International Keyboard

The best keyboard layout for programming or dealing with UNIX-like systems is the U.S. one, but it can be problematic if english is not your primary language; for example with an italian layout you have to press 3 keys to type a { and you have to use a dead key to type a ~ (nearly 70% of my command lines involves some file in my home directory so I type ~ a lot).

Yet this can’t be considered a complete solution because if you want to write in italian language you must use accented letters for some words, for example perché.

My current solution is to use a layout inspired by GNOME’s U.S. International (AltGr) created by Tobias Müller (who wrote a nice post about it) and which can be downloaded here; I’ve also used Ukelele to modify that layout to make the key § (§/± left of 1/!) a dead key to be able to type letters with a grave accent.

• ALT+key: é í ó ú á €
• § - key: è ì ò ù à

Bonus feature: ALT+5 to type the € symbol.

You can download my layout here: U.S. Euro; copy it in ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts and don’t forget to close and reopen System Preferences, to make it reload all the files.