It's the keyboard layout.


I like to have a dedicated Tab, though. On the other hand, what I mostly dislike about the Pandora Tab, is that it is inconvenient to hit it multiple times. With Meta/Fn on a shoulder button, that is less of an issue...
The idea moves 3 keys to closer to normal position and frees up a 2nd level modifier.  I can understand wanting a dedicated tab key, but given the choice between a dedicated tab key and the 3 other keys moving to closer to their 'normal' positions AND getting the `~ diacritic onto the `~ key (symbol reduction), I think it's worth it.

Plus, with Meta/Fn on the lower left of the keyboard, Fn+space = tab should be much easier than it was on the Pandora.  So, it isn't, "that bad".
 
I have not been following this discussion closely but looked at some proposals this weekend. The one thing that struck me is that many including _wb_'s tries to be an insane amount of everything at once. Compatible with everything != usable. If each button has so many keycodes that you need a third level modifier just to type in your language, then it is too much to read or print on keymat as well. That means you have to look it up, so why not have more layouts available and switch to a suitable one with limited need for modifiers as the Kingu's functional area? I would rather switch between two sane layouts than hitting modifiers, combobuttons and spend time reading too tiny keymat print.


Cheers
We will need a third level modifier anyway. We simply don't have enough keys to avoid that.

Switching to a more suitable layout and tweaking the mapping to your personal preferences (while invalidating the labels on the keys) is always a possibility, no matter which labels we put on the keys.

The extra symbols in my proposal (äöüßçñéèàøæå) do indeed add a bit of visual clutter, but the advantage is that for nearly everyone, there's no need to remap anything at all.
 
There are nouyances, but as a distinction, 

It is my assumption that wb believes in being able to compose letters and he is correct in that this covers some languages fully. And that a limited amount of dead-diactrics are needed.

My interjection is while having dead-diactrics only is ok for some languages, it is a lesser option for those who have dedicated buttons. Having a way to use dedicated buttons is however not

incompatible with languages that need/utilize dead-diactrics only. Therefore it is a net benefit, and as demonstrated, very important to the focal usergroup.

It is also my belief that we should have all the diactrics.

A: Limited selection of dead diactrics only. Those who need more diactrics and dedicated letters incompatible.

B: Fullest possible dedicated letters. Full selection of dead-diactrics. Compatible with all languages with diactrics and useful for those who need dedicated buttons.

To me its not a question about which one is better, its a question about what we lose with B, which is what i am asking.

This is my view. As you can see the colours are a real gradient. We account for purchasing power, because that is the actual customers. And we see each country as individual customers, not the generic functionality as a whole. It is by no means extencive, but already we see a lot of problems not accounted for:

Based on http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/b797d3c526e2d912a8bb6e3bf9c50c0c Largely the same international support that the pandora had.




  • Good enough: No major hurdles


  • VERY GOOD: Probable


  • GOOD: Hope there are other qualities


  • BAD: Very few of potential


  • VERY BAD: Outright fail, almost none of potential

These are about half the audience, for purposes of language they are covered already, so lets not inflate.

 

All numbers in millions

 

226 americans

60 Englishspeakers in the UK

19 Englishspeakers in AUS

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

93.5 German speakers 80 Germans 7.5 austia 5.5 Swiss 0.5 luxembourg öäü missing nobody(?) types ẞ on thirdlevelshift+U. Cant buttonhack to get AZERTY

66 French people No dedicated numbers or letters, dont know how to type æ or œ. Cant buttonhack to get AZERTY

46 Spaniards  ¡ not close to where it is in spanish ¿ not close, ñ and Ç buttons missing

 

124 Japanese None of the letters, famously difficult market for foreign products. Especially game-consoles.

 

19 lower german scandinavians (5M Norwegian, 5.5M Danish, 9.2M Swedish) Missing all letters.

23 dutch-speakers (16.5 holland, 6.5 belgium) Diactrics moved and looks different. These people are often multilingual (notably German and French)

5.4 Finns Missing all letters

 

59 million Italians Cant buttonhack to get QZERTY

10 million Portuguese Missing Ç and the other special button.

