It's the keyboard layout.

[_wb_]

New users will of course need to be educated, and  I think a good way to make it known to new users that the modifiers are on the shoulder buttons  (and that home, end, etc are on the gaming buttons) is  by putting up a key map as the default wallpaper.

I agree that that's a good way, but I think a better way is to actually label the shoulder buttons and gaming buttons with their functions.

Thats not what i said though. I said that dead-diactrics only, fails before you consider the most important international/interlingual languages.

The first language you are able to support with only dead-diactrics, is dutch, but that is 4th or 5th down the list, and is covered in smilar fashion anyway.

Who is proposing only dead diacritics? I'm not.

But even with only dead diacritics, it's better for German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and lots of other non-Dutch languages to have dead diacritics than to have nothing at all: éèàüöä in two thumb-presses each (diacritic + letter) is still much better than éèàüöä in three thumb presses (Compose + symbol + letter).

Its a toss-up between dedicated diactrics and hidden AltGr-layer for accentuation, im saying both. However ED says no to printed dedicated diactrics by default. So it can only be where its supposed to be, and hidden.

What do you mean, "ED says no to printed dedicated diacritics"? When and where did he say that?

Even a regular German QWERTZ keyboard has printed dedicated dead acute, grave and circumflex accents, and given that ED seems to want to have all keys of a regular German keyboard labeled (at least üöäߧ°), I would rather expect that he wants to have acute, grave and circumflex.

 

[Neelix]

I agree that that's a good way, but I think a better way is to actually label the shoulder buttons and gaming buttons with their functions.

That too.  I so rarely look at the shoulder buttons on my Pandoras that I tend to forget they are labelled at all though.

What do you mean, "ED says no to printed dedicated diacritics"? When and where did he say that?

As far as I know he didn't.   Someone posted a layout where the majority of the keyboard was covered in dead key diacritics as the alternate symbols, and ED said he didn't like that.  That's not quite the same thing though.

- Neelix

 

[ible]

3. At one point I thought about switching = and +, so there's a symmetry of (-=+). I think it's a net gain for the code-combos score. (It lowers i++, but gains -= and increases /=.) Here's an alternative rearrangement of yours which increases the code combos quite a bit, though it may look a little less symmetric to some:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/73a832d97d3d555a888dee767649badb

(Nice subtle symmetries: operator opposites are vertically two keys apart.)

 I see your points and I like the subtle symmetries (and the fact that * + / - are in one 'column'), but I prefer to have - and + next to eachother, for programs where they're used for something like zooming in and out or adjusting something. Also maybe for the Compose sequence to produce ±. Minus on the bottom row deviates quite a bit from its expected position.

The symmetry -=+ makes sense in the same way as <=> makes sense. Still I prefer to have -+ and <> as neighbor-pairs.

I understand. I don't mind + on I and - on M, because you can remember it via "Increment" for + and "Minus" for -. You never really need +- together, which is why I put them apart on mine. As for - "too far from normal position", that would be also true of _, which is down by space. In my layout, you keep -_ together.

I like the http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/2cc807dd1656a0703fb8bf12f074357f layout, too, but worry that you've lost some of your symmetries (like ; : on the same line). Although you do increase your code combos ..

My biggest problem with

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/1417479de73c9231d7e258fd0eb779a4

is the mix between ASCII punctuation and language-specific precomposed letters. Having them more separated/clustered seems better than having letters like äüößçñ as a Meta key on their 'natural' letter.

It might be better for "hunt and peck" searching for your meta-symbol (because they'll all be in roughly the same area, so you can narrow it down sooner), but putting symbols on their natural letters (or close thereto) makes it easier to remember, giving a quicker-to-memorize layout, perhaps!

 

[Eight Bit]

I like to shamelesly plug my 1st keyboard from a few weeks ago once again.

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/207288cf6cf433f297de3c1ffbb1d1ba

I don't know why CK wrote that dead diacritics are primarely good for dutch as most letters can be made using them. For all the other exotics the compose button is there.

