It's the keyboard layout.

[Andrei]

Well, from what I read here, no Finnish keyboard was suggested and I very much doubt that in everyday Finnish writing you will have an excessive amount of accented letters. You may find a word or some words, just as you can find weird examples in any language, like really long, inconvenient words.But, you just cannot make a unicode keyboard, there are so incredibly many accented letters and weird ligature derived letters that no keyboard can fit them all. I really don't want to mess up anyone's French keyboard or whatever language you use. But, I strongly feel that keyboards are better when flexible and the Compose key solves all problems. So, how many different layouts can we have? If it is four, then my suggestion is: en_GB, fr, de, and weird-and-compose-oriented with a dedicated compose key (to cover latin type internationalisation)

 

[Glyph Reader]

I would also like a dedicated Esc key, however if we must compromise that is a good choice because it is close enough to where it is expected for newcomers, and it is on the same key for those coming from the Pandora.  We could get rid of one of the shifts and do some minor moving around to get a dedicated Escape.  I don't have time right now to poke around with it much.

I agree with you, rygD.  Having a dedicated Esc key is very important to me.  However, I could live with remapping it through software if compromises can't be made.  Personally, I would remap the CAPS Lock to Esc just because CAPS Lock is a big bother.  

Regarding the keyboard in general, I think that it is quite good and balanced.  Of course, if I had full control and I didn't have to care about other's use cases, I would customize it completely different to everyone else.  However, as long as we can remap keys easily, things will be good.  In fact, it would be a good idea to make sure key remapping is well supported, considering how much heat there is with the keyboard wars discussions.  

-Glyph Reader

 

[ekianjo]

For anyone writing in a different language than English or German that will necessitate making a whole new layout from scratch with very non-standard key positions

I have to agree with that... 

 

[Andrei]

I just did a quick test, using bash and grep: the German wikipedia article on Helsinki has 15 non-ascii characters for 1000 ascii characters (~1.48%), while the suomi article has 33 non-ascii characters per 1000 ascii (~3.19%). I'd say that this is very manageable. For the French article it's about 2.7 % non-ascii. characters.

 

[groovechicken]

Nothing stands out to me as being that much more inconvenient than the Pandora layout, but I have not done a lot of long-form typing on it because it isn't great for that. I say you make the best compromise you can and people with weird requirements accept their USB keyboard future. Now I will be the stupid American a-hole who says, "if everyone would just stop using other languages and switch to English, the tech industry could really move forward."    *ducks airborne shoes*

 

[CrazyIvan]

System specific separate function buttons is a waste of space, period. Top row could be used for F1 to F4 keys with system specific functions moved to AltGr combinations like it was in Pandora.

For example AltGr+F1=Key, AltGr+F2=Logo,AltGr+F3=USB,AltGr+F4=BT, the rest system specific functions (Br+,Br-,Wifi,4G) could use keys assigned to F9 to F12 in current layout.

I would prefer brightness controls to be bound to AltGr+D-pad combinations as it's easy to press with tactile feedback only.

The keys labelled F1-F10 would become F5-F12.

The current keyboard layout is great for english writing (even cyrillic ready, which is good) but i think swapping comma for ` (shift+` = ~ ) and a period for ' (shift+' = " ) would be better for french guys.

I also find left shift to be redunant so i'd change it to compose or escape key but it can be remapped in software later and it's just one key so it'll be easy to remember it.

Also i'd love Pyra keys to have enough free space on them to add a localized layout using laser etching (similar to TOHKBD).

 

[thatgui]

System specific separate function buttons is a waste of space, period. Top row could be used for F1 to F4 keys with system specific functions moved to AltGr combinations like it was in Pandora.

