It's the keyboard layout.

[comradekingu]

The issue is there for everyone else (period).

What about the Japanese? Do they expect us to believe Godzilla could traipse through Tokyo and not get a single foot splinter?  

I don't see what kind of significance your analogy has, but every other language that I know of make use of , and . as important linguistic traits, and use it habitually as dedicated buttons on keyboards.

To trade full alphabet for things you use a lot, especially for language (as the two then cant be combined) is solving one thing by creating something incompatible.

This question has been raised in a poll, and <> [ ] { } holds a majority of the total over ' " ` ~ delete and tab.

Ideally you could create a set and fit it into a layout that had more popularity, but [ ] { } is already expected on these buttons for English, which is the default.

<> is the button found only on 105-keyboards (not US).

 

[_wb_]

Thanks, I was thinking of something along this line for the last days. Why not go all the way and remove all non printing keys from the main area and all modifiers from keys, e.g. change: keyboard Alt to INS, keyboard Ctrl to DEL, INS to BS, DEL to Enter, BS to -, - to [, Enter to ]. This leaves the main keayboard area with just 4 symbol meta bindings (besides F keys and without counting currency, math, and greek): ` = / \ as well as Tab. I'm not sure whether the keyboard shift should be the Meta or whether Tab or \ should be put there. Single width space would additionally allow / to be moved to where it belongs (and possibly enable a viable canadian french mapping). I admit that I have no clue whether this would actually be usable, but it seems to be as close to a real keyboard as it could possibly be.

Yes, moving Backspace and Enter away gives interesting, though highly unorthodox possibilities:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/5cb09bc085edf78d3847f884cd527f23

Here is a left-aligned layout which has no modifiers at all in the main (lower) keyboard part:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/85a544c76edafa8b11f386e22f866442

At the Pandora ABXY, we get Del Backspace Enter Tab; the two new action buttons are PgUp and PgDn, and Home/End move to the very top.

Shift goes on the center row (so it can be pressed with both thumbs), Meta and Super go to the very top, which is not very convenient but good enough for tabletop typing.

I used German/most of Europe style punctuation: < > on a key on the left of Z, , : and . : as pairs. Slash, dash, plus, backtick and apostrophe ( / - + ` ' ) are all primary keys now. This means that all punctuation symbols commonly used in natural language and on the command line (except pipe) can be typed without Meta: comma period semicolon colon questionmark exclamationmark apostrophe quote dash slash underscore plus equals backtick tilde lessthan greaterthan ( , . ; : ? ! ' " - / _ + = ` ~ < > ) are all primary or shifted symbols!

But I suspect that completely unorthodox keymaps like this are just too different from the Pandora one to have a chance. It would be pretty nice though.

 

[Saber]

The issue is there for everyone else (period).

What about the Japanese? Do they expect us to believe Godzilla could traipse through Tokyo and not get a single foot splinter?  

I don't see what kind of significance your analogy has, but every other language that I know of make use of , and . as important linguistic traits, and use it habitually as dedicated buttons on keyboards.

Yes, but why discuss exhaustively something immaterial? Okay, Azerty has . under Shift. Good for all that. Lovely really but... it doesn't matter here(being the Pyra keyboard) as it will never come to be.

 

[comradekingu]

Because if everyone else expects , and . as primary functions on dedicated keys, swapping it out with their alphabet or other keys, is suboptimal. Making the default less standard, and the practice of getting full support rather pointless. The whole idea behind having all letters is because its more efficient, doing away with comma and dot reverts that back to in-efficient.

 

[Grench]

Talking about: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/5cb09bc085edf78d3847f884cd527f23

Backspace as a non-primary key is a huge no-go for me.

If you really want to misalign the number row to make room for `~ left to 1, then Backspace should be either where Enter is, or else it could be where Del is. Then the two extra action buttons could be Del and Backspace (there's a symmetry to that) and Ins could go on Meta+Space.

That brings up a bit of 'spatial analysis'.

We have a lot of keys that we want to be 'primary' in the main keyboard area.  There are also 'sets' that shouldn't be broken up.

