Faster and more complete Universal keyboards
A - Notepad++
The few characters (including the dreaded "œ" and "Œ") that can't be typed in a bare Windows using my « À CURAÇAO et à SÃO PAULO... » previous post, can using a Character Map in a couple paid applications like MS Office. But they can also in Notepad++, which is free, powerful, and easy; just go "Edit > Character Panel"; finding the characters you need is tedious the first times but it becomes soon easier as you remember where they are in the list, and that list does hold all the ones you may need (e.g. "œ" and "Œ" under Nos 156 and 140, but all others are there too). However those special chars, no matter how rare, still need to be double-clicked one by one in the Character Panel, which is far from the no-remembering typing at normal speed.
B - 3-D Keyboard 2.52
In ~1995-2010 I installed on many PCs (family or work) a little, powerful yet easy and inexpensive utility that let me very easily program the keyboard to complete it my way, making that keyboard complete and reliable while much faster, easier and productive than the various solutions above. That utility was 3-D Keyboard 2.52, made by a man very kind, helpful and efficient, who had worked on most keyboards in many central Europe countries and languages, where the problem is particularly complicate, and who was able nevertheless to very intelligently sort it all into a very simple clear easy yet quite precise, complete and reliable way. He most probably made a good choice of the place where the bit flow traveling from the mechanical keys to the document being typed is intercepted so to make the key edits fast and reliable.
Unfortunately most Windows utilities, for keyboard or else, were designed for 32bit Windows and couldn't work in 64bit; and most developers, somewhat abandoned by Microsoft (who failed to fill its explicit or implicit promises), stopped developing thus did NOT write the 64bit versions. So was the case of 3-D Keyboard 2.52. You can still download it for now from Fingertip Software -> FTS Downloads or Cyrillic Downloads, but you won't be able to use it without a license, which is no more for sale. If you have nevertheless a way to get a license number (and a 32bit system), take the good old 2.52 version, as the newer 3.02 is not as good (probably written after the author lost interest).
C - KbdEdit
Under newer configurations, that are mostly 64bit, I found very few applications, of which none as friendly, intelligent or efficient as 3-D Keyboard. The most approaching, KbdEdit, while more powerful, made apparently a different choice of the point where to intercept the bit flow. As a result KbdEdit remains unable to catch some of the key strikes (all the "Alt" used in MS Office, and a few others), and doesn't reach the same level of simplicity and reliablity; e.g. KbdEdit relativeley often suddenly sends quite unexpected keys so you have to kill it in a hurry or it could do some maneuvers unexpected hence dangerous. I personally stopped it definitely after months of using it a lot. TIA to anyone who would come with a better solution.
Versailles, Thu 21 Jan 2016 22:46:20 +0100
Compose
+o
+e
. It works on any layout, if you know the compose key, which is oftenShift
+AltGr
orShift
+Right Alt
. Mine isScroll Lock
now.