It's the keyboard layout.

[_wb_]

And here is one more:

_wb_ MES-1 v5 ("DÖFÄGÅ") : http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/1722e6471a407736d417f2334c741cd4

Meta/Shift on the left, uses Shift+Meta all over the place (3 labels on most keys), fully "DOSBox compliant"

This proposal has all the symbols you can find on US-QWERTY, standard German QWERTZ, standard French AZERTY, and the standard Spanish QWERTY keyboard.

Literally all of them. Not a single little symbol is missing! It just barely fits by putting Shift+Meta labels on every Meta-symbol that does not have or need an upper case variant.

It also has all the letters needed for the Scandinavian languages; it can produce all Western European languages exactly as efficiently as on their original keyboards if you don't count the Meta shoulder button presses.

Is it cluttered? Yes.

Is it too cluttered? I'll let you judge that.

Is it possible to label the keys like this in a legible way? Yes, I think so.

Is this an ultra-multilingual layout? Yep.

Is that really necessary? I don't know, but I think it's pretty neat that it can be done.

Bonus: backspace, enter, tab and space are completely free of Meta labels, which looks nice imo. Also it has the advantage that Meta with those keys can default to the key itself, which means that you can do <punctuation> followed by <enter or space> combos without having to worry about releasing Meta fast enough.

So in summary, I have made the following multilingual proposals so far:

_wb_ MES-1 v1 ("GÀHÖJÄ") : http://www.keyboard-...551349c3ee89ba2    [MES-1 coverage chart: https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing]

Meta/Shift on the right, no labeled Shift+Meta symbols

_wb_ MES-1 v2 ("HÖJÄKÈLÀ") : http://www.keyboard-...aeca6898e6b8244     [MES-1 coverage chart: https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing]

Meta/Shift on the right, does not use Shift+Meta for ASCII symbols (only for ₤ and §)

_wb_ MES-1 v3 ("RÜDÖFÄ") : http://www.keyboard-...b9ea7a87449ace8   [MES-1 coverage chart: https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing]

Meta/Shift on the left, uses Shift+Meta for {}|?, supports Scandinavian languages, every symbol close to US-QWERTY location

Here is one more layout:

_wb_ MES-1 v4 ("GÜVÖBÄNÑ") : http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/b6276c5e3640800937bf864eba313d1e

Meta/Shift on the left, based on the previous one but no more Shift+Meta, simple and clean labeling, only major languages, no § µ £ Å Æ Ø

(swapping _ and / in this one would look better, but it would break US-QWERTY positions)

 

[Grench]

And here is one more:

_wb_ MES-1 v5 ("DÖFÄGÅ") : http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/1722e6471a407736d417f2334c741cd4

Meta/Shift on the left, uses Shift+Meta all over the place (3 labels on most keys), fully "DOSBox compliant"

This proposal has all the symbols you can find on US-QWERTY, standard German QWERTZ, standard French AZERTY, and the standard Spanish QWERTY keyboard.

Literally all of them. Not a single little symbol is missing! It just barely fits by putting Shift+Meta labels on every Meta-symbol that does not have or need an upper case variant.

It also has all the letters needed for the Scandinavian languages; it can produce all Western European languages exactly as efficiently as on their original keyboards if you don't count the Meta shoulder button presses.

Is it cluttered? Yes.

Is it too cluttered? I'll let you judge that.

Is it possible to label the keys like this in a legible way? Yes, I think so.

Is this an ultra-multilingual layout? Yep.

Is that really necessary? I don't know, but I think it's pretty neat that it can be done.

Bonus: backspace, enter, tab and space are completely free of Meta labels, which looks nice imo. Also it has the advantage that Meta with those keys can default to the key itself, which means that you can do <punctuation> followed by <enter or space> combos without having to worry about releasing Meta fast enough.

Thank you for coming back to a viable layout. I could live with this one and generally like it. I would only make 2 changes/tweaks.

