I do think that having non-primary numbers is an option worth considering, but in my mind, it has one important downside:
it means the layout is not
strictly better (that is, better in every single respect) than the Pandora layout.
Since we have more keys available than on the Pandora, it is possible to have a layout that is strictly better: every key that is a primary key on the Pandora can also be a primary key on the Pyra, we just have keys in better positions (number row more reachable), some keys that used to be on the Fn-layer on the Pandora can now become primary keys, and some keys that were not available at all on the Pandora (e.g. üöä) can now become available.
So I want to go back to "numbers on primary keys" for now, and also "no Shift+Fn/Meta symbols", because that also breaks the "has to be strictly better than Pandora" principle
(yes, you can argue that Shift+Meta is an "easy mash", but even if the difference is little, it is still worse than just one modifier; "DOSBox compatibility" is an orthogonal issue that should be fixed by fixing DOSBox or with a global input translation daemon).
These are my design principles (and yes, some of those do conflict; the principles are roughly ordered from most important to least important):
- Strictly better than Pandora
- Resemble US-QWERTY
- Backwards compatible with Pandora
- Better spots (less modifiers, easier to reach or find) for more frequently used keys
- Support for English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and other European Latin-script-based languages (in that order)
- Functionality above form (not dropping features just to make it look better)
- Efficient to type on
- Easy to learn, simple learning curve, no reference manuals needed
- Geeky features: GREEK and MATH (a bit like the legendary Space cadet keyboard)
- Has to look good (æsthetically)
This is my main proposal:
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6a08111e0637fde970187896c02cf4ad
(whether and how those non-ASCII letters ß Ü Ö Ä for German and À È É for French should be labeled is something that can be debated, I'm currently slightly in favor of not labeling them)
Here is a variant with a left-aligned QWERTY row to allow P+1, L+2 remapping:
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/dfcbf6db09566784ed9e3190816dc290
The two above are not new, those are from about a month ago, I just updated the action button labels according to the discussion from the
action button label thread.
Here is another variant, with a centered QWERTY row again, but with some interesting changes:
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/ca64e4e86233f302a7d52150ec0909d5
- Backspace is moved to the bottom extra action button
- The top extra action button is Delete; Backspace and Del are nicely symmetric, and by putting them on the extra action buttons, they should be somewhat protected against accidental presses (because that's how those extra action buttons are designed) while still being very easy to press (because they're still action buttons, after all)
- Insert at Meta+space (rarely needed key, so no problem to have it only as a Meta key)
- Dash/underscore is now a dedicated key, in its standard US-QWERTY position (this is nice because it is a very important punctuation key, in all use cases: text typing, command line use and coding)
- + at P ("plus"), = at I ("is"); this also puts plus close to minus
- The German letters ÜÖÄß are at Meta+UOAS, which makes a lot of sense
- Spanish Ñ at Meta+N, French/Portuguese Ç at Meta+C, which both make a lot of sense
- The French letters À È É are also labeled, not at A and E because A is Ä already and there is only one E and two accented E's; however all special letters needed for French are clustered (Ç À È É) and the É is also useful for Spanish (like all vowels with an acute accent), so it's nice to have it "clustered" with Ñ.
- If we don't care about macron, we could put F11 at Meta+dash, however for F12 we still need to find a spot then (Enter is an option but I would prefer to avoid that, because there might be games where you want to mix shoulder buttons with Enter without unexpected effects)
