There is one thing that boggels me for ages now, why is it so hard to use multiple languaes on one Computer. Since I sit in Germany here it is a situation I often encounter. Let me explain the problem at hand.

For letters, mails and most of writing I require a german keyboard (layout) to write all the funny german letters like äöüß. Also my laptop (both private and work) have a german keyboard build in - can't change that sadly or only for insane prices.

For coding I relly prefare an english keyboard since the layout is way more programmer friendly, I don't have to use AltGr to get things like curly or edged brackets - I would show you which I mean but just to proove my point my laptop right now refuses to enter them at all.

So it sounds pretty simple in itself, for coding I use an english keyboard - I have one on the docking station at work and a blue tooth one for coding at home. For letter writing use a german keyboard. Sadly it is not, it seems that some smart software developper decided input language should be based on the widnow you're in - doh. so when I take my work laptop from the dock I've to change the input language FOR EVERY FREAKING SINGLE WINDOW! No fun trust me! Even worst it gets with windows login screens and other security stuff, which entirely refuse to accept english keyboard layout. On my Mac it is nearly as bad, the language is window based again but at least it does not tend to randomly forget what I wanted.

The worst was when I tried to switch to german today and since I got fed up with chanign every window I disabled the language chaning - which did not mean he puts all the windows in the selected language just that he now don't let you change the language in them any more - so now I'm stuck with an explorer window with english layout which I guess will ge back to normal after reboot - which will likely be when I want it to be english and it is then set to german for all eternity...

What I don't get about this is why it seems entirely imposible to every OS to base the input language on the device I use. I really really wonder why this is so hard. When I've two keyboards one english one one german one wouldn't be the simplest way to tell the OS 'this keyboard is german that one is english'.