I had also the idea to use the top row buttons for something else, but I am not entirely sure this would result in a proper "typing flow"

 

[bzar]

Well, from what I read here, no Finnish keyboard was suggested and I very much doubt that in everyday Finnish writing you will have an excessive amount of accented letters. You may find a word or some words, just as you can find weird examples in any language, like really long, inconvenient words.But, you just cannot make a unicode keyboard, there are so incredibly many accented letters and weird ligature derived letters that no keyboard can fit them all. I really don't want to mess up anyone's French keyboard or whatever language you use. But, I strongly feel that keyboards are better when flexible and the Compose key solves all problems. So, how many different layouts can we have? If it is four, then my suggestion is: en_GB, fr, de, and weird-and-compose-oriented with a dedicated compose key (to cover latin type internationalisation)

I just did a quick test, using bash and grep: the German wikipedia article on Helsinki has 15 non-ascii characters for 1000 ascii characters (~1.48%), while the suomi article has 33 non-ascii characters per 1000 ascii (~3.19%). I'd say that this is very manageable. For the French article it's about 2.7 % non-ascii. characters.

Letter frequencies


ä: 3.577% (as common as 'c' or 'f' in english)


ö: 0.444% (about as common as 'k' and 'j' in english)


Try typing english while using 4 key combos for c and either k or j. 5 keys for capital letters.

EDIT: Also, 'ä', 'ö' and 'å' are not considered as "accented" versions of 'a' and 'o' in finnish, but rather their own letters like 'f', 'r' or 's'. For example "rähinä" and "rahina" are completely different words, so you can't just rely on people substituting 'ä' and 'ö' where necessary.

 

[yeoldegrove]

didn't read any noticeable comments about this...

Some keys missing: ', ° and ^.

' --> you need this a lot for coding

° --> dont care

^ --> the pyra is a linux system! you'll need this for grep-ing and regular expressions a lot

please include at least ' and ^

 

[oxym]

Looking at the forum, I haven't found the layout which would meet all of my needs (a Polish layout), so I guess I'd have to mod the layout myself (I've already used to it with my N900 and Droid4). So at the moment I'm looking after a layout with a minimum inconvenience for me (I've always thought that _wb_'s layouts looked promising).

I have one Idea I'd like to share though: As discussed, the keys used for gaming (referred as ABXY+- in a layout quoted by ED) should not be modified. It seems to be natural to use ABXY as PgUp, PdDn, Home, End. But there are remaining two other keys. I think that maybe the keys should be used as a modifiers (like shift, alt , ctrl).

There is one thing that should be taken into account (I guess Pyra won't have separate hardware line to detect a key press, but will use a matrix for key detection - please correct me know if I'm wrong): the hardware layout of keyboard matrix and the fact that not all key combinations (of 3 and more keys) can be detected. So it would be good to use a keys which have a separate lines as a modifiers (and I'd guess that gaming keys are such - haven't looked into the design)

 

[moxie]

Well, from what I read here, no Finnish keyboard was suggested and I very much doubt that in everyday Finnish writing you will have an excessive amount of accented letters.

As has been said before: You're wrong, here. Those of us that use å, ä and ö in our languages have them not as accented letters, but as standalone letters in and of themselves. Which means that ä is about as common as p or b, and stuff like y, j, z or q is far less common than any of the åäö letters. And that is swedish - in finnish, ä is in eleventh place, before m, r, v, h, j...

Not that finnish should be the governing standard for how the keymat should be organized, of course. But the point is that the argument "well, those accented characters are just accents, so whatever" is wrong - those of us who use them in our languages, use them rather frequently


I think the proposed layout looks nice. With particular reference to the umlauted characters, I like the grouping. Me, not being german, would map å instead of ü and get a good swedish set. I'd imagine that if I was french, I'd put c-cedille and possibly é. è and ê in those spots and get those under fairly quick access. In short, the block of åäüß makes a good "international block" that can be remapped for different languages. 

I think ESC as being under a modifier is good. It is often used - yes. It is also often a good idea to not press it in error (several emulators that use ESC as quit, for example), and on a small keyboard with fat fingers like mine, an extra foolproofing is a good thing there. 

