It's the keyboard layout.

[_wb_]

Here's a Google docs keyboard layout proposal evaluation tool (a spreadsheet where you can input your own priorities/weights to rank the different proposals):

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/18016-comparison-matrix-for-keyboard-layout-proposals/#entry381490

 

[Askarus]

Updated my layout. A variety of changes. 

• Changed the name of the prime modifier from AltGr to Fn. Wrote what Fn really is, or might be, in the layout's summary block.
• Arranged the brackets to how they look on a U.S. keyboard(and probably several others). 
• Restricted the Shift + Fn values to only the usual U.S. shifted values for ` [ ] \ ; ' / which are ~ { } | : " ? and of course the German Umlauts and some additional diacritics(mentioned in the summary key). I didn't write it in but Fn + u could be dead key for the Caron diacritic. We'll see.
• Kept Euro instead of Section Sign on Fn + L. I think more people know of the currency symbol. This is a good location to remap over with lowercase and uppercase å æ ç or ż and the like if people loathe Compose sequences.
• Added a suggestion to have Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Pause Break at the top two keys under Fn to the left of Power. Fn and the other two top keys, BT and WiFi, for _wb_ could be GPS and HDMI toggles. 
• Cleaned up the picture a little. 

I've been fighting a cold for the past week or more, so I apologize if I've been a little cranky and short-tempered. I dislike being sick now that the weather is warmer.    :wub:

Anyways... 

v1.1 http://i.imgur.com/uvEPf3B.png

Spoiler

Spoiler

A list of Compose key sequences can be found here.

Previous layouts in my sig.

Spoiler

I like that one.

The Shift + FN keys are great to get maybe ¹²³¼½¬ as unlabeled keys as well.

Spoiler

Perhaps, but not on the number row, because then you can no longer do Shift-F1 etc.

Right.

I still would like to see ° on Saber's layout

 

[_wb_]

I still would like to see ° on Saber's layout

What do you need ° for? Temperatures? It's available as Compose o o, isn't that good enough?

All these symbols like ¤ § ° µ ≥ ≤ ≠ × ÷ ½  ¼ ¾ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞ ¿ ¡ © ® ¶ ¹ ² ³ « » £ ¥ ± ‰ and so on, I know there exist keyboards that have those, but do we really need them labeled explicitly on our keyboard? I just entered all of these by using Compose, and I didn't have to look anything up, because it's easy enough to guess the Compose sequence. I cannot imagine that anyone needs such symbols very frequently.

The set of (printable) ASCII characters is a nice and well-defined set. I'm hesitant to include any non-ASCII character, because I see no good reason to include some of them (like °) and not others (like ©).

 

[Askarus]

I still would like to see ° on Saber's layout

What do you need ° for? Temperatures? It's available as Compose o o, isn't that good enough?

All these symbols like ¤ § ° µ ≥ ≤ ≠ × ÷ ½  ¼ ¾ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞ ¿ ¡ © ® ¶ ¹ ² ³ « » £ ¥ ± ‰ and so on, I know there exist keyboards that have those, but do we really need them labeled explicitly on our keyboard? I just entered all of these by using Compose, and I didn't have to look anything up, because it's easy enough to guess the Compose sequence. I cannot imagine that anyone needs such symbols very frequently.

The set of (printable) ASCII characters is a nice and well-defined set. I'm hesitant to include any non-ASCII character, because I see no good reason to include some of them (like °) and not others (like ©).

I'm not familiar with all the compose sequences.

If I can access it I'm fine.

I don't know what µ is used for.

Is it for something specific? I don't mind writing micro SD instead of µSD.

 

[TrashyMG]

I don't know what µ is used for. Is it for something specific? I don't mind writing micro SD instead of µSD.

Other units of measure that require Micro, but yeah I don't understand the need for the degree or micro symbols to be marked on the keyboard.

 

[Askarus]

I don't know what µ is used for. Is it for something specific? I don't mind writing micro SD instead of µSD.