01 `~ Diacritic base

01 '" Diacritic base

10 1234567890

01Backspace

01Tab

10 QWERTYUIOP

09 ASDFGHJKL

01 Enter

07 ZXCVBNM

02 ,< and .> Diacritic base

02 Shift and FnMetaGeorge

01 Space

So we want 46 items in total on primary keys.  The Pyra has 45 primary keys.  Many of these are, 'ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE'.

-04 The Diacritic Base keys cannot move to FnMetaGeorge layer or loose their intuitive nature as there would need to be TWO labels for each of these symbols, one for the key and a whole other key for the diacritic.

-26 The letter keys aren't going anywhere.

-01 Enter MUST be present

-02 Shift and FnMetaGeorge MUST be present 

-10 Number keys...  I could sink those a layer deep, but people claim it's bad, so they have to be top layer.

-01 Space MUST be present on it's big double wide trailer button - it would be too confusing not to be.

So, that uses 44 of our 45 keys and we haven't put Tab or Backspace in yet.

Pick one.  Tab or Backspace MUST be on the Fn+Space key.

Version with Tab on Fn+space key:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/467f092b9169fe6c6b411baa5a39beeb

Version with Backspace on Fn+space key:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/5cb09bc085edf78d3847f884cd527f23

The option behind curtain #3 is to completely hose up the diacritics by making the `~ or '" diacritics not actually on the `~ and '" keys - which is a visual and usability mess.

So, pick one.  Tab or Backspace.  Which one can't live on Fn+space?

OR we could shift QWERTYUIOP up a row and put the 1234567890 on the Fn layer.  THAT frees up a whole pile of keys.

 

[_jr_]

Enter broken record: double width space is restricting possibilities well beyond its utility (especially in that position). I could live with numbers and F keys being on a shifted layer, though I would prefer a separate modifier for that (comradekingu's F-ing key). But I think moving Enter and Backspace to the action key area should also be considered.


edit: on second thought ... relegating the numbers frees up enough keys that one non standard modifer is more than enough, doesn't it?

 

[MrConfusion]

Enter broken record: double width space is restricting possibilities well beyond its utility (especially in that position). I could live with numbers and F keys being on a shifted layer, though I would prefer a separate modifier for that (comradekingu's F-ing key). But I think moving Enter and Backspace to the action key area should also be considered.

As I've said before: My Pandora has Y-"action" button as space and X-"action" button as enter. And really, for computer games it works like a charm, since often especially space is used for something like "use a bomb" or whatever. Enter is common in simulators as "switch weapon" or "use secondary weapon". And I iced the cake with Fn-Y being numpad+ (increase throttle) and Fn-X being numpad- (decrease throttle).

Plus these enter and space are easy to hit. A negative side is, of course, not having the regular PageUp and PageDown on those keys. I use Fn-Up and Fn-Down which is "OK", but sometimes it would be kind of nice to have a "one button" PageDown - try eating a pitakebab while skimming ycombinator and you'll soon see the point... been there, done that... and the laundry... ;-).

 

[Eight Bit]

Please mind it's still a work in progress on which I need to ponder a bit more but I already pasted it here for people to comment on the concept.

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/ccc681ed214dbace6a4ef22fe8019c98

It has a phone block, an F-key block, a math block in the middle, All standard US keyboard keys and some extra Diacritics.

i particularly like the ease with which can be alt-tabbed on this layout.

 

[WizardStan]

Grench tried that. No one liked it. It's scary.

 

[Eight Bit]

Grench tried that. No one liked it. It's scary.

I looked at those, they're quite different.

Like this one from Grench for instance http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6ea72dff66f737f4623eb474a9279b26 ?

I'll make a pic with zone overlay to clear it up later on

 

[Saber]

Because if everyone else expects , and . as primary functions on dedicated keys, swapping it out with their alphabet or other keys, is suboptimal. Making the default less standard, and the practice of getting full support rather pointless. The whole idea behind having all letters is because its more efficient, doing away with comma and dot reverts that back to in-efficient.