Personaly I will probably never use some of them but that's my language compatibility compromise right there.

It's just 7 dead diacritic keys though, of which I will probably not use 4. In _wb_'s layout for instance which has most combinations written out so to say, I will not use 9 or 10 keys out of the 12(?) available. 

But tbh, if the main concensus is that dedicated characters are preffered, than I guess the diacritics could be replaced by those or maybe _wb_'s keyboard would be the better choice. I guess it's all about whether one likes the diacritics on the left and language ones on the right or the other way around.

In the end it comes down to personal preference I guess. 

 

[_wb_]

3. At one point I thought about switching = and +, so there's a symmetry of (-=+). I think it's a net gain for the code-combos score. (It lowers i++, but gains -= and increases /=.) Here's an alternative rearrangement of yours which increases the code combos quite a bit, though it may look a little less symmetric to some:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/73a832d97d3d555a888dee767649badb


(Nice subtle symmetries: operator opposites are vertically two keys apart.)

 
I see your points and I like the subtle symmetries (and the fact that * + / - are in one 'column'), but I prefer to have - and + next to eachother, for programs where they're used for something like zooming in and out or adjusting something. Also maybe for the Compose sequence to produce ±. Minus on the bottom row deviates quite a bit from its expected position.


The symmetry -=+ makes sense in the same way as <=> makes sense. Still I prefer to have -+ and <> as neighbor-pairs.

I understand. I don't mind + on I and - on M, because you can remember it via "Increment" for + and "Minus" for -. You never really need +- together, which is why I put them apart on mine. As for - "too far from normal position", that would be also true of _, which is down by space. In my layout, you keep -_ together.


I like the http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/2cc807dd1656a0703fb8bf12f074357f layout, too, but worry that you've lost some of your symmetries (like ; : on the same line). Although you do increase your code combos ..

My biggest problem with

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/1417479de73c9231d7e258fd0eb779a4


is the mix between ASCII punctuation and language-specific precomposed letters. Having them more separated/clustered seems better than having letters like äüößçñ as a Meta key on their 'natural' letter.

It might be better for "hunt and peck" searching for your meta-symbol (because they'll all be in roughly the same area, so you can narrow it down sooner), but putting symbols on their natural letters (or close thereto) makes it easier to remember, giving a quicker-to-memorize layout, perhaps!

That is a good point if the üöä etc are unlabeled. Then you need to memorize things, and then it helps to have the unlabeled symbols at their "logical" positions.

In my recent proposals, üöä are labeled, so no memory is needed and it's not a big problem to put üöä on Meta+RDF (while RDF have nothing to do with ÜÖÄ). Still, I put the üöä in the same relative positions (triangle with ü on top) as on a normal German keyboard. That means that (hopefully) some 'mental muscle memory' can be kept when Germans are switching between the Pyra keyboard and normal German keyboards.

I did a similar thing with ° and § by the way: on German keyboards these are at the positions where ~ and # are in US-QWERTY; while I can't put them on the right position, their relative position is the same (same row, two keys in between). These symbols § and ° are sometimes used together in legal texts (e.g. § for sections, ° for subsections).

Here's another way to sort the ?;:-=_+  :

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/23dfde80b0c5309a2f8db735d65ea7c0

It deviates more from the US-QWERTY positions (it is a bit closer to the German positions: - on the bottom row, ? on the top row), but it has some advantages:

• = is adjacent to + - /
• ; is in an excellent position for coding (good for ); and ; enter)
• minus/dash is a mashable key at Meta+space, which makes sense because if I had one more dedicated key to spare, I would make it either dash or slash, but probably dash because it is an important punctuation symbol in natural language, command line use and coding
• plus above minus feels natural, and they're both right next to their US-QWERTY same-key symbol = and _
• the C ternary operator ?: notation for (condition ? true-branch : false-branch) is easy to type

 

[ible]

I don't think you'll always want to be looking at your Pyra keyboard when typing. (Maybe that's impossible, I dunno.) By putting umlauts and other symbols on "natural" keys makes it faster to learn where they are, so that you won't have to look at your Pyra all the time. You don't have to memorize a new location for Ñ in my layout, it's just on N. Or Ä, since it's on A. You have a few that make sense, but I have more . You used to as well!

