About ÆØÅ

[txd]

I was just wondering if it will be easy to write ÆØÅ letters. i can see ö and ä is there. but i would like to know if theres gonna be some kind of shortcuts or what ever?

Morten

 

[gruso]

Keys will be fully mappable in software.

 

[Spirit]

And you can simply use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key

 

[Karel Jansens]

Keys will be fully mappable in software.

And then what? Repaint the keymat? This is a thumbboard, not a full keyboard; there is no "finger learning" with thumbboards, so we'll either have to memorize the new keys or repaint the keymap ourself.

This latest keyboard layout is -- if it's not some joke by ED -- an absolute outrage. There are provisions for certain accented letters that apparently particularly suit German speaking peope, while e.g. French speakers are left completely in the cold.

They're not even necessary; Linux has dead key provisions, so any weird letter can be composed. On top of that, the comma isn't even in the baseline, but (and I'm not even 100% sure of that) only available as a combination key. That is effing ridiculous!

I'm seriously hoping this is just a joke, because otherwise the Pandora will have lost a lot of its allure for me. And yes, a good keyboard is important to me.

 

[gruso]

Oh, so you're ranting here as well as on the blog.

I suggest this thread gets locked, and that people read the other thread in its entirety before ranting.

 

[Sphinxter]

man 'xmodmap', somehow UNIX people have been miraculously altering our layouts without re-painting our keyboards for close to four decades, if it's too much for you maybe it's not too late to cancel that order.

 

[Karel Jansens]

Oh, so you're ranting here as well as on the blog.

I suggest this thread gets locked, and that people read the other thread in its entirety before ranting.

It's not ranting when it's about the single most important part of the computer. Besides, the majority of forum users already decided that they did not want these language-proprietary symbols.

 

[puppydee]

I don't see any of these ÆØÅ on my standard logitech keyboard just the normal standard keys. They might be on this keyboard somewhere but they're not printed on any of the keys. So really it will be just the same on the Pandora. Everyone types in english on this board so an english keyboard layout would the way to go I think. I wanted to have the playstation button layout printed next to the ABYX buttons so I would know which one was the square, triangle,X or the circle but it won't be possible so we all have to sacrifice something. Would be great since I'll be playing ps1 games on it mostly.

 

[craigix]

Eds keypad isn't final. I've already mentioned the comma via email.

 

[pelrun]

I've lived with my Zaurus keyboard's remapping happily for years - ctrl/alt are on keys with only kanji labels, and some critical fn combos aren't labelled at all. It's never been a big deal there, and I don't expect it to be a problem for the Pandora (...for me. YMMV)

 

[Karel Jansens]

I've lived with my Zaurus keyboard's remapping happily for years - ctrl/alt are on keys with only kanji labels, and some critical fn combos aren't labelled at all. It's never been a big deal there, and I don't expect it to be a problem for the Pandora (...for me. YMMV)

Yes, but the Zauri were never developed with the alleged input of a user community...

 

[mali]

Those "Umlaute" are essential in the German language(Turkish and Scandinavian, too). Every Keyboard sold in Germany has got them. They are no accent-bearing letters, they are stand-alone letters. I can see, that people who speak a language, that doesn't need them don't understand their importance to others, who need them. Just imagine, you have to press a weird button combo to type and A or B or whatever. If they are added as little blue printings in the upper right corner on some keys, without affecting the overall usability of the keyboard, then just print them there. This layout discussion gets some kind of religious scale, it seems.

 

[MiniSinisterMinister]

One example: "Apfel" means "apple" but "Apfel" with two dots on the letter "A" means "apples". However, I am one of the few people affacted by this who could do without a language specific keyboard layout. I wouldn't mind if I had to enter the Umlaute like letters with accents. That is what I do with French accents. It works fine for me.

 

[mali]

But you are also someone, who will mainly use Pandora for gaming. UMPC people might find it more important.
And I say it again, it won't hurt anybody to have those printings on the keyboard.

 

[Mithrildor]

But you are also someone, who will mainly use Pandora for gaming. UMPC people might find it more important.
And I say it again, it won't hurt anybody to have those printings on the keyboard.