 

71 million people speak Turkish

28 million people speak Romanian

11 million people speak Czech

5.2 million people speak Slovak

2.5 million people speak Slovenian

1.2 million people speak Estonian

  

5.4 million people speak Albanian

 

40 million people speak Polish (missing: Ł)

19 million people speak Serbo-Croatian languages (missing: Đ)

13 million people speak Hungarian (missing: űő)

~9 million people speak Catalan (missing: interpunct)

3.1 million people speak Lithuanian (needs ū)

1.75 million people speak Latvian (needs ū)

0.5 million people speak Maltese (needs ħ)

 

~9 million people speak Quechuan languages

~17 million people speak Afrikaans

73 million people speak Tagalog (Filipino)

over 150 million people speak Swahili

75 million people speak Vietnamese (missing: hook above diacritic (Hỏi) and the letters Ă,Đ,Ơ,Ư)
 
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Nice. I can seriously picture myself actually using this now. Even the Pandora's problem with having to hit tab multiple times disappears, just hold Meta with the left thumb and start tapping space with the right.You've got all the "normal" mappings, the punctuation pairs are "where they should be" and fully accessible thanks to the shift+Meta on the right (which solves what I tried to solve by putting them on the left). International users get a lot of their non-English characters, and if they're in places not normally expected (like ß) then the way is open to just apply a standard regional layout, changing R_ALT to AltGr, and using the mappings they're most familiar with.
 
Nice. I can seriously picture myself actually using this now. Even the Pandora's problem with having to hit tab multiple times disappears, just hold Meta with the left thumb and start tapping space with the right.
You've got all the "normal" mappings, the punctuation pairs are "where they should be" and fully accessible thanks to the shift+Meta on the right (which solves what I tried to solve by putting them on the left). International users get a lot of their non-English characters, and if they're in places not normally expected (like ß) then the way is open to just apply a standard regional layout, changing R_ALT to AltGr, and using the mappings they're most familiar with.
How about f11/12 on backspace/return ?

[ or is it { looks like it could be a little difficult to perform, it would depend on how chordable two keys next to each other end up being

similarly other groupings of important symbols +/= _/-

why not group € and £ together? É/È
 

I think there is a certain harmony in that.  The dotted circle diacritic hoops on those keys could/should be only needed once per key, like you did with the ones on the right side.


All of the dual use symbols/diacritics are on their own keys.  


Fn and Shif+Fn are consistently applied to their roots so there should be no hunting around for them.


All of the US standard key pairs are retained.  DosBox should be happy.


Nearly all keys only have 3 or fewer symbols printed on them, even though most actually do 4 outputs.


Tab makes sense on space as tab is simply a long space.


There are only two changes that I would still want to make to it.  They are a bit more contentious though.


1.  Swap sides on the shoulder buttons to put Fn and Shift on the side opposing where it is at on the main keyboard to make it more ergonomic.


2.  Put Ins and Del where + and - are now on the game pad.  I'm sure you/we could find something else to fill the button position at the top/right where they're at now.


I may have spotted a minor issue.  In the text box at the right:


"Shift+LMeta: standard Linux Compose key ⎄ e.g. ⎄ A E gives Æ, ⎄ O / gives Ø, ⎄ mu gives µ, etc.Meta+letter: immediate special symbols"

Shift+Meta then release may be a 'while in thought' action.  I could see someone pressing shift+meta, thinking again or looking for the 'right' combo, releasing it then doing something else, but accidentally getting trapped 'in compose'.  Maybe use something more definitive for compose?  Meta+Enter maybe?
 
sure it can be customized, but i expect most people (me included) just go for what is there and 'works'. I Think the 'functional area' concept however implemented, makes sense as a way of decluttering, and give freedom in placing other symbols. Anyways, This thread is a surprisingly interesting read.
 
An idea - not sure if it's a good one...

F11 and F12 where + and - are on the game pad?  Top layer, not a Fn select.  Easily user/game programmable.
 
What an utterly strange way to denominate dedicated letters as the basic way to type... Completely disregarding both efficiency and habit.


The reason why these people voted for it, is because they need it. Very good is not the correct term for something that fails.


Even so, you can have something that works better for all of them, and no letters that are impossible to type.


Its either compatible with dedicated keys for non-english audiences, or it isnt. I dont see a reason not to.
How can you have something that works better for all of them? How would you type, say, Spanish on your keyboard proposal?


