Conclusion / synthesis of the keyboard poll results

[TrashyMG]

You got me. We could SOLVE POVERTY AND WORDWIDE HUNGER! We could finally attain colonisation missions to our neighbours! Spread technology to the poorest to help them get to a level of affluence they deserve! MY GOD GUYS, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT THING WE'RE DOING! I am so excited to be a part of this. D.

Don't undervalue the need for proper retro PC emulation while sitting on the toilet. Nations have fallen without it.

 

[Grench]

Given the timeline that EvilDragon stated at the start of his keyboard poll, I think we're likely done or very close to it.

From the renders, I think we have a solid layout that will give us a stable base for the Pyra - and maybe whatever succeeds it years from now.

I think it's time to give ourselves a collective pat on the back, tilt back a beverage, and move on to the next discussion.

 

[comradekingu]

If you need it for compose, this is how it looks

Easier                              Harder

Compose button               Fn+compose

If you dont need it, you get a dedicated button for something else (bonus), which has been a reoccuring request (B-zar among others), you also get the a Fn+compose, so even if you have that lesser use for compose, its a whole extra button regardless of what you use it for.

You can marginalize this all you like, but its another benefit. Why wouldn't we get all the benefits in?

If it supposedly says something other than "we are not cramped for keys" why is there a compose on it? That is the Nr.1 evidence of cramped for keys, and it looks cluttered and ill devised.

It looks _exactly_ like someone decided on the functional layout first, and then appended a set of prints onto it later.

Its not a new layout either, its the exact same one, only with benefits added.

 

[FaeMinx]

So it's curtains down eh? Show over?


So let's all put our hands together for our delightful actors who put so much into convincing us all the drama is real.

MY GOD GUYS, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT THING WE'RE DOING!

Yes, yes it is.

^ If it's finalized.... I'm more than happy.

Obvious troll meets subtle troll.





*honestly, I thought i was being rather obvious too... I literally spelled it out in the Caring Corner.


** I'M BEING SERIOUS GUYS!!


I told you to pay attention to the 'space's between my words.


Need proof? read back to when i made all the posts in either thread and it's plain as day.

 

[Natsu]

^ I scanned, but I knew you wasn't serious when you said wait "two months" for a button change. If anything, we will be waiting for a built in camera.

@comradekingu

Space - space - button vs space - compose - button
Makes no difference. Especially when I don't use compose.

Compose - space - button or space - compose - button
Seems like easy typos waiting to happen, anyway.

 

[comradekingu]

It makes a lot of difference if you don't arrange it that way. Dualwide space puts an arbitrary limitations on the way you can arrange your keys. For example many layouts dont go n m comma dot, they go n m letter letter. If the two buttons meant to be letters are morphed into one button, that stops being possible.

Here is a render of the exact same new ED layout with singlewide space:

That change is the difference to me between dream-device and not.

 

[FaeMinx]

To me it's a 'dream' device either way.


But in all seriousness, singlewide space is definatively more awesome.

 

[WizardStan]

That change is the difference to me between dream-device and not.

If no one else is getting their "dream" device, neither should you.

 

[rygD]

The only advantage of a wide space key is a psycho-visual one: I must admit that it looks somewhat "friendly" and "comforting" (to the extent that these adjectives can be attributed to keyboards) to have a double-width space.

It does not add anything in terms of functionality, in fact it takes away some functionality: one less key, and harder to remap for e.g. dvorak or russian layouts, without any real gain in ergonomics or efficiency.

But it does have a non-negligible psycho-visual advantage. It says: "look, we are not cramped for keys, we had room for a big space key" (even though that's not quite true, but then again, even with one extra key we would still be cramped for keys).

If we would go for a single-width space at this late stage (and that's a very, very big if), then I would go for something like this:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/cba4f8e25726df399aa6d71e80806049

with Fn, Shift and Space on the left, and comma period and a dedicated key for / ? on the right in their standard M+3 positions. The remaining ascii punctuation goes on the bottom two rows (following a shift-pair convention) on the right half. There are three keys without an Fn label because we have an extra key; they could be filled with ñ £ ù or something.

