Allow users to choose between QWERTY and QWERTZ

[Kazuto]

Summary

Aerospace currently uses keybinds optimized for QWERTY keyboards (e.g., alt+[, alt+]). On QWERTZ keyboards (common in Germany, Austria, Switzerland), these special characters are in completely different positions, making the default keybinds awkward or impossible to use efficiently.

Problem

On QWERTZ keyboards:

• Keys like ;require shift+,
• This means alt-shift-semicolon binding becomes alt-shift-shift-,, which doesn't work
• Many special characters like @, ~, {, }, |, \ are in different positions than QWERTY
• The Z and Y keys are swapped
• Umlauts (ä, ö, ü) occupy additional key positions, shifting other characters

This makes the out-of-the-box experience frustrating for QWERTZ users, who need to rebind many keybinds to work with their keyboard layout.

Use Case

As a German user with a QWERTZ keyboard, I want to:

• Use intuitive keybinds that match my physical keyboard layout
• Have a preset configuration optimized for QWERTZ layouts

Current Workaround

Users must manually rebind keybinds in their config file to use keys that are easily accessible on QWERTZ, but this:

• Requires understanding the entire default config
• Takes significant time to set up
• May not be obvious to new users why some keybinds wont work

Additional Context

This affects users in:

• Germany
• Austria
• Switzerland
• Czech Republic
• Hungary
• Other Central European countries using QWERTZ

Given macOS's international user base, having better keyboard layout support would significantly improve accessibility for non-US users.

[FlohGro-dev]

came here to wish for the same thing. Did you already reconfigure the keyboard to a German layout @Kazuto ?

[Kazuto]

No, not yet. I'm currently using almost no functionality of aerospace because of this. The only things I use is switch and move to workspace. I don't see why every QWERTZ user should go through configuring the keybinds if the tool itself could just provide the layout as it does with DVORAK and COLEMAK, far less common layouts than QWERTZ.

[FlohGro-dev]

Yes absolutely agree 👍🏼