won‘t get the real US layout (with a wide return and wide left shift key), but some kind of „International English“ ISO layout with a tall return key and a short left shift key... Lenovo has an „English“ option and thankfully you will get a keyboard layout that really resembles the US layout (but with an Euro key).
Only Apple really gives you „US“ as BTO option, and you really get the real US layout. Funny story, I wrote an e-mail to Apple, over ten years ago, when they didn‘t have US layouts as BTO option in Germany... I think it changed something, because one or two years later, Apple changed it, and you will get real US layouts ever since on their online store.