If you understand correctly, you would let Spanish people remap [{ to grave/circumflex (like on their keyboards), <> to ñ, keyboard Shift to acute/diaeresis, and perhaps ¡¿ at ]} or maybe as hidden Shift+AltGr combos near ! and ?, which would be Shift+AltGr+1 and Shift+AltGr+6. Then they would map the original symbols <>[]{} to the AltGr-layer, or maybe they would already be available as hidden symbols on AltGr+DFGHJK. In any case they lose their keyboard Shift and they have their language-specific keys not labeled at all, so they are supposed to already know how to blind-type on a normal Spanish keyboard, and then somehow transfer that 10-finger muscle memory to their two thumbs.


You may claim that that works better than having labeled ñ¿¡ and diacritics available, but I respectfully disagree.
By making it efficient, which is the main priority, and with English users where likely choices are presented, because they are the biggest group, and because what can be delivered out of the box is going to be superior for them if there is only one keymat.

I think its more about making something that fits for each individual in that they speak a language, and not "all of them". If the market is big enough, the visuals can also be dealt with in terms of keymats. That would increase the level from probable to good enough also for german.

<>[]{} are advanced symbols, which a lot of people are even fine doing without (from my vote). Having them hidden altGr+letters is acceptable for this audience.


Unlabled ! and ¿ on shift+altGr+1  and +button to the right of 0 is the norm for interlingual purposes.

I consider it obvious to try shift+0 since the key to the right of it is missing. (its a backspace)

It is the exact same combo in Spanish. But they also have a dedicated button for ¡ at 0. It would have to move if you want it dedicated.

However that is only the formal way to speak in Spanish, people writing for example IMs often disregard it completely.

¿Quien es el gringo? for questions.

¡Pescador!  for things shouted.

If people know how to blind type its a huge benefit. Since the current marketbase is only advanced users, is quite the bonus. They are the ones who voted too, lets not lose that potential.

Taking away the ability to type letters on the right, and the ease of producing additional keymats without much hackery, is in my view negative.

You only lose keyboard the shift if you want ^ ill account for this in the overview.

Based on  http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/7e81eec1ad02e9be1ff546537db1d32b with  

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/30a0088d8122d438eb0dfe55b9cb6a53 hidden layer

  • Good enough: No major hurdles
  • VERY GOOD: Probable
  • GOOD: Hope there are other qualities
  • BAD: Very few of potential
  • VERY BAD: Outright fail, almost none of potential
These are about half the audience, for purposes of language they are covered already, so lets not inflate.


All numbers in millions

226 americans

60 Englishspeakers in the UK

19 Englishspeakers in AUS


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

93.5 German speakers 80 Germans 7.5 austia 5.5 Swiss 0.5 luxembourg öäü missing nobody(?) types ẞ on thirdlevelshift+U. Cant buttonhack to get AZERTY Pick keyboardshift or dedicated ^

66 French people No dedicated numbers (only with Fn+ if you want to move F-keys)  or letters, dont know how to type æ or œ. Cant buttonhack to get AZERTY

46 Spaniards  ¡ not close to where it is in spanish ¿ not close, ñ and Ç buttons missing

19 lower german scandinavians (5M Norwegian, 5.5M Danish, 9.2M Swedish) Missing all letters.


23 dutch-speakers (16.5 holland, 6.5 belgium) Diactrics moved and looks different. These people are often multilingual (notably German and French)

5.4 Finns Missing all letters

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I believe there is a line here, because above it are the likely marketgroups. The prospective buyers. Above it is the segment of international users the pyra should/can do well with.

Especially Germans in Germany, who cant get a bad trade for their currency.

Anything else is a bonus. I think making the cut at the first line drastically reduces sales from the second 

124 Japanese None Few of the letters, famously difficult market for foreign products. Especially game-consoles. It could have been in the running, but its inprobable to attain that level. Sub-culture levels at most, which is still nothing to scoff at.

 64 million Italians Cant buttonhack to get QZERTY  I feel unqalified to uprate the assumption

10 million Portuguese Missing Ç and the other special button. I feel unqalified to uprate the assumption

(Other languages covered with diactrics)
 
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An idea - not sure if it's a good one...

F11 and F12 where + and - are on the game pad?  Top layer, not a Fn select.  Easily user/game programmable.
Given that F11 is usually "Toggle full-screen" this strikes me as a very bad idea. I want to be able to hit this independently of the gaming buttons.

