4) Russian layout: targeted rules for Russian typing only

Russian-speaking macOS users have a typical problem: in the standard Russian layout comma and period are on Shift+6 and Shift+7. When you write a lot, this is inconvenient and slows typing down.

The most common workaround I’ve seen is to switch to the Russian PC layout in system settings. Punctuation is placed more practically there. But the price of that solution is too high for me: some characters change their behaviour, and the familiar predictability of the question mark between EN and RU breaks too.

So I kept the standard Russian layout and made a targeted fix through Karabiner. The rule turns on only in the Russian input source and doesn’t touch the English layout:

• Option + comma types ,

• Option + period types .

As a result , and . in RU end up in the same positions as in EN, but with Option held. For my typing this is more convenient than moving to Russian PC: punctuation becomes accessible, and the rest of the Russian layout logic stays unchanged.

Here I’m describing only the current version of my approach to Karabiner settings. Many implementations and combinations of rules are possible, and over time my setup will most likely expand and evolve. In this post I’m recording exactly the solutions that work best in my daily workflow right now.

In the next post I’ll explain how these signals from Karabiner connect to Hammerspoon and how I turn them into concrete actions.

In the next post I’ll show the basic frame of my Hammerspoon config.