Action button labels, again

[_wb_]

I have a great idea:

We use αβγδ.

• If someone wants to talk about these buttons, he just can type "alpha, beta, gamma, delta" instead of copying it from somewhere else like other weird symbols
• We make it in Meta color. So if pressed with meta it actually produces the symbols αβγδ+- ⇒ good for math guys]

My current keyboard layout proposal has a GREEK key at Meta+G, which is a dead key which you press first, and then a Latin letter, and you can use it to produce all Greek letters: αβςδεφγηιθκλμνοπχρστυωξψζ ΑΒΔΕΦΓΗΙΘΚΛΜΝΟΠΧΡΣΤΥΩΞΨΖ. That is better than just having the first four lowercase Greek letters.

Also, it is best if Meta+action buttons do not do anything different than just the action buttons, because then weird things happen if you play a game that uses both the Meta shoulder button and the action buttons.

 

[_wb_]

NSEW does seem like a pretty sane suggestion, actually.

I like it.

Better than all the possible combinations of ABXY

Better that PYRA (RAPY)

more practical than colours

Better than weird symbols nobody recogises

Alpha-beta-gamma-delta seems like a bad idea vs playstation-like greek chars

North South West East are reasonable names to refer to the action buttons in a "neutral", ASCII-only way. Much better than YXAB indeed!

PgUp PgDn Home End are just as good in my opinion, slightly more compact (15 chars total vs 18), and much more descriptive/useful for keyboard users.

Why not label them with some kind of "compass arrows" that refer to both North South West East and PgUp PgDn Home End (and depending on the context you can pick the name that is most appropriate), and in a small font the keyboard function?

Something like this:

Ins              ↟

                   PgUp

       ↞      ↠

      Home                     End

Del             ↡

                  PgDn

 

[Binky]

Why not label them with some kind of "compass arrows"

Because people will talk about up-arrow and not know whether they mean  dpad or face buttons.

Two sets of arrows is begging for confusion

 

[Urben]

Why not label them with some kind of "compass arrows"

Because people will talk about up-arrow and not know whether they mean  dpad or face buttons.

Two sets of arrows is begging for confusion

My guess, too.

Still if we use NSWE in letters, they have to look different than the other regular letter keys. Otherwise it just looks random, not like a compass.

 

[WizardStan]

Label the buttons NSEW directly and in the middle of them, printed on the case, use ↟, ↞, ↠, and ↡, like a real compass with arrows?

 

[Neelix]

Put th or st after them (possibly in a smaller font), to give clear abbreviations Nth, Sth, Est, Wst.

- Neelix

 

[_wb_]

Why not label them with some kind of "compass arrows"

 
Because people will talk about up-arrow and not know whether they mean  dpad or face buttons.


Two sets of arrows is begging for confusion

My guess, too.

Still if we use NSWE in letters, they have to look different than the other regular letter keys. Otherwise it just looks random, not like a compass.

Maybe North South West East in full then?


Or No So We Ea ?

What about this:

  

     ☝

☜     ☞ 

     ☟

 

[WizardStan]

Put th or st after them (possibly in a smaller font), to give clear abbreviations Nth, Sth, Est, Wst.

I'm sold.

 

[_wb_]

“X to the Nth power!”, said the mathematician solemnly, and nobody knew which action button he was referring to.

 

[Saber]

 

[Mr_Loon]

Still if we use NSWE in letters, they have to look different than the other regular letter keys. Otherwise it just looks random, not like a compass.

It does not have to look like a compass but it could well be pretty cool if that was incorporated into the design.

The whole point is that I strongly suspect that people would know which button to press without concious thought if the NSEW layout was used.

Is there anyone here who would struggle with NSEW, my concern was that non English speakers would be perplexed by the choice.

In terms of differentiating the buttons from the keys that's not hard, we just need to maintain consistency and refer to the gaming buttons as N button, L button etc. and the keys as N Key, L Key etc.

 

[_wb_]

That's not a new idea, Saber. It has been proposed before, back in the time when we didn't even know the final physical layout of the action buttons.

I even found a way to hide ABXY inside those 4 element symbols:

Larger image: http://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~jon.sneyers/tmp/action_buttons4.png

This concept is based on the alchemical symbols: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemical_symbol)

Four basic elements
Main article: Classical elements

Western alchemy makes use of the Hellenic elements. The symbols used for these are:[1]

• Earth
  
• Water
• Air
• Fire

but the symbols are a bit modified to hide ABXY in them.

These symbols are also appropriate for Home/End/PgUp/PgDn.

See also:

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/15880-action-button-labels-poll-3-final-poll/page-6#entry323854

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/15880-action-button-labels-poll-3-final-poll/page-8#entry324049

 

[Binky]

Other European languages would mostly be NSEO or NSOW, wouldn't they? - Not too far off.

Nth-Sth-Est-Wst would be ok if theres sufficient precision in the plastic molding. (although it would spoil the symetry of the buttons).

Could always have a little compass rose embossed in the case in the middle, like so:

although thats a minor detail (and I don't know much about plastics manufacture)

 

[Silent-Hunter]

I actually really like the classical element one.

 

[bzar]

Other European languages would mostly be NSEO or NSOW, wouldn't they? - Not too far off.

Yay Finland PEIL (Pohjoinen, Etelä, Itä, Länsi)
(Not an issue. We learn english starting at third grade and everyone should be familiar with NSEW)

I actually really like the classical element one.

It actually has a slight additional advantage of depicting the pageup/pagedown/home/end in a somewhat intuitive way (as said in the quote).

 

[_jr_]

Are there some stats with how many people in first world countrys dont know what the first greek letters are?

I can say pretty much all of the USA...

And from the discussion it seemed that the UK isn't different. The surprising thing was that there seemed to be some kind of existential Angst surrounding the possibility of using any foreign symbols (not only greek). My favorite argument (paraphrased by me) was: My mother doesn't know them, therefore they will confuse me. It seems that it isn't doing you much good if most of the world is speaking your language and copying your culture.

 

[rygD]

Not eliminating it completely is not a good reason to avoid the issue.

It was a joke.

 

[SNESFAN]

I actually really like the classical element one.

yea, me too, it's my personal favorite. Kinda meets the whole dragon esque / fire logo theme of the pyra.

easily memorized, unique keyboard symbols, easily expressed in standard words, newly written games could take advantage of the theme to add flavor etc.

I think the idea got shot down by people originally, but maybe the button graphics just weren't right.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Definitely Star and Void for the two extra buttons too.

 

[Mr_Loon]

I think the idea got shot down by people originally, but maybe the button graphics just weren't right.

For me the problem is that there is no inherent connection with button position for the elements so if we're told to press the AIR button in game then concious thought  / learning has to take place to press the left button, also being told to press the Fire button could lead to a bit of confusion with us oldies who are used to joystick buttons in general being called the fire button.

Using the elements as button labels also strikes me as Uber Nerdy / likely to appeal to 14 year old D&D players and people like me, of course (a 45 year old ex D&D playing hippy).

Still waiting for someone who would not be easily able to press the correct button if we used the cardinal points of the compass (+ NW & SW for the extra 2 buttons).