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/1417479de73c9231d7e258fd0eb779a4

I'm making English and German first-class citizens by putting those symbols on their naturally corresponding key. You don't have to "hunt and peck" for the right symbol hiding under a random key. (And based on the Language poll, that's a good thing to do.) And I have a pretty nice pattern/arrangement for the rest of the symbols.

I'm not sure I like http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/23dfde80b0c5309a2f8db735d65ea7c0better than some of your other ones. I think it's "nicer" to remember underscore on Meta+Space than minus-sign, and your other changes/reasons are not very compelling to me. This one http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/2cc807dd1656a0703fb8bf12f074357f might be my favorite.

 

[comradekingu]

Why isnt it on Ñ if you want to let the user not memorize a new layout?  Same with Ä on Ä. It shouldnt be on A.

Memonics like that are fine for interlingual uses, but for native users it doesnt work.

You are making Germans third rate citizens by doing that. Second rate is real keys hidden. It is possible to rectify that by making a german keymat, you will however never change how a german typewriter or keyboard works by removing keys.

 

[ible]

Not enough keys . Also perhaps not a big enough Spanish userbase?

 

[comradekingu]

Put A on A for all languages, and you have enough keys.
 

New users will of course need to be educated, and  I think a good way to make it known to new users that the modifiers are on the shoulder buttons  (and that home, end, etc are on the gaming buttons) is  by putting up a key map as the default wallpaper.

 
I agree that that's a good way, but I think a better way is to actually label the shoulder buttons and gaming buttons with their functions.

 
I think this is starting the argument at the wrong end. New users isnt a static reality. The amount of new users varies with complexity, and the less you have to educate, the more people will pick one up. You dont get a chance to educate, you get first impression and thats it. Failing that, it doesnt matter if the education is the best in the world.

 

Thats not what i said though. I said that dead-diactrics only, fails before you consider the most important international/interlingual languages.
 
The first language you are able to support with only dead-diactrics, is dutch, but that is 4th or 5th down the list, and is covered in smilar fashion anyway.

Who is proposing only dead diacritics? I'm not.
 
But even with only dead diacritics, it's better for German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and lots of other non-Dutch languages to have dead diacritics than to have nothing at all: éèàüöä in two thumb-presses each (diacritic + letter) is still much better than éèàüöä in three thumb presses (Compose + symbol + letter).

Nothing at all wasnt the option. You are mixing something that letters that arent A-Z (German,French,Spanish, and the languages of scandinavia) as dedicated buttons, with something that doesnt, (Dutch)

Something less than dedicated presses arent as good as dedicated presses. Furthermore, dedicated diactrics are found at expected places.

You are fully disregarding effectiveness _and_ habit of at least the 4-5 most important languages. Thats when Portugese isnt even counted.

 

Its a toss-up between dedicated diactrics and hidden AltGr-layer for accentuation, im saying both. However ED says no to printed dedicated diactrics by default. So it can only be where its supposed to be, and hidden.

 
What do you mean, "ED says no to printed dedicated diacritics"? When and where did he say that?

He was speaking to you when he said: " I surely don't want a keyboard I can't understand when I'm looking at it but just see tons of o''s with dots... "
Speaking about this. I imagine, being a german, he didnt mean ö's. As those are very easy to type on a german keyboard.

Even a regular German QWERTZ keyboard has printed dedicated dead acute, grave and circumflex accents, and given that ED seems to want to have all keys of a regular German keyboard labeled (at least üöäߧ°), I would rather expect that he wants to have acute, grave and circumflex.