As obvious as a nose on a face. It's not like anyone sane officially involved here would seriously pander to a construct of putting comma and period behind Shift. 

 

[comradekingu]

That was the point that wasn't the point. The issue is having dedicated letters and punctuation for as many as possible.

 

[Grench]

Grench tried that. No one liked it. It's scary.

I looked at those, they're quite different.

Like this one from Grench for instance http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6ea72dff66f737f4623eb474a9279b26 ?

I'll make a pic with zone overlay to clear it up later on

I think what he was referencing was this (or one of the others I made that were similar):

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/bfdcc505a5c17010abde7f54163b6104

Knowing what we know now, either of those would need some considerable clean-up and modifications.

Still, they're concepts - if we find something we like in them we can do some work on them and see where they go.

If your objective is to make a layout that is the most flexible for gaming, this one is probably a great place to start:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6ea72dff66f737f4623eb474a9279b26

It would need some re-work to incorporate what we all learned about language support.

 

[Eight Bit]

Ok, so I know so many keyboards have been made already but this afternoon I thought about trying this idea out and so I did.

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/d7124b7c51d020d3a296a084142c7210

It might look intimidating at first but there's a logic in there of course. To make it clear I colored the zones.

First of all, the main layer.

Qwerty without the numbers freeing up the bottom row. Most standard shifted pairs are there, except +/= , -/_  as they are in the meta'd calc/math block already, and all the shifted digit signs ofcourse. Most of those I tried to put in a logical order but had to sacrifice some positions to get the zones together.

I really like the fact that Alt-Tab is a thumb-mash in this lay-out and also the ! and @ on the main layer are growing on me. Maybe some stuff on the bottom row has to be or can be shuffled around. If I or someone else think of something to make it better I'll alter it.

Yellow.

It's a standard keyblock for mobile phones.  1 through 0 with * and #

All digits easily accessible with the right hand. I tried it on my Pandora, I think I could type in phone numbers blindfolded if there'd be a mark on the 5 (which happens to be on the same key as the J too)

Green + yellow

Calculator/math block

The +, -, =, %, Sqr are sort of- in line with the * from the phone keyblock. I can imagine some dedicated pyra calculator software that would work real well with the keyboard lay-out.

Also Hexadecimal should be very easily accessible as the $ is next to the # on the other side of the phone keyblock. I'm just fantasizing about binding opcodes to the F keys and code assembly like that.

Blue

Fn Key block

I guess these can be used in some sort of calculator mode too for functions as Sin Cos Tan Log etc. but they're mainly just all 12 F keys, accessible with the left hand.

Purple

Language support/(Dead)Diacritics,

I still think most letters can be made utilizing dead diacritics without too much effort.éèáúâûôäüöïñç and many others can be typed by doing Fn+Diacritic followed by the letter. Then there's ß ofcourse. Any other combinations can be made with compose I guess.

Then the modifiers:

I've put 3x Meta modifiers in there. I think it's an important enough key in this layout.

2 Shifts, 2 Alts and 2 Ctrl's though.

Ponder on this layout, let it sink in and imagine yourself typing in a phone number, some lines of code or an email to your partner.

 

[Grench]

Ok, so I know so many keyboards have been made already but this afternoon I thought about trying this idea out and so I did.

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/d7124b7c51d020d3a296a084142c7210

...

Ponder on this layout, let it sink in and imagine yourself typing in a phone number, some lines of code or an email to your partner.

That looks familiar to the very first layout I did.

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/16872-and-now-for-something-completely-different-keyboard-option/?p=352638

You might want to read through the comments that it generated.

Learning Highlights:

Fn keys on a keyboard run in sets of 4, not 3.

Phone number pads have 1 in the top left.  Computer keypads have it in the lower left.

Layout breaks symbol pairs - fails DosBox compliance.

Maybe I'll have to make an updated version of this style to match up to what I've learned over the last few months in this process.

 

[Eight Bit]

Ok, so I know so many keyboards have been made already but this afternoon I thought about trying this idea out and so I did.