1. Swap the shoulder button assignments left to right so that Meta/Fn and shift are on the right shoulder in opposition of the keyboard meta/Fn and shift.

2. I know it's 'more clutter', but I would like to see the dotted circle return for the dedicated diacritics at Meta+keys to visually differentiate them from standard symbols. For me this would be a visual, "It has a dotted circle, I can ignore that." For people who need the diacritics it would be the opposite.

Otherwise, I think this is a solid alternative.

 

[Neelix]

Yeah I like that one too. 

I also agree with the idea of putting keyboard and shoulder meta+shift on opposite corners,   though personally I'd be more inclined to move the keyboard meta and shift to the lower right, rather than moving the shoulder button versions. (putting . and , back at the lower left)  While that might seem counter-intuitive to some I've gotten kind of used to it on the pandora.

- Neelix

 

[Grench]

Yeah I like that one too. 

I also agree with the idea of putting keyboard and shoulder meta+shift on opposite corners,   though personally I'd be more inclined to move the keyboard meta and shift to the lower right, rather than moving the shoulder button versions. (putting . and , back at the lower left)  While that might seem counter-intuitive to some I've gotten kind of used to it on the pandora.

- Neelix

I would be OK with that as well.

 

[codifies]

While it is a bit cluttered I could live with this too, I'm getting scared too many people agreeing :-o

 

[_wb_]

Yeah I like that one too. 

I also agree with the idea of putting keyboard and shoulder meta+shift on opposite corners, 

I don't really think it is more ergonomic to have the two Shifts/Metas (keyboard and shoulder) on opposite sides: shoulder button presses can be combined with any thumb, no matter where the shoulder buttons are located. In fact, I think it is nice to have them in a similar pattern:

• on the keyboard, Shift and Meta are on the left (Shift to the left of Meta), while Alt and Ctrl are in the middle, so relatively speaking, on the right (Alt above Ctrl)
• on the shoulders, Shift and Meta are on the left (Shift to the left of Meta), while Alt and Ctrl are on the right (Alt above Ctrl)

Also I like to maintain the Pandora convention that L1 is RightShift, R1 is RightCtrl, START is LeftAlt and SELECT is LeftCtrl.

The most logical way to extend that convention, at least in my mind, is to make all shoulder modifiers "Right" modifiers, e.g. L2=RightMeta and R2=RightAlt.

Now I think it is nice if there are no keys called "LeftSomething" that are physically to the right of the corresponding "RightSomething".

If you combine those two constraints (extending the Pandora convention in a logical way, and not have LeftX to the right of RightX), then there is only one solution.

(putting . and , back at the lower left)  While that might seem counter-intuitive to some I've gotten kind of used to it on the pandora.

I also got used to the Pandora position for , and . (and most other symbols too), but I think it's easy enough to get used to something new (and Pandora muscle memory will only partially transfer anyway, given the new physical keyboard layout and the differences that will be there anyway). On the Pandora , and . were on the left because there simply was no room for them on the right (Fn could have been on the left, but Enter would have been really weird on the left). On the Pyra we do have the choice. So far, we all seem to agree that getting closer to US-QWERTY is better, even if that means doing things differently than on the Pandora -- e.g. nobody has argued in favor of having a Shift + number row that looks like this: §{}~%^&*[]. So while I do not strongly object to having , and . on the left, I think it is still better to have them where they really belong, which is on the right.

Here is a 'dotted circle' version of _wb_ MES-1 v5, as requested by Grench:

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

I discovered two minor shortcomings in it:

• the ³ of the German keyboard is missing (oh noes! however, my proposal to let dead circumflex act as a 'dead superscript' on numbers is good enough in my opinion, actually even better: instead of having just squares and cubes, ² and ³, you can type any exponent with that, e.g. x ⁸⁷⁵⁰ )
• no more dead stroke and dead macron, which means Łł Đđ Ħħ Ŧŧ  ¢ ¥  and Ãā Ēē Īī Õō Ūū are no longer two-thumb symbols, but three-thumb compose sequences. None of the Western European languages will notice the difference, and the ones that do notice the difference (some Balto-Slavic languages) will probably want to remap things anyway, to get one-thumb access to the letters they need.