It wouldnt hurt to have the french accent printings + german, but if we are going to include them of 1 language we need include them of all. And that will be really annoying. My vote goes for regular Logitech keyboard (US/EU style)

 

[MiniSinisterMinister]

Later, there will be inexpensive language specific keypads on offer which can be used as a substitute for the English original. I think this is a good compromise. I may also buy one but just to have a "complete" Pandora in case I want to sell it one day and this is important for the new owner.

 

[Olexxy]

@Mali
I don't see what's the difference of having to use for instance a compose key "compose : + a" to get ä with accented letters in French that will require the compose key as well for é è ê... This is just prioritizing your language, I don't think it should.

 

[valhalla]

Those "Umlaute" are essential in the German language(Turkish and Scandinavian, too). Every Keyboard sold in Germany has got them. They are no accent-bearing letters, they are stand-alone letters. I can see, that people who speak a language, that doesn't need them don't understand their importance to others, who need them. Just imagine, you have to press a weird button combo to type and A or B or whatever. If they are added as little blue printings in the upper right corner on some keys, without affecting the overall usability of the keyboard, then just print them there. This layout discussion gets some kind of religious scale, it seems.

umlauts and other diacriticals are a way to show a sound distinction that may be important in the language, but that does not make letter+diacritical a different standalone letter.

In italian pèsca and pésca are two very different words, but nobody in their sane mind would suggest that e, è and é are three different standalone letters; they are significant variation of the same one.

dead keys and compose keys are quite common in languages that use diacriticals: afaik the spanish, french and maybe also swiss standard keyboards use them, and people who are used to them usually consider them a much better alternative than a limited amount of letter+diacritical choice.

On a small keyboard it is probably more intuitive to have lots of punctuation marks that can be used to compose letter+diacritical for many languages in an intuitive way (e.g. C`a -> à, C"o -> ö) is probably better than having a few composition already made and being forced to remember the compose position for anything else with no hint on the keyboard.

 

[Karel Jansens]

Those "Umlaute" are essential in the German language(Turkish and Scandinavian, too). Every Keyboard sold in Germany has got them. They are no accent-bearing letters, they are stand-alone letters. I can see, that people who speak a language, that doesn't need them don't understand their importance to others, who need them. Just imagine, you have to press a weird button combo to type and A or B or whatever. If they are added as little blue printings in the upper right corner on some keys, without affecting the overall usability of the keyboard, then just print them there. This layout discussion gets some kind of religious scale, it seems.

Every keyboard sold in France has an AZERTY layout with accented letters; every keyboard sold in Belgium has a different AZERTY layout; every keyboard sold in the Netherlands has a QWERTY layout with deadkeys for accents; Thai keyboards have a double layout with a modifier key.

Unless they're going to send the Pandora with a different keyboard layout for every country, this layout is indeed favoritism. Admittedly, normally I wouldn't care that much when a manufacturer makes a dumb design decision, but the developers have always tooted the horn of community input, which they seem to blatantly ignore in this case, apparently (that is how it comes over to me, at least) because one of the developers wants his pet layout on the keyboard no matter what.

And yes, I do mind having those letters in blue on the keyboard, because every time I see them, I'm reminded that apparently "é", "è", "ç", etc... were not important enough to be on there. And guess what? I had to type those letters using weird button combos.

 

[salasq]

On a small keyboard it is probably more intuitive to have lots of punctuation marks that can be used to compose letter+diacritical for many languages in an intuitive way (e.g. C`a -> à, C"o -> ö) is probably better than having a few composition already made and being forced to remember the compose position for anything else with no hint on the keyboard.

For Pandora's small keyboard, compose key would be the simplest solution. Stick with international English for basic layout.

I use OSX with international keyboard, and despite us having more umlauts than German (nine vowels), I have no big trouble with them. Including 'õ'. Neither French nor German give me any trouble, as basic layout + compose key provide for every major diacritical.

I'll probably remap a similar setup to Pandora anyway, Compose+U = " (äöü), Compose+N = ~ (ñõ), etc.