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Toggle caps/digits on the digits row for keyboards with digits on level2

Alexandre Petit requested to merge AlexpFr/xkeyboard-config:feature/toggle_caps_digits_row into master

The AZERTY layouts, specifically fr and be, require holding the shift key to access numbers.

This is not ergonomic for laptop keyboards without a numeric keypad, particularly when entering large quantities of numbers, such as in spreadsheets.

Note: The following is an updated desciption; most of the discussion of this MR is based on the original description, see hereinafter.

Add caps:digits_row_independent_lock option:

  • Shift + Caps locks the digits on the digits row, Caps Lock alone behaves as usual (Azerty layouts).
  • The Shift + Caps Lock combination inverts the first two levels only. This allows users to have direct access to digits while keeping usual capitalization via Caps Lock.
  • Also add the FOUR_LEVEL_LOCKABLE_LEVEL2 key type, a variant of FOUR_LEVEL_MIXED_KEYPAD that uses LevelFive instead of NumLock, to avoid interaction with the keypad.

(original description)

This merge request proposes adding the ability to quickly toggle the capslock/shiftlock behavior for the number row on AZERTY keyboards.

I have been testing the ergonomics of using the shift+capslock combination to switch the number row behavior on my laptop keyboard (without a numeric keypad) for several days. This approach is quite pleasant and intuitive, potentially offering a very good compromise with minimal drawbacks.

This change does not alter the default behavior, we might even consider its default integration in some variants in the future (see example enhancement/fr_symbols).

While the excellent caps:digits_row option introduced by the commit Add caps:digits_row option for Azerty layouts permanently changes this behavior, it may not be suitable for everyone.

Edited by Wismill

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