Other units of measure that require Micro, but yeah I don't understand the need for the degree or micro symbols to be marked on the keyboard.

What would you replace Micro with then?

At the moment I can't think of any other symbol than degree or micro.

I would favor degree as it's on a standard Keyboard (at least in Germany).

 

[TrashyMG]

What would you replace Micro with then? At the moment I can't think of any other symbol than degree or micro.   I would favor degree as it's on a standard Keyboard (at least in Germany).

Not sure myself, typical English keyboard doesn't include either. Since the German keyboard does have degree then sure I can see some validity for it being there. If there is room for it then I'd say put degree and micro on the keyboard.

 

[_wb_]

All of these symbols: ¤ § ° µ ≥ ≤ ≠ × ÷ ½  ¼ ¾ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞ ¿ ¡ © ® ¶ ¹ ² ³ « » £ ¥ ± ‰ exist on "standard" keyboards. Problem is that there are quite a lot of standards. I think it's very arbitrary to have µ § ° ² ³ which are on German keyboards, but not ¬ ¦ £ which are on UK keyboards, or ½ ¤ which are on Swedish keyboards, etc.

 

[Saber]

What would you replace Micro with then? At the moment I can't think of any other symbol than degree or micro.   I would favor degree as it's on a standard Keyboard (at least in Germany).

Not sure myself, typical English keyboard doesn't include either. Since the German keyboard does have degree then sure I can see some validity for it being there. If there is room for it then I'd say put degree and micro on the keyboard.

Degree as _wb_ said is Compose + o + o, and Micro is Compose + m+ u with Section Sign sequenced as Compose + s + o(or o + s). Some of the more trivial symbols to most.

I think Fn + m should be Context Menu. That's about where it is on larger keyboards. Then from _wb_'s layout, we put a Super(logo) key where Menu was.   

 

[Saber]

My latest layouts are in my sig. 

 

[Inqui]

Most prefered one for me.


Its a clear layout.


Only those ö,ä,ü could left for me. Its to specific for the world (opinion as german guy)

 

[_wb_]

Most prefered one for me.


Its a clear layout.


Only those ö,ä,ü could left for me. Its to specific for the world (opinion as german guy)

How about this one?

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/5b345f9c3f7b142e6add280f30b3d279

 

[bzar]

(edit: disregard)

 

[ible]

I hope that if ED decides to have two keyboard shifts, that the underlying hardware codes are distinguishable. Otherwise you end up not being able to remap the keyboard shifts independently, which would be a loss for flexibility.

I'd prefer not to have two keyboard shifts myself, but perhaps I am a vocal minority.

 

[Saber]

Most prefered one for me.


Its a clear layout.


Only those ö,ä,ü could left for me. Its to specific for the world (opinion as german guy)

How about this one?

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/5b345f9c3f7b142e6add280f30b3d279

It's good and I like where you have , and . but what if keyboard Shift and Meta switch places? Same for / and |?

 

[codifies]

Why have a shift on the RIGHT of the keyboard called left shift??? Why duplicate the same key?


If you want two shifts on the keyboard why not the two different shifts?


If you want shifts on the shoulder buttons than thats the place for duplicates(of the main board)

 

[_wb_]

Most prefered one for me.


Its a clear layout.


Only those ö,ä,ü could left for me. Its to specific for the world (opinion as german guy)

How about this one?

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/5b345f9c3f7b142e6add280f30b3d279

It's good and I like where you have , and . but what if keyboard Shift and Meta switch places? Same for / and |?

I have no strong opinion on that.

I had | at P because that's a better spot and pipe is perhaps slightly more important than backslash, and also because P could stand for Pipe. Another option would be to have [ ] { } \ on GHJKL, so \ and | are both on the right.

One minor advantage of Shift Meta Z in that order, is that slash (Meta+Z) becomes a thumb-mashable combo. Having Shift+Z as an easy combo is not very useful.

