Is Lightroom intentionally made difficult for non-English users?

Question

Could it be that Lightroom is intentionally made difficult for the non-English user? I came to this forum today hoping to find an answer and all I see is problems when I try searching the forum, and complicated instructions on how to, supposdely, solve this issue. The issue I am facing has to do with localization, compatibility, interoperability and compliance. The problem is that I can't use many of the Lightroom shortcuts. Many of the ones that require the use of a modifier key on my keyboard just don't work. So what if I have a Swedish keyboard? Sweden is one of the most computer literate contries in the world, and Sweden has played a major role in the development of early computers and new technologies. Adobe has a presence in this country, and I'm quite sure Sweden is an important market for Adobe. So why not make Lightroom compatible with the Swedish keyboard? Why should I care to go through complicated instructions on how to hacktivate my keyboard by the means of editing config or script files? Why can't it just work out of the box?
I feel like this is intentional. Could it be that Lightroom users are only to be found in English speaking countries like USA, UK, New Zealand and Australia? I don't think so.
Swedish user:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/1459525#1459525
Swiss user:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4375318#4375318
German user:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3588746#3588746
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3817657#3817657
How about the ability to change keyboard shortcut bindings, i.e. custom shortcuts? I just found that this is not even possible in Lightroom! That explains why people take these strange measures and kludgy ways of making custom shortcuts in Lightroom. Changing shortcuts is often times tricky business because you have to change them in respect to other shortcuts. It's likely that one will have to change several keyboard shortcuts to avoid conflicts, etc. Lightroom needs a shortcut editor!
One should really not even have to change the default shortcuts, Adobe should choose some intelligent key combinations that make sense, and they should just work on any keyboard. I've tried changing the language from English to Swedish in Lightroom settings. The result of this is that nearly all shortcuts are changed to something else, so I would have to re-learn some of the shortcuts I have already learned using Lightroom in English, and of course this also changes the language of the interface which is not something I want. I will have to change my keyboard layout to English to make this work, or get a secondary keyboard, one with English layout. This is something I will only have to do when I work in Lightroom, because many of the professional programs that I use are working just fine with my keyboard. Perhaps Adobe can make the keyboard localization (shortcut maps) as an option, separate from the interface language setting? And for God sake integrate a keyboard shortcut editor for once!

Answer 1

Another Swiss user on Lightroom forums:
http://www.lightroomforums.net/showthread.php?6867-Flippy-Key-Using-Lightroom-in-english-w ith-a-non-english-keyboard-layout
I ended up removing the Keyboard Tamer plugin and then manually adding following strings to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\en\TranslatedStrings.txt. This is by the way something that the Keyboard Tamer plugin does as well, because when I removed it I found two files named TranslatedStrings.txt in the Recycle Bin. The Keyboard Tamer is just supposed to save you the time and effort of manually manipulating these strings.
"$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/View/ZoomIn=Zoom In"
"$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/View/ZoomIn/Key=Cmd+."
"$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/View/ZoomInMinor=Slow Zoom In"
"$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/View/ZoomInMinor/Key=Cmd+Shift+."
"$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/View/ZoomOut=Zoom Out"
"$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/View/ZoomOut/Key=Cmd+-"
"$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/View/ZoomOutMinor=Slow Zoom Out"
"$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/View/ZoomOutMinor/Key=Cmd+Shift+-"
I found this thread helpful:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/1459525#1459525#1459525
I just replaced AgDevelop with AgLibrary. This of course only changes the key binding for Zoom In and Zoom Out in the Library module. Is there perhaps a document somewhere that explains the structure of the TranslatedStrings.txt file? There seems to be one of these files in each of the language specific folders under the Resources folder.
This file is known to be found in:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources>dir /b /s TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\de\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\en\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\es\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\fr\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\it\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\ja\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\ko\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\nl\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\pt\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\sv\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\zh_cn\TranslatedStrings.txt
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\zh_tw\TranslatedStrings.txt
I will study the structure of this file in Resources\sv\ and try to understand it. And as I find new "flaws" in the shortcut key bindings I will make new edits to the file I saved in Resources\en\ accordingly.
Here's an idea: those of you who don't mind re-learning all the shortcuts - the localized shortcuts for Swedish keyboards - simply copy the TranslatedStrings.txt file from C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\sv\ and paste it in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4\Resources\en\. What this does it allows you to keep English as your interface language, but it changes the shortcut map to something that's more adopted for the Swedish keyboard layout. You get the same shortcut key bindings as the ones you see when you change the language to Swedish in the settings. But this way you are preventing Lightroom from changing the interface language.
Either that, or add new strings to an empty Resources\en\TranslatedStrings.txt file for each key binding you find to be broken and not compatible with your keyboard. This way you are only making changes to the key bindings that don't work very well for your keyboard, you are not chaning all of the shortcut key bindings. The other key bindings stay the same, the default key bindings found in the English version of Lightroom (or with English as language settings).
This is a way to adapt Lightroom for your own environment. But this is still too complicated and unncessary. A simple shortcut editor built into Lightroom would have solved this. But what are we going to do?... this is up to Adobe... Lightrooms have been complaining about the lack of a shortcut editor since at least Lightroom 2 and Adobe has not listened. So I don't expect to see this feature in the following years to come. It might just come along in maybe Lightroom version seven or something... but who cares?... At that time I might even ditch Lightroom altogether.
Ligthroom 5 upgrade...
I just found out that the new Lightroom 5 is not compatible with Windows Vista. I have the Vista Ultimate 64-bit on my desktop where I use Lightroom. This was not made very clear by Adobe. They simply state that Lightroom 5 works on Mac and on Windows. You have to read the fine print. I almost purchased the upgrade. I'm glad I didn't. I won't upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 just to run Lightroom 5! We, the early Windows Vista adapters, got screwed by Microsoft. Now, we are getting screwed by Adobe too! I see no reason not to support Windows Vista as it is pretty much the same system as Windows 7, and one would expect Adobe to support them both. I found a thread about it where one user asked why Vista was not supported and Adobe failed to give any explanation. They just silently dropped the OS support.
I guess they can do whatever they want. They are Adobe.
But I will not upgrade to Windows 7 because of Lightroom, so I won't upgrade to Lightroom 5. This is a great oppertunity for Phase One to strike with a good deal, such as a discounted migration upgrade for Capture One. I am sure many Lightroom 4 users would be happy to leave the Lightroom ship in favor of Capture One. At the end of life of Lightroom 4 I will probably just go to Capture One, even if I have to pay full price. At least they support Windows Vista.