I was getting pretty tired of all the new layouts after the poll.  I like the changes I noticed, and that you described.  I don't have time to really look at it and think about  everything, but I think I like this better than space on the right.

I just noticed that several other replies after this are a bit too long for the time I have right now.  I will have to catch up later.

 

[MrConfusion]

I'm gobsmacked. Truely.

Would that you were, I'm afraid. There's nothing more indicative of the state of humanity that a group of supposedly intelligent people would prefer to sit in front of their computers arguing with eachother over the relative merits of the size of a spacebar.


D.

It's not the size, it's how you use it...

... urm, sorry...

Ah... I got it, this was a dirty joke, eh? Nudge Nudge say no moar ...

We should rid ourselves of this troublesome space-bar-thing by installing a camera and use right to left head tilts for space and backspace.

Nods would be Tab and wild shaking about could be Enter/new paragraph.

Wild shaking... right... :rolleyes:

...MY GOD GUYS, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT THING WE'RE DOING! ...

Don't undervalue the need for proper retro PC emulation while sitting on the toilet. Nations have fallen without it.

:blink: Blimey! Is it just my dirty imagination or has this conversation taken a real bent bend? :huh:

 

[comradekingu]

That change is the difference to me between dream-device and not.

If no one else is getting their "dream" device, neither should you.

But my dad didnt pee in your part of the sandbox

Spoiler

because hes bigger than that

 

[Haraldur]

One benefit of a double-wide space bar is that it is easy to find without looking at the keyboard, as it feels different from the other keys and has a larger area (see Fitts' Law). If the space was to only be the size of the other keys, it would need to be in the bottom-right or bottom-left (or maybe top-right or top-left) corner in order to be easily accessible, as it is such a frequently used key (I would guess that it was the most commonly used key in this paragraph). This would require evicting another corner key, probably the bottom-left one. As that is currently ,/</;, it would need to be moved, and probably ./>/: as well.

Having one differently shaped key leaves an extra corner key available, so that is a reasonable benefit.

Having a single-wide space one or two keys into the keymat would be terribly unergonomic.

 

[Saber]

Given the timeline that EvilDragon stated at the start of his keyboard poll, I think we're likely done or very close to it.

From the renders, I think we have a solid layout that will give us a stable base for the Pyra - and maybe whatever succeeds it years from now.

I think it's time to give ourselves a collective pat on the back, tilt back a beverage, and move on to the next discussion.

Everyone is extremely tired of keyboard talk, including me, so yes let's move on to a new obsessive discussion, the color of the case.

We need a dozen polls, with some detailed hue comparison charts thrown in, stat. Times a wasting. 

For Dunny. 

Revision2 of my changes to the collaborative layout:

http://i.imgur.com/qK61sVw.png

Editor is here.

Spoiler

• Removed junk symbols ° § €. 
• Caron diacritic added on Shift + Fn + u.
• Left Shift is sticky.
• Brightness controls on opposite side from keyboard modifiers. I still want to put brightness controls on keyboard Fn + Dpad to give us two user definable keys up top.  

 

[Neelix]

One benefit of a double-wide space bar is that it is easy to find without looking at the keyboard, as it feels different from the other keys and has a larger area (see Fitts' Law).

I have to admit that when I was looking at that layout above where space was moved to just off the bottom left corner, I had a hard time spotting it at first.  I believe it should be possible to locate space at a glance,  whereas with that layout I had to actually look at each key and identify it to spot which one was space.

-Neelix

 

[comradekingu]

One benefit of a double-wide space bar is that it is easy to find without looking at the keyboard, as it feels different from the other keys and has a larger area (see Fitts' Law). If the space was to only be the size of the other keys, it would need to be in the bottom-right or bottom-left (or maybe top-right or top-left) corner in order to be easily accessible, as it is such a frequently used key (I would guess that it was the most commonly used key in this paragraph). This would require evicting another corner key, probably the bottom-left one. As that is currently ,/</;, it would need to be moved, and probably ./>/: as well.