I'm just giving some reasons for keeping it like it is. But I don't have a strong opinion on the order of Shift and Meta, and the exact positions of [ ] { } \ |  (we could even put them in a row on Meta+FGHJKL, which frees up P for people who want to map £ there (P for Pound).

 

[_wb_]

Why have a shift on the RIGHT of the keyboard called left shift??? Why duplicate the same key?


If you want two shifts on the keyboard why not the two different shifts?


If you want shifts on the shoulder buttons than thats the place for duplicates(of the main board)

That's the problem with having three shifts: they can't all be different. If you make both the right keyboard Shift and the shoulder Shift an RSHIFT, then they're indistinguishable. That would mean that in a game which uses shoulder buttons and the keyboard (e.g. keyboard for chatting), you would get unexpected behavior when using the right keyboard Shift. So I guess it's a lesser evil to have the two keyboard shifts indistinguishable.

Perhaps it's possible to let the three shifts be different keys anyway, and let the one that is not LSHIFT or RSHIFT also behave like a Shift key in software.

Anyway, I think it's best to have only two shifts. If one keyboard shift is not enough for you, then make it sticky.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

Could I ask a question (possibly already covered), on a desktop PC, in order to enter characters which aren't on the keyboard, for example, on a enGB/enUS keyboard, the é character, what is the typical way of doing it. Or, potentially more specifically, is the typical way different based on whether you are using *nix, Windows or OSX? I have only really entered English and Japanese, for Japanese, on a Windows PC, I hit Alt + ` to switch between 'normal' input, hiragana, katakana and kanji. When in the Japanese modes, you just type the English letters (for example you type wa and you get わ or  ワ depending which mode you are in), and as you type words, it offers you the kanji (there are multiple, so you press space and then select the appropriate one from a list). I just Googled for how this works for French letters, and one of the first articles http://french.about.com/od/writing/ss/typeaccents.htm mentions various different ways, based on OS.

 

[_wb_]

Could I ask a question (possibly already covered), on a desktop PC, in order to enter characters which aren't on the keyboard, for example, on a enGB/enUS keyboard, the é character, what is the typical way of doing it. Or, potentially more specifically, is the typical way different based on whether you are using *nix, Windows or OSX? I have only really entered English and Japanese, for Japanese, on a Windows PC, I hit Alt + ` to switch between 'normal' input, hiragana, katakana and kanji. When in the Japanese modes, you just type the English letters (for example you type wa and you get わ or  ワ depending which mode you are in), and as you type words, it offers you the kanji (there are multiple, so you press space and then select the appropriate one from a list). I just Googled for how this works for French letters, and one of the first articles http://french.about.com/od/writing/ss/typeaccents.htm mentions various different ways, based on OS.

There are many ways.

If you're French, there's a good chance that you're using an AZERTY keyboard with a dedicated é key. So that's one way. If you don't have an actual AZERTY keyboard, you can still blind-type AZERTY on any other ISO keyboard, because the physical layout is the same (just the labels are rather different, especially on the number row).

Another way is having a keyboard with a so-called dead key diacritic for the acute accent, which means you press that key and then E (or Shift-E) to get é (or É). That's a bit more general, because with just one extra key, you can make áÁéÉíÍóÓúÚýÝ.

Another way is to define AltGr keys for the special letters you frequently need.

Yet another way, at least in Linux, is the Compose method. E.g. Compose ' e produces é. This method is a bit cumbersome, but at least it's better than having to go to some "Insert Special Symbol" menu or something. I particularly like it for rarely needed symbols like œ (Compose o e), µ (Compose m u), ≥ (Compose > =) and so on, because the combinations are quite easy to remember and there is quite a lot of stuff you can input like that.

And finally, if anything else fails, you can always enter Unicode numbers. Ctrl-Shift-U <number> Enter. The Unicode Character 'LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE' has code U+00E9, so Ctrl-Shift-U E9 Enter produces é. This is of course a very non-practical method.