Proposing changes to the international keyboard

[Adriaan van Nijendaal]

A few years ago, I proposed to add a 'new' international keyboard
layout: altgr-intl, which hides dead keys behind the right Alt key (aka
AltGr). It is based on the International Keyboard layout, which in turn
follows an example set by a company in Redmond. The map was accepted and
is now used by quite a few people who use a standard US keyboard to type
multiple languages. They type á (a-acute) with altgr-a.

Some people (and myself) would like to have more accented letters
readily available through the altgr modifier. When Microsoft defined the
international keyboard, they must have been thinking of a certain set of
languages (including Icelandic?!?). The resulting keyboard does not suit
all languages well (and it never will). But one could think of maps that
would suit a few languages a little better.

For French (and Portugese and Italian), à (agrave) would be handy (about
0.5% frequency in those languages). For Portugese, ã (atilde) would be
nice (0.7%). Currently, ã is only available through a shifted dead key
(which in altgr-intl becomes altgr-shift-tilde followed by a).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency

We would like to propose a modified International Keyboard map, keeping
the dead keys where they are, but adding all diaeresis and grave
versions of all vowels on altgr-keys close to the vowel. This would
require moving some others around or dropping them (like ð (eth) used in
Old English, Middle English, Icelandic, Faroese - languages with fewer
speakers).

How do you feel about 'breaking' the (Microsoft) International Keyboard
map in favor of one that suits some languages better?

Regards,

Adriaan

The layout could look like this (qwerty etc with the altgr key held
down):

ã å é è ø ù ú í ó ò
 á à ë æ œ ì ü ï ö
  ä © ç ® ß ñ µ

removed: þ, ð.