 

[Grench]

Yeah I like that one too. 

I also agree with the idea of putting keyboard and shoulder meta+shift on opposite corners,

 

(putting . and , back at the lower left)  While that might seem counter-intuitive to some I've gotten kind of used to it on the pandora.

 I also got used to the Pandora position for , and .

Here is a 'dotted circle' version of _wb_ MES-1 v5, as requested by Grench:

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

Much better - visually less clutter and more clear to function.

The one last change to make - swap keyboard shift/Meta with ,< and .>

Then it's "done".

 

[Neelix]

I don't really think it is more ergonomic to have the two Shifts/Metas (keyboard and shoulder) on opposite sides: shoulder button presses can be combined with any thumb, no matter where the shoulder buttons are located.

While I agree that shoulder button presses can be combined with presses of either thumb, there is a precedent which suggests that there may in fact be an ergonomic advantage to having a meta and shift on each side of the device.    When Ptitseb ported Oolite, It was discovered  (after trying it both ways) that people found it more comfortable to chord the left shoulder button with the gaming buttons and the right shoulder button with the d-pad than the other way around.

- Neelix

 

[_wb_]

Here is a slightly tweaked "_wb_ MES-1 v5b":

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6a5048d6abf2b3850d39f7765efe48b3

Changes:

I realized that French keyboards only have éèàù and not ÉÈÀÙ. The capital versions are not often needed (in the case of "ù" only when shouting, since it only occurs in the word "où"), and they can be made with the dead diacritic approach when needed. So I rearranged the French keys a bit and dropped their capital versions, which makes room for the extra symbols ³ « » Ω.

I also added CapsLock on Meta+Tab, in case anyone wants to shout (it could be useful for the French speakers for efficient ÉÉÉ ÈÈÈ shouting).

That means it now really covers all the symbols of the German keyboard, and in addition, also the Belgian keyboard and the Portuguese keyboard as used in Portugal are now completely covered.

Here is the MES-1 coverage chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rHvW7n4EgzvgLO0itvja5wVKOeRBhMVYMkgCcNVcOoo/edit?usp=sharing

Here is variant "_wb_ MES-1 v5c", with , . on the left and Shift/Meta on the right, as requested by Grench:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/930d31094aec715a1e140c102eaf6a5b

 

[Neelix]

I don't like the idea of removing the capital versions of those letters, that's a recipe for frustration when someone does want to use them, for whatever reason.   À in particular, has cropped up a fair bit in my online french lessons, usually as the first word in a sentence. (e.g. "À Rome, fais comme les Romains.")

- Neelix

 

[_wb_]

I don't like the idea of removing the capital versions of those letters, that's a recipe for frustration when someone does want to use them, for whatever reason.   À in particular, has cropped up a fair bit in my online french lessons, usually as the first word in a sentence. (e.g. "À Rome, fais comme les Romains.")


- Neelix

If you would try to type ÉÈÀÇÙ that way on a French keyboard, you would get 2790%

And they don't have an easy way to get the capitals, because they don't have a dead grave and dead acute, so all you can do is Compose.

But I get your point. We could remove ² ³ Ω again to fix it (still no Ù then, but that one is really not needed in French).

 

[Neelix]

If you would try to type ÉÈÀÇÙ that way on a French keyboard, you would get 2790%

And they don't have an easy way to get the capitals, because they don't have a dead grave and dead acute, so all you can do is Compose.

That also assumes that all French speakers use the French AZERTY layout, which even on the face of it seems far from likely. From what I've read in wikipedia Canadian French use a QWERTY keyboard with dead keys normally, so they may not be familiar with such a bizarre convention.

