Keyboard Layout And Durability

[conso]

That's a yet another variation:

1. All labels that I consider unnecessary are removed.
2. Mark Ctrl & Alt because I'll never remember which one is on the left and which on the right. (but I guess that I'll need to put a sticker there, becuase it requires printing on the case)
3. Move all other labels onto the buttons. They become really small, uh.
4. Who needs "Space" on space?
5. Didn't rearrange any symbols - they are the same is in Kagato's final proposal.

SVG source



Hi I like it, but have some suggestions:
Wouldn't it be better to attach shift+fn to the shoulder-buttons, as those will be the ones to be used in combination with letters the most? Having them on the shoulders could fasten writeflow quite enormously...
Also... in combination with fn and maybe some other keys they should be used to switch windows/desktops

Why not remap the buttons between the analog nubs? They could be used for cool things like esc, tab and Ins

Also: you have mouse-movement but no mouse-clicks. Maybe x and be could be better used for this purpose?

I'm still worried about how to play games with those layouts. I guess gamestarters would sometimes need to change the keymappings for some games to be playable...

 

[Arialia]

IMO when you hold a letter button you should ger this char releatedly, not it's accent.

and why not ?

in french keyboard for example to have ê i must press ^ ,release and after [e] touch , ^ touch is a deadkey, if i want only ^ i have three soluces :
typing two times [^]
typing [^] and after [space]
or typing [AltGr][9] (numeric touch upper letter)

we have same for ¨ , so we can have easily ëäïöüÿ ÄËÏÖÜ and this with only one key !

i never understood why we don't have same system for [´] to have áéíóúý and [`] to have àèìòù

so [´] ( acute accent) can be replacing by the 'apostrophe' or simple quote [']

in fact i think than keyboard french is not ergonomic for accent

impossible to type "Ça" with only keyboard !

so this solution could be useful for all european ( except maybe those with cyrillic ... )

[Edit]

well I don't understand your touch 'Accent' what does it means ?

for all language which use accents we have more than three accents ( french : 4, polish : 5 ? ) and i hate system of cellphone

and AltGr for [Fn][Up] is correct only if it works like this : press [Fn] release , press [Up] release : [AltGr]
if we need hold [Fn][Up] together ... it is impossible to press anything without put Pandora on table ....

 

[cosurgi]

well I don't understand your touch 'Accent' what does it means ?
Key