That's not too different from macOS's approach, instead of compose-character you learn the shortcuts for composing with the diacritics or special characters. After I learnt them it has always been quite efficient, I can write in Swedish or Portuguese without thinking.
Just curious why compose-character combo for å is a/o though, it would make more sense to me to be a/a.
> Apropos of Swedish keyboards, though, when a Mac is inflicted on me, the horrible contortions necessary to get all the usual programming bracket symbols ({[]}) are infuriating.
Absolutely agree, I never use the Swedish software layout even on keyboards which are physically using a Swedish layout, it's maddening finding the {[]}-_+=@ chars...
> it would make more sense to me to be a/a
Yep, but I think it's intended to be a visual mnemonic. å looks like a tiny 'o' over the top of an 'a' even though that's not the letter combination it originated with.
> it's maddening finding the {[]}-_+=@ chars...
The series of RSI inducing vulcan neck pinches required to write C-like languages on a Nordic Mac layout drives me a bit mad, but I do have it in my body memory now when needs must!
I toy with the idea of designing my own 40%-ish keyboard just so I only have myself to blame for bad layout :)