Should the Section Sign (§) be more common?

[squizzler]

Here is something for us writers to discuss. The section sign is used as a marker for - unsurprisingly - sections of text in a document, traditionally legal items. It comes as standard on International and British (where I come across it) and International Mac (shown) as well as Swiss standard keyboards and lives in the top left below the escape key and before the number row displacing the (`~) key.

As a writer I see this as a potentially useful key that could find an application in markdown. Does anybody else think that this symbol should be more widely adopted, and what function would you give it?

[Tom_Kazansky]

it's language-dependant, I guess.

I myself have never used it. (in very rare occasion, I would open Character Map to copy it)

[Rohwi]

In the ISO-DE QWERTZ layout it is Shift + 3.
I guess because we Germans tend to have a law or something similar for everything, it made sense to have it pretty available on the standard layout.

On the other hand, I think I personally have never actually used it myself.
I read it often in texts referencing to sections of laws as you said, but other than that, it is not used anywhere and therefore not used if you are not writing laws or about laws.

[Findecanor]

The Swedish/Finnish keyboard also has a § key next to 1. I find the character rare overall: I see it found it only in law text, bylaws and contracts -- that I have never got to write.
On PC/Linux, Shift-§ is ½, and the Alt Gr legends are ¶ ¾, where ¶ is the paragraph sign which I also never use, but sometimes see as end-of-line marker in text editors and word processors.
On Mac, Shift-§ is °, which under Linux is on Alt Gr-Shift-0.

I find it easier to type fractions with the Compose key than to remember which combo each one is on. To get ½, I often just type Compose 1 2.
Should I ever need §, it is available on Compose s o, Compose o s and Compose s '!'.

BTW. The olde Amiga which I once had learned to type on, had '~ on the key even in Swedish/Finnish layout.
On PC/Linux, you have to type Alt Gr + " and then Space to get ~, whereas on the Amiga Alt Gr + " gave you ] (compare US-ANSI).

So: no, I don't think the section sign needs to be more common.
The Compose key should be more common, with a "Compose" key in every keycap kit!

[squizzler]

I agree that I do not use it, either! Perhaps the absence of usages (thus far) is simply because it is not marked on most keyboard layouts, but since Apple now installs such a key as standard on their international layout I hope more uses will be found for it.

As a hobby writer using a markdown based text editor I feel somehow that this symbol ought to have a use in lightweight markup, somewhere! Don't ask me for specific examples of how this functionality might work in practice, it is more of a hunch that it might be used as a means to make longer passages more granular without breaking up the text with headings and page breaks.

[Maledicted]

This standard ANSI Matias mini tactile pro, which unfortunately is only offered with Mac mapping and legends, appears to have the section sign tossed into a cluster of other legends on the 6 key. I don't normally bother with layers, so I have no idea how one would even produce that character, if that same key even would within Windows vs MacOS/OSX.

[Findecanor]

I don't normally bother with layers, so I have no idea how one would even produce that character, if that same key even would within Windows vs MacOS/OSX.

I believe Matias printed the symbols that are on the Option layer under MacOS. So, you should get it by typing Option + 6, but under MacOS only.

[mode]

UK Mac layout is the best and I wish more keycap group buys supported it, or at least offered blank keycaps for those rows.

You never get R4 `~

That said, I never use §±, but I badly want that key in a set I like just to have a complete perfect UK Mac layout.

[squizzler]

UK Mac layout is the best and I wish more keycap group buys supported it, or at least offered blank keycaps for those rows.

You never get R4 `~

That said, I never use §±, but I badly want that key in a set I like just to have a complete perfect UK Mac layout.

UK Mac should be the best of the English language Qwerty layouts (for whatever that's worth) since afaik it the newest. Whilst the symbols on that key are not something I have habitually used, they have more potential use than the two symbols that co-star with 'grave' on that key on British PC layouts

[funkmon]

Literally the only reason I know that character and actually do use it is because you can type it easily by hitting Alt+7+8+9. § I believe we figured that out on an IRC channel once and used it to l33t§p34k.

[cheesy_jones]

I guess I just need to know what about this symbol you find interesting, because it looks to me like, I don’t know, a birthmark you have to spend your life explaining to idiots you meet, or perhaps would have been hanged for by 17th-century New Englanders.

[squizzler]

I guess I just need to know what about this symbol you find interesting, because it looks to me like, I don’t know, a birthmark you have to spend your life explaining to idiots you meet, or perhaps would have been hanged for by 17th-century New Englanders.

Whilst I wouldn't wish to denigrate the effort you put into your witty response, I thought I elucidated this in earlier posts.

[funkmon]

You know, I was thinking back, and I realized something. The keyboards I used to use in Luxembourg typically had this above the explanation point next to the right shift. Now, those were the demonstrably bad azerty keyboards, so I avoided using them at all costs. Why is exclamation point not a shift character, but the ****ing period is? And why is the section sign, almost never used in French or German, even ****ing on it? Even the Qwertz keyboards have it above the 3. I have a German Model M right here and I'm disgusted by it.

This is why I used to immediately change to Swiss German or English, or indeed US-International, as soon as I could. Again, though, it was only used in leetspeak and we only used it because even in an English layout, Alt+789 would make it.

[HG]

Literally the only reason I know that character and actually do use it is because you can type it easily by hitting Alt+7+8+9. § I believe we figured that out on an IRC channel once and used it to l33t§p34k.

I found Alt+2+1 to be faster, but I guess Alt+7+8+9 is easier to remember.