Proposed new Maltese layouts
I am attaching a patch with two alternative keyboard layouts for the Maltese language, based on the UK and US layout respectively. Currently the only two existing Maltese layouts are the government-sponsored ones (based on a de facto layout on DOS/Windows machines in the 1990s). These have the disadvantage of putting the Maltese characters (ċġħżĊĠĦŻ) in place of brackets and other keys commonly used in technical writing and programming. Other layouts were available (even in the 1990s), where the Maltese characters were available using AltGr and the corresponding latin character. This layout is much more convenient for situations such as technical / scientific writing and programming, or in situations where the physical keyboard used does not have the Maltese characters printed.
I do not expect that this layout is currently popular, as most people don't have access to it. It was the de facto layout in the 1990s on some machines (from Acorn computers, in particular), if that means anything at this point. The layout was also made available for older Windows machines as a user-installable option, through my blog (https://jabriffa.wordpress.com/other/maltese-keyboard/).
Suggestions and comments welcome. Johann