- Neelix

 

[_wb_]

If you would try to type ÉÈÀÇÙ that way on a French keyboard, you would get 2790%


And they don't have an easy way to get the capitals, because they don't have a dead grave and dead acute, so all you can do is Compose.

That also assumes that all French speakers use the French AZERTY layout, which even on the face of it seems far from likely. From what I've read in wikipedia Canadian French use a QWERTY keyboard with dead keys normally, so they may not be familiar with such a bizarre convention.


- Neelix

Yes, but France has a population of 66 million. Canada has a population of 35 million, 8 million of which speak French. But I still agree with your point

 

[Grench]

Here is variant "_wb_ MES-1 v5c", with , . on the left and Shift/Meta on the right, as requested by Grench:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/930d31094aec715a1e140c102eaf6a5b

Not a fan of the lowercase in-key - that is getting crowded feeling even for my tastes.
As a base, take:

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

Add in from:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/930d31094aec715a1e140c102eaf6a5b

Cappslock at Fn+tab (this should JUST be letters where shift+shift = SHIFT lock (not just caps))

Swap Meta/Fn to the right side

If you need to include «», maybe put them as Meta+space and Meta+Shift+space?

OR, and this is another crazy idea... That space bar with Meta and space beside it becomes a chord action and could be put to even 'better' use... Put:

Ins at Meta+space

Del at Meta+shift+space

» at upper small gamepad button

« at lower small gamepad button

IFF that is going to happen, though, we might want to label the left half of the space bar as 'Space' in white letters so nobody panics and thinks it's only Insert and Delete.

OK, so it sounds a bit crazy, so I built it anyway.

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/cf989bb56ce28b8c8e3bdf173f3b829e

Advantages:

Game buttons are all now symbolic, which should make them easier to map to games. Nobody needs to care that they're French parenthesis.

Insert is easy to chord off of space bar.

Delete, being more dangerous would require deliberately getting Meta+Shift+Space

Thoughts?

 

[_wb_]

Shift-Insert is needed (it is a shortcut for "paste").

 

[szr]

I don't like the idea of removing the capital versions of those letters, that's a recipe for frustration when someone does want to use them, for whatever reason.   À in particular, has cropped up a fair bit in my online french lessons, usually as the first word in a sentence. (e.g. "À Rome, fais comme les Romains.")


- Neelix

If you would try to type ÉÈÀÇÙ that way on a French keyboard, you would get 2790%

And they don't have an easy way to get the capitals, because they don't have a dead grave and dead acute, so all you can do is Compose.

I think I may be missing something here. I thought getting capitals is what the Shift and Caps-Lock keys were for? If it doesn't then that would be some rather bizarre keyboard behavior.

 

[Kev2442]

If you would try to type ÉÈÀÇÙ that way on a French keyboard, you would get 2790%


And they don't have an easy way to get the capitals, because they don't have a dead grave and dead acute, so all you can do is Compose.

That also assumes that all French speakers use the French AZERTY layout, which even on the face of it seems far from likely. From what I've read in wikipedia Canadian French use a QWERTY keyboard with dead keys normally, so they may not be familiar with such a bizarre convention.


- Neelix

Yes, but France has a population of 66 million. Canada has a population of 35 million, 8 million of which speak French. But I still agree with your point

If this can be of any use, please note that yes, most of us in frenchies don't really know of anything besides AZERTY. And yes, we lack Ç and É. The other ones aren't commonly needed, or have dead keys for that.

Even worse, a large part of the population has come to believe that we don't have to use accentuation on capital letters when writing on a computer. As one of the other part, I for once thank Microsoft for giving us Alt+numbers for this issue (we don't have a Compose key and yes, that's a shame).

All in all, while most of us wouldn't quite see the lack of such key, people like me would really appreciate if we have at the very least a Compose key, and would be quite grateful if we could have the AZERTY keys (é, è, `, ç, à, ¨, ^, ù) as a bonus.