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/d7124b7c51d020d3a296a084142c7210

...

Ponder on this layout, let it sink in and imagine yourself typing in a phone number, some lines of code or an email to your partner.

That looks familiar to the very first layout I did.

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/16872-and-now-for-something-completely-different-keyboard-option/?p=352638

You might want to read through the comments that it generated.

Learning Highlights:

Fn keys on a keyboard run in sets of 4, not 3.

Phone number pads have 1 in the top left.  Computer keypads have it in the lower left.

Layout breaks symbol pairs - fails DosBox compliance.

Maybe I'll have to make an updated version of this style to match up to what I've learned over the last few months in this process.

Ah yes,

I remember that derailed thread now

Tbh, reading back a lot of people are positive towards your concept. So am I, after being busy with my own version which had already sort-of been done apparently

With so many keyboards and concepts around, maybe we should end this and make some sort of list with which concepts there are.

We categorize the nominated keyboards (maybe max 3 per person?) and go through a first vote per category. Just a page with screenshots so that people can take their time to look and compare the nominees.

Once each category has a winner there's gonna be another vote for the winning category. Which will be the one presented to Ed as the community choice.

Something like that? Any takers for organizing that? *wink*

For me, when judging or designing a layout It just feels better when there's a system I can grasp if you know what I mean.

It doesn't have to be something I already know as long as I get the idea behind it. I learn quick.

I want the layout to be usefull, multifunctional yet clear and obvious.  so yeah, it's a phone style number block, mirrored to a F1 to F12 block by 3. For me it seems no more than obvious to do it that way with what was given. To you too apparently as you did it by 3 the first time too.  

Pyra is not gonna be any standard but it's own anyway so why ignore the impulse that tells us to do it different than the standard?

This last setup I made, for me feels okay, I'm not completely happy with the bottom row yet, it can maybe be made more efficient but that would make me have to break more shifted pairs, breaking a standard

But as ever, I will ponder on trying to come up with better ideas or ways to improve until a final call is made

 

[Grench]

English, German, French, Spanish - likely others.  No apologies for, "that fereign langage shtuff."

English and German are 'uncompromised' with exception of German YZ switch hasn't been done to English layout.

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/a0ee7c5c3145fa3dd92ecf2bdb5eaaac

More information:

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/16872-and-now-for-something-completely-different-keyboard-option/?p=386623

 

[_wb_]

Here is a "_wb_ approved" version of the above Grench proposal and comments from _jr_:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/961b8681640081a1c23586a3d3ed07fe

English, German, French, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Dutch without compromises. Spanish, Danish, Portuguese, Italian with minimal compromises.

More info:

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/16872-and-now-for-something-completely-different-keyboard-option/page-12#entry386649

 

[alanjf]

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/961b8681640081a1c23586a3d3ed07fe

Ok I really mean no offense, but this is really getting absurd. It looked like we were making a LOT of real progress here with layouts similar to

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6fcb32a81f5afe891b8e5d66e402e476

or

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/bcb0a44b3ad7a399117c436f7266b0a8

but how it seems, with the layouts above, we've taken some big steps backwards.

That's not to say the latest _wb_ layout is bad. At the very least numbers should be on their own row, top level. Having numbers behind Meta will be just as annoying for those of us that hate it when full size laptops put F-keys behind Fn.

Also, What are the the diagonal arrows the game keys (next to pg up/down and home/end) ? I've never seen anything like that on any keyboard and I think Ins and Del are far better of off being there with their typical Home/End/Pg brethren.

 

[_wb_]

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/961b8681640081a1c23586a3d3ed07fe

Also, What are the the diagonal arrows the game keys (next to pg up/down and home/end) ? I've never seen anything like that on any keyboard and I think Ins and Del are far better of off being there with their typical Home/End/Pg brethren.

The new (smaller) game buttons are Home/End, the Pandora A and B are Delete and Backspace. I admit it's a rather unorthodox layout proposal, but it has surprisingly many advantages.