This is news to me. Can you link to it?  üöäß on the default layout, or üöäß on a german keymat? A german keyboard does not have connect-the-dot o's
My german keyboard, that im typing on, only has dedicated ^ and `
Edit: looks like this

Edit2: I have trouble understanding why ED would want semi-dedicated diactrics-letters that the German language doesnt use, over dedicated letters for äüöß which every german keyboard has...

 

[_wb_]

Even a regular German QWERTZ keyboard has printed dedicated dead acute, grave and circumflex accents, and given that ED seems to want to have all keys of a regular German keyboard labeled (at least üöäߧ°), I would rather expect that he wants to have acute, grave and circumflex.

This is news to me. Can you link to it?  üöäß on the default layout, or üöäß on a german keymat? A german keyboard does not have connect-the-dot o's
My german keyboard, that im typing on, only has dedicated ^ and `

News to you? Just check the first post of this thread. What does ED say about Saber's layout?

Okay, of all the keyboard layouts I've seen at the threads you created, this seems to be nigh perfect in my opinion:

pU8hObm.png

What do I like about it?

• Mostly Standard QWERTY-Keyboard, including the Shift-Keys on the numbers
• Tab as a single key
• ä, ö and ü (German) as well as ' and ` (French) included
• [...]

What issues are there?

• Some keys missing: ', ° and ^.
• [...]

What ED says here is that he likes the äöä for German and the dead acute and grave (which are indeed useful in French, although dedicated àèé are even more useful), and that he would like to have ° and circumflex in addition to the ß § € that were already available in Saber's layout.

This is a standard German keyboard layout:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Germany.svg

It has circumflex to the left of 1 (where ` is on US-QWERTY), acute to the right of ß (where = is on US-QWERTY), and grave on Shift+acute (where + is on US-QWERTY).

It does not have dead umlaut, because it already has dedicated üöä and German does not need ëï.

Most keyboards don't put ◌ on their dead diacritic keys, but I think that's a bit confusing, because I think it's useful to distinguish e.g. non-dead ^ from dead circumflex.

 

[comradekingu]

It could be more standard QWERTY, for more people. Germans in particular, considering how öäü, arent chorded-letters.

The ultimate solutions for germans, is having dedicated keys, with a keymat to visualize it.

It is possible to include more AltGr symbols with a fuller layout. More if you allow thirdlevelshift on numbers, again something that is more standard QWERTY for more people.

And the potential of putting one symbol on each key since FN isnt used, should something be missing.

One oversight on a all-visual layout, and you are stuffed the second a flaw is found. That is a zero-day issue, since there are so few included things.

Edit: French uses ùûüÿàâæçéèêëïîôœ

With dedicated letters on numbers and the right side of the keyboard, _and_ _dedicated_ diactrics.  ' and ` simply isnt enough, and quite far from perfect.

What the point of ° is I dont know, if for typing letters, its US-international diactrics  * (asterisk)       å ů Å Ů

Edit3: Its useful to type °C and things like that. Will include on AltGr-layer.

 

[_wb_]

French keyboards and frequency tables show that àèéç and dead circumflex are the important ones. Dead umlaut is good to have, ù for the word "où" (dead grave is good enough), œ for sisters and eggs, and that's about it. I don't think æ is more important in French than it is in English.

One thing is certain: invisible remappings on P+1, L+2 like in your Scandinavian/German based proposal is not enough for French. But 4 dedicated keys and some diacritics are enough for perfect French support. No need to worry about zero-day issues.

 

[_jr_]

Yes, AZERTY cannot be adequately combined with a Pyra QWERTY layout (because the number row). But the layout used by francophone Canadians could be usable without labels. It probably needs alternate mappings on backspace and enter in addition to P+1, L+2 and AltGr.

 

[comradekingu]

Thats is like saying having fornication in the dark is less fornication than self-gratification to something you see...

The french keyboard has ù and two diactric-modifiers in that area. The part where they cant get their way is dedicated letters on numbers, because that messes everyone else up.

Without using the FN-layer I havent been able to squeeze in full interlingual-support for French, including œ of course. But you can type it, its only more cumbersome.

Sans the visuals, (which can be fixed with additional keymats), it is enough for

German

Spanish

Italian

Portugese

Swedish

Danish

Norwegian

Edit: and dutch of course. We could go on, but if we have those covered, then thats what matters, compared to not covering those.

 

[_wb_]

Yes, AZERTY cannot be adequately combined with a Pyra QWERTY layout (because the number row). But the layout used by francophone Canadians could be usable without labels. It probably needs alternate mappings on backspace and enter in addition to P+1, L+2 and AltGr.

This is the Canadian French layout:

If take the "we don't need labels, we go by muscle memory" approach,  then you need P+1 for circumflex, P+2 for cedilla and diaeresis, L+2 for grave and M+3 for É.

The problem is that there is no reasonable way to have P+1, P+2, L+2 and M+3 available. If you move them elsewhere, the "muscle memory" argument no longer works.

Also this only works for French Canadians who actually have such muscle memory. That's only a minority of French speakers.

If you would go for a comradekingu-style P+2, L+2 layout for French, it probably makes most sense to start from the Swiss layout:

So you have èéà where the Germans have üöä; you could put ¨ at P+2 and circumflex/grave at Meta+Backspace. Then ç at Shift+4 and just live without dollar signs.

Only problem is again that most French speakers will not have a Swiss muscle memory. Most of them have muscle memory for this one:

which would be a complete nightmare on comradekingu's layout, not just because the number row is already doing way too many other things, but even if you just ignore all the extra labels on the number row and map them to what they do in AZERTY, then you hit the problem that the number row is not aligned as it should be: e.g. ç à are supposed to be on 9 0 between I O P, but comradekingu's layout has 8 9 between I O P.

 

[Saber]

Even a regular German QWERTZ keyboard has printed dedicated dead acute, grave and circumflex accents, and given that ED seems to want to have all keys of a regular German keyboard labeled (at least üöäߧ°), I would rather expect that he wants to have acute, grave and circumflex.

This is news to me. Can you link to it?  üöäß on the default layout, or üöäß on a german keymat? A german keyboard does not have connect-the-dot o's
My german keyboard, that im typing on, only has dedicated ^ and `

News to you? Just check the first post of this thread. What does ED say about Saber's layout?

Okay, of all the keyboard layouts I've seen at the threads you created, this seems to be nigh perfect in my opinion:

pU8hObm.png

What do I like about it?

• Mostly Standard QWERTY-Keyboard, including the Shift-Keys on the numbers
• Tab as a single key
• ä, ö and ü (German) as well as ' and ` (French) included
• [...]

What issues are there?

• Some keys missing: ', ° and ^.
• [...]

What ED says here is that he likes the äöä for German and the dead acute and grave (which are indeed useful in French, although dedicated àèé are even more useful), and that he would like to have ° and circumflex in addition to the ß § € that were already available in Saber's layout.

This is a standard German keyboard layout:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Germany.svg

It has circumflex to the left of 1 (where ` is on US-QWERTY), acute to the right of ß (where = is on US-QWERTY), and grave on Shift+acute (where + is on US-QWERTY).

It does not have dead umlaut, because it already has dedicated üöä and German does not need ëï.

Most keyboards don't put ◌ on their dead diacritic keys, but I think that's a bit confusing, because I think it's useful to distinguish e.g. non-dead ^ from dead circumflex.

ED also said my original layout has - + and = too close to the middle. Fortunately, my latest ameliorates his minor gripes in his opening post.

As for diacritics, as I've discussed, some kind of box or underline to any inclusive dead Circumflex, Grave, and Acute should suffice for our needs. 

 

[_wb_]

As for diacritics, as I've discussed, some kind of box or underline to any inclusive dead Circumflex, Grave, and Acute should suffice for our needs. 

Circumflex, Grave and Acute are pretty useful indeed, but not enough by themselves for French (ç and ¨ are missing), not enough for Spanish (ñ is missing), not enough for Portuguese (ç and ~ are missing), not enough for Dutch (¨ is missing), so basically the only extra languages you get with those alone are Italian and Irish.

You have circumflex, grave and acute as additional labeled Fn keys. In my proposal, the diacritics are strategically positioned at look-alike punctuation symbols, so no extra labels are needed, and essentially all useful diacritics are covered: ' for acute and kreska, " for umlaut/diaeresis/Hungarumlaut, > for circumflex, < for caron/breve, , for cedilla/ogonek/comma, . for dot/kropka/ring, ` for grave, ~ for tilde, - for macron. Add ß Æ Ø and you can cover all Latin-script languages with those diacritics, with the exception of Vietnamese.

As to whether we use a dotted circle, box or underline or whatever, I don't really care. Dotted circle is somewhat associated with diacritics, but as far as I'm concerned, some kind of box is also OK. Here is some inspiration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_Shapes

Underline is perhaps not so good since it can be confused with underscore. Also, for my "overloading trick" to work on , < and . >, it has to be something rotationally symmetric so you can visualize the caron and circumflex.

 

[ible]

This is certainly getting exciting and heated!

I don't think it's worth arguing too much over, since comradekingu's layout does not appear to be a contender in ED's mind. But the main problem I see with CK's layout http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/17568-final-keyboard-layout-proposals/?p=370029/URL]is that even if you can get over the overloaded number-row (which has a bunch of new distracting symbols there), and the lack of a two-wide single-function spacebar, is the following:

You lose a shift on the main keyboard if you want to map L+2. As I understand it, most European keyboards do this. So while CK says to keep "muscle memory" from a standard keyboard (which I've heard arguments against, since thumbs have different memory than fingers) -- so maybe "spatial memory", you lose big on keyboard modifiers. That's maybe ok for advanced users, who would also be able to do the remapping to their own region, so that []{}<> and R-shift do their language's thing. But then you've lost []{}<> and Shift, and you don't have those labeled anywhere else. (You do have them under some AltGr location, but that is not visible.)

I wouldn't need to remap (since English is my default), but I can't imagine that losing sight of []{}<> and keyboard Shift would be a good compromise for Europeans.

There're going to be compromises -- comradekingu makes those sound like a bad thing (and sometimes they are). But with an open community/design process, I think we can avoid bad compromises.

 

[codifies]

... it is indeed sad that some people seem unable to tell the difference between compromise and compromised, just because a design has been arrived at by compromise (at all are) does not mean they are compromised!

While community "design" via forum shouting match isn't really the most ideal design method, I do notice that some people have been able to take the useful feedback and improve their designs no end.

 

[Saber]

Thanks to Wikipedia I made the hopefully accurate list below for all these specific language orthographies. Every one of them passed with my v3.0 layout with the assumption that the user isn't hopping from one nationality to another. The exceptions, in only a few cases, are the "very rarely" types which were inconsequential. Bolded letters means they'll need to be(and can be) remapped over one or more of the keys for ä, ö, ü, ß, or the three diacritics(dependent on which are or aren't required for the native alphabet). 

My v3.0 layout again:

Spoiler

Dutch: á, é, ó, ú, ë, ï, and very rarely used â and é.

Estonian: ä, ö, ü, õ, š, ž.

Finnish: å, ä, ö, and very rarely used š and ž.

French: é, à, è, ù, â, ê, î, ô, û, ë, ï, ü, ç, and very rarely used ñ and ÿ.

German: ä, ö, ü, ß.

Hungarian: á, é, í, ó, ú, ö, ü, ő, ű.

Italian: à, è, é, ì, í, î, ò, ó, ù, ú.

Norwegian: é, è, ê, ó, ò, â, ô, å, æ, ø.

Polish: ć, ń, ó, ś, ź, ł, ż, ą, ę          

Portuguese: á, â, ã, à, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, ú.

Spanish: á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ.

Swedish: å, ä, ö.

Turkish: â, î, û, ö, ü, ç, ğ, I, İ, ş.