But honestly, I don't think most of us would think dedicated capital accentuated letters as of any use, as we're not aware of the practical benefit.

 

[_wb_]

I don't like the idea of removing the capital versions of those letters, that's a recipe for frustration when someone does want to use them, for whatever reason.   À in particular, has cropped up a fair bit in my online french lessons, usually as the first word in a sentence. (e.g. "À Rome, fais comme les Romains.")


- Neelix

 
If you would try to type ÉÈÀÇÙ that way on a French keyboard, you would get 2790%


And they don't have an easy way to get the capitals, because they don't have a dead grave and dead acute, so all you can do is Compose.

I think I may be missing something here. I thought getting capitals is what the Shift and Caps-Lock keys were for? If it doesn't then that would be some rather bizarre keyboard behavior.

True. The standard French, Swiss and Italian keyboards do indeed exhibit "some rather bizarre keyboard behavior".


Here is "_wb_ MES-1 v5d": http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/669b8a738e1eb5a0378c0352253cb593


MES-1 coverage chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QHDAbFkn4jrjGBu_PywBaqTdbqNmhR7vHMzt8nFjtxk/edit?usp=sharing


Changes:

• ÉÈÀ restored
• I forgot about ° in the previous variant, restored it
• still only lowercase ù, because Ù is really not needed: in French there is only the word "où", and in Italian, the ù also only occurs at the end of words. No other major languages use ù.
• Removed « » ² ³, kept Ω

I propose the following additional overloading of Meta+< and Meta+> (in addition to the circumflex/caron and superscript/subscript they already are) :


make them behave like the Compose sequences that start with < or >, i.e. the standard Compose sequences << <" <' >> >" >' produce « “ ‘ » ” ’, so we could make 2-keystroke shorthands for those 3-keystroke Compose sequences: Meta+< < would be «, etc.


So while ² ³ « » are not labeled and not available in one thumb press, a much larger set of symbols is available in two thumb presses using Meta+< and Meta+> :


Meta+> can be used to produce: » ’ ” ¹ ² ³ ⁴ ⁵ ⁶ ⁷ ⁸ ⁹ ⁰


Meta+< can be used to produce: « ‘ “ ₁ ₂ ₃ ₄ ₅ ₆ ₇ ₈ ₉ ₀


About the placement of the modifier keys and shoulder modifiers:


The (Shift+)Meta-layer of this proposal is very much right-biased: all the standard US-QWERTY keypairs are on the right, and the non-ASCII symbols on the left will be less used by most users; in particular the capital versions of those letters are rarely needed, and nearly nobody will use all of those languages so most of those keys will be mostly unused by most users.


So I think it is best to put both the keyboard and the shoulder Shift/Meta on the left.

 

[ible]

I would argue to leave out more of the international stuff.

Hide less common stuff under AltGr, close to (or exactly) where you'd expect it -- here's an example "default" AltGr layer (which we can easily modify in software land):

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/77029ec902d4496652e65586f3879678

(with a few holes, I wouldn't be using this much except for "mu" for micro and "Omega" for Ohms, but that's the idea -- put things you need sometimes here).

Put more common symbols on Meta, which will be printed on the board:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/81113d4bd6bfadaa66dd9e913025ed7c

Everything is still just under one modifier (either Meta or AltGr), and you can get german punctuation, lots of more accents on symbols, and no clutter .  

 

[_wb_]

I would argue to leave out more of the international stuff.

Here is one with a bit less Spanish support (no more ordinal indicators º and ª, no more ¡ ¿), and with £ and Ω dropped:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/2b3e72efdf401181519b2b131698bf45

Here is one where Spanish and Scandinavian are completely dropped, and also the non-essential German-keyboard stuff (° § µ) :

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/3933a99c61eb5c637ea1c43f353020d0