 

[Askarus]

didn't read any noticeable comments about this...

Some keys missing: ', ° and ^.

' --> you need this a lot for coding

° --> dont care

^ --> the pyra is a linux system! you'll need this for grep-ing and regular expressions a lot

please include at least ' and ^

^ is Shift + 6

Missing is ° and '

' is important and can replace μ.

 

[moxie]

...but I would agree that the lack of a ' (that is, apostrophe) is a big problem. ' and ` in all fairness, but those are accents, and I'll need ' both for writing english (I'll ne'er manage without, guv'nor!) and for code. People reading my english might be none the wiser if I use ' instead of ', but my compiler most certainly will object. 

To me, that would be more important than the section sign (§) or mu (µ).

EDIT: Great minds think alike, or something  h34r:

 

[thatgui]

' is important and can replace μ.

it is indeed very important, if it can only be integrated by kicking something else out it vote for the € symbol (and I live in a country where this is the official currency) as it is far lesser used then § or (especially) µ.While ° isn't that important I have the impression that I use it more often than § so I would be interested if they would "trade places".

Edit:

I also don't really like how esc is handled, but I can see why it is were it is and so while not optimal, I guess I can live with it.

Regarding Dos(box): I am not sure this should really have a deciding influence in this, I would rather see keyboard decisions untouched by this and some (officially endorsed) effort spend creating a proper keymapping/keymapper

 

[Ziz]

• Hard to type some key combinations like ALT-F4 (as you need to press ALT, ALTGr and 4 at the same time). Only used for old DOS-Games though

And for every Linux user comming from Windows still using Alt+F4 for closing windows, which does work in most window managers, too!

 

[moxie]

Actually, I can't remember ever using either µ or €, so I agree with Thatgui. I left € out since, well, I *don't* have € as my currency, so...

 

[bzar]

ED has spent so many € on the pyra one of them is bound to appear on the keyboard

 

[Linux-SWAT]

My first suggestion is that / should be reachable without a modifier.

 

[codifies]

It occurs to me that the main reason for "friction" here is that there is a square peg that needs to go through different shaped holes (sometimes at the same time!)

• programming
• gaming
• office use (including email/web forms)

As mentioned there are a number of chars like '`^ etc that are important and so this leads to less characters(keys) for none English characters - I do wonder though given DOSbox / programming etc how many French or German key mats would be sold if they were made 

The idea of a none dedicated escape key nearly caused a knee jerk reaction from me, but I (too!) often use CTRL-C without hardship so the escape key being under another key I can live with! If you really need a DOSbox game that requires menu entry every few seconds and a key modifier really is too hard then remapping caps locks and escape so they are swapped is a great solution - can't remember many games using caps lock but its still there.... and hey whats to stop you mapping escape to a shoulder button, you ain't using it for a DOSbox game!

Office use is quite important even if coding happens to be your main use, and for general office use characters like @ and / etc need easy access...

So given all this there really a way we can make accented French and German character easily accessible ? - There really are a limited number of keys!

Is it really fair to expect that a keyboard should be able to with equal ease cope with (at least) three different languages AND different use cases like programming and office use...?

In short there is no perfect solution, but as far as can be practical ED's favoured design is fairly close...

Oh and the other cause of "friction" couldn't possibly be the grenade chucking popcorn eaters could it ?

 

[Antartica]

For the missing keys:

I would love to have the missing keys (^, ') mapped using AltGr+rightShift into one of the symbol-only keys, that is, into the current (,) and (.).

AltGr+rightShift+, -> ^

AltGr+rightShift+. -> '

Alt-Gr+rightShift can be simultaneously pushable by the right thumb, if I'm not mistaken (rationale: I use that a lot in my Xperia Pro: have mapped the missing keys I need for programming with vi using Fn+Shift and it is very convenient).