I really like your latest layout (above) My main concern though is that with Meta and Shift in those locations not all the meta+shift combinations might be available when using the modifiers on the keyboard. On the Pandora , and . are on the same row of the keyboard matrix, which would prevent them from being chorded with 8 other keys/symbols. While this may be different on the pyra, it is one area where I would expect similarity.

At this point I think we really need that technical info on the keyboard matrix. There might be good reason to put Meta and shift on the right. (and leave the shoulder buttons as they are) My current suggestion is to swap meta with . and shift with , (effectively putting these keys back where they were on the Pandora)

Having meta in the bottom right hand corner would also mean that Tab could be mashable like it is on the pandora.

2. Put Ins and Del where + and - are now on the game pad. I'm sure you/we could find something else to fill the button position at the top/right where they're at now.
I agree with this.

I may have spotted a minor issue. In the text box at the right: "Shift+LMeta: standard Linux Compose key ⎄ e.g. ⎄ A E gives Æ, ⎄ O / gives Ø, ⎄ mu gives µ, etc.Meta+letter: immediate special symbols" Shift+Meta then release may be a 'while in thought' action. I could see someone pressing shift+meta, thinking again or looking for the 'right' combo, releasing it then doing something else, but accidentally getting trapped 'in compose'. Maybe use something more definitive for compose? Meta+Enter maybe?
I also agree with this.

-Neelix
 
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ROFL I doubt its even middle aged... No wonder ED's gone radio silent on keyboards if he's any sense he's hiding till it all blows over this time next year without any clear consensus, so he can make his own mind up....
 
I'm really, really starting to feel the international symbols should be cut out completely. I don't mind people having them at their disposal, I want everyone to be happy with the product, blablabla. But purely personally especially the backlight will just "pop" that crap to my eyes to annoy me all the time.

It makes no difference to me what the layout is: like I've said, I'm sure I'll remap many things no matter which layout is chosen. But basically the visual appearance is just not going to appeal to me. I don't use scandinavian keyboards when I can avoid them on desktops... much less a scan-ger-span-franian.

So I'd just gladly pay extra for a C64 retrokeymat to make my Pyra do the retro thing properly! Not insane extra, of course, but lets just say I did not consider the 100 euro alu case for the Pandora as "too expensive" for something I use WAY more daily than my phone, microwave, car, toilet...

And even that C64 map would surely have less symbols than some layouts here...

Oooh... waaait... ooooooooh, first Ultima was 35 years ago next year, I think I can still read the alphabet without constantly looking up the symbols oh gosh that would just really rock... backlit futhark-clone alphabet lighting my magic box... oooooooooooooh.... I waaaaaaaant!
 
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I only need English so I'm alright jack?


We can and absolutely should accommodate the main European languages (at least) especially given that in many cases its surprisingly few extra characters that's needed.
 
I only need English so I'm alright jack?
Well, no, I have my äöå on this Pandora and I need them for chatting with friends, kids, the wife, etc. Not seeing the äöå never bothers me.

Lets just say I buy keyboards for qualities other than what someone has painted on them and my idea of "what looks cool", if we go down that route, is twisted :).
 
An idea - not sure if it's a good one...

F11 and F12 where + and - are on the game pad?  Top layer, not a Fn select.  Easily user/game programmable.
Do not want.  I use F11 for full screen mode.  Not sure I'd want to reprogram games to not have that option.

Appeal to people to add in their preferences in the Matrix, for those who are interested:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14mVNNzLhmhyA4sCIAPSoDv404xtctfLSiEMTtTlEzfw/edit

Add in your weights in column AV, AW, or AX, for the properties listed in each row.

You end up grading each layout on a curve:  "Normalized overall scores" (one row from 108 to 110, depending on which column you use).  Adjust your weights so that you actually like the top three high scores.
 
Oooh... waaait... ooooooooh, first Ultima was 35 years ago next year, I think I can still read the alphabet without constantly looking up the symbols oh gosh that would just really rock... backlit futhark-clone alphabet lighting my magic box... oooooooooooooh.... I waaaaaaaant!
Ooh,  or the Standard Galactic Alphabet from Commander Keen. ;)

- Neelix
 
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