The Blog of Jonas Martinsson

My freely available and improved Swedish Keyboard layout has now been updated to support 64-bit versions of Windows. You can find out more about the freeware product here . For the last ten years I have neither used the native Swedish keyboard layout, nor the standard US keyboard layout. Instead, I have been a happy user of my own design: US with Swedish characters. It allows me to use the benefits of the US keyboard layout in combination with quick and unobtrusive access to the additional Swedish letters (å, ä and ö). As previously announced , Linux users can find a version of the keyboard layout here .

Why should Windows user have all the fun of using my custom keyboard layout, intended for Swedish programmers and users with non-Swedish keyboards? That's what Henrik Holst, at Stockholm University thought. He e-mailed me a couple of days ago wondering how to port my original idea to Linux. A day later he sends me his own solution for how to set it up on Ubuntu and compatible systems. Way cool! Please go and check out his instructions . Instructions and download for the original Windows version I put together are still available both in English and Swedish .

I have an obsession with optimizing or automating daily repetitive tasks. No matter if it is my calendar system, computer setup or the way I drive to work - you can bet I take it seriously. Some years back I realized that the Swedish keyboard is flawed in its design. Some of the characters (slash, backslash, the "at" sign, etc.) are very awkward to type, requiring some serious finger gymnastics. Enter " US keyboard layout with Swedish characters ", allowing Windows users to take the regular English keyboard layout and adding the specific Swedish characters å, ä and ö. I have been using the layout for close to five years now and swear by it. Before I emigrated from Sweden I used it as a tool to speed up my typing of URLs and programming source code. After my emigration it has proven invaluable as a way of adding the Swedish characters while keeping the original ...