Having one differently shaped key leaves an extra corner key available, so that is a reasonable benefit.

Having a single-wide space one or two keys into the keymat would be terribly unergonomic.

Feel has nothing to do with locating it on the keyboard, you arent doing this blindly for the first time. In the case you know it to be on the right already, is because you know it from the pandora.

As soon as you locate space, which isnt a problem with single unmarked (from testing i conducted myself), you know where it is.

The accuracy you gain by just increasing the area of impact, is the same as you introduce errors with hitting other buttons, so unless you are ok with adding more characters that shouldnt be there, it is not faster even theoretically.

Bottom left and bottom right dont translate from a 10finger board, they are actually the least central positions.

You have to see it in a bigger scope, nobody types just a sequence of spaces, you have to get back into the central area, which on average far removed from bottom left and right.

That is why the leftmost space-part is the most central and ergonomic, if you dont morph it together with the key to the right of it, the tactile ergonomics improve too, since the key collapses correctly at the most efficient position.

 

[Grench]

(from testing i conducted myself)

That claim seems to be a recurring theme for you. It was the same claim you used to justify claiming that your layouts 8 & 9 were far easier to use and understand than any other and how your testing resulted in support of these claims, etc...

The two least liked layouts in the poll were 8 and 9. Frankly I still don't understand see how they could possibly function. But, here we are - and you're still repeating the same things.

I suspect it may be time to tilt back that before mentioned beverage with the rest of us and call it a day.

 

[comradekingu]

Spoiler

Tested with novices and people from other realms, and also quite a pandora following. Those people left the rather stagnant discussion when it was done. Nobody wants to see a forever changing theme over a variation of a keyboard they cant type on.

If you don't have the explanation provided with the layout, the modularity fails, i never pretended anything else, i just dont provide it, and the explanation i did provide, wasnt included. People expect it to be a basic english layout, ironically what i wanted to avoid, but alas, singlewide space works. You can try it yourself.

The point about research is you can conduct a trial yourself.

Trying stuff on someone who isn't initiated in the whole discussion is very valuable, it is also the bulk of the market.

Even if you think international letters on a keyboard amount to just 10%, why not have that 10%? Free bonus.

For devices having singlewide non-centered space, there are no problems just as there are no problems with no dualwide shift and enter on the pandora keyboard. There are examples of dualwide for those things too on two-thumb keyboards.

If you want it in a vote, look at "How should the QWERTYUIOP row be aligned?"

Single vs dual is at 33 vs. 51 now, steadily climbing.

Functionality enjoys a lot more popularity than non-functioning visuals.

The best way i can explain the difference singlewide space makes, if you consider the keyboard to be a car to just go from A to B, it does that, a little faster.

It however allows tuners to get very respectable results. Its just more modifiable to every need there is.

 

[FaeMinx]

I... I hope I didn't upset anyone with my antics?

oh pish!


No really...


I really was being honest in my support of singlewide space.

... and I REALLY was taking the Mickey...


Bent over Mickey...


...and take it like a mouse!


*squeek!*


You're insufferable, you know that?


Now people will always question wether i'm being serious and genuine, or just playing some deranged convoluted game....

Muhahahaha!


It's just not fair you know.

Yes, I DO know.... *snicker* ...I keep her tied up in the basement.

 

[rygD]

Now people will always question wether i'm being serious and genuine, or just playing some deranged convoluted game....

Why not do it all?  Also, how you stated that sound like all communication, human interaction (maybe all animals), or just life.

 

[FaeMinx]

Now people will always question wether i'm being serious and genuine, or just playing some deranged convoluted game....

Why not do it all? Also, how you stated that sound like all communication, human interaction (maybe all animals), or just life.

Life is a deranged convoluted game that is both serious and genuine. Wether you're human, animal, or any thing.

I know who I Am.


The great pretender...


People fall for me every time. Hell, I fall for me every time.