From the OP. ED doesn't want any shift+fn (i.e. shift+meta) keys on the Pyra -- at least not visible. (Unless he's changed his mind.) I have decided I like that simplicity of aesthetic, too. I don't mind putting e.g. {} on shift+[], but it just won't be visible. And to quote Saber with the directions people are going:
It was actually two thoughts in one: he only wants three characters per key with a stated implication that that means single, shift, and AltGr. He, like myself and so many others, probably didn't consider "shift"+"fn" as a viable alternative. Naively it seems like that would require 4 characters but as has been demonstrated several times it is entirely possible to keep to the three character limitation.So has he changed his mind? I don't know, he has literally said absolutely nothing keyboard related since he started the thread. All these new ideas which challenge his original goals in ways he probably didn't even consider and therefore could possibly be better and he's gone radio silent. I don't think it's fair to say "what ED wants" anymore because there has simply been so many improvements in many different directions that it would be madness to assume that what he wants now is exactly what he wanted before these entirely new ideas were presented.
This mechanism would not work. There are words that contain AE/EA, OE/EO, UE/EU in many languages, and we need to be able to type them without risking to trigger the Ü Ö Ä mechanism. Also, what would happen if you press e.g. A and hold it? Would it do nothing until you release it, producing "a" if you just release it and "ä" when you press E? On a normal keyboard, pressing A and holding it does this: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
If they're on opposite buttons it'll be no worse than hitting ctrl-shift on the Pandora. And perhaps even having them on the same side is still easy to press both.The exact placement of the shoulder buttons is something we can decide later, actually: which is which is only tangentially related to the shift+meta concept and once ED finally rejoins the conversation we can ask him to test on his prototype just how easy it would be to press such combinations.
Yes. We are designing the keyboard as we see fit. That is absolutely something we can guarantee.
Shoulders, D-Pad and the game buttons are all using their own GPIOs so I'd say it's a fair guess to say that there would be no issue with combinations.
I mean ergonomically.
Agreed that they need to be defined early since they need to be printed to them (probably), but assuming that all combinations are comfortable enough I don't think keyboard layouts should hinge on their exact placement. If the keyboard is good "if only shift were on the opposite side" then that's something that's pretty easy to change without affecting the rest of the layout. Getting hung up on whether we need a specific modifier on the left or right is an exercise in futility, I think.
From the pictures I've seen, the shoulder buttons are going to be relatively small compared to the giant flapping paddles of the Pandora.
I'm for putting stickers on the bottom next to the screen. Over the bottom screws. Of course they should be pretty dark.
That reminds me of every time i have to spell my name when my locale isnt supported. Not good. Anything besides typing letter for letter, where letter is at the key people are used to, is a non starter.
So you are saying that 'people' who speak your language, Norwegian (which is 0.07% of the world population, slightly less than 1% of the EU), who buy a niche electronic handheld device of which probably only a couple of thousands will be sold, will expect it to ship with dedicated, primary keys labeled as Å, Ø and Æ (where the Ø is on the left of Æ, mind you, not the other way around like those Danish barbarians!) ?
Stickers would be fine, and would have the advantage of being visible without having to turn the unit around.
Yes, I agree. But unless there is a good reason to do something else, I would maintain backwards compatibility with the Pandora and let L1 be Shift and R1 be Ctrl. Then there are only two possibilities left: L2=Meta, R2=Alt, or L2=Alt, R2=Meta. The former makes most sense to me (since Shift and Meta 'belong together', they're both 'meaning-altering' modifiers, like Ctrl and Alt 'belong together' as 'shortcut-forming' modifiers in my mind), but the latter would be better if it turns out that pressing L1 and L2 simultaneously is hard to do.
Flurgs are people too you know. We get our own, sometimes its a common one for germannic scandinavia, where those non-barbarian danes get theirs atop ours. Doesnt matter though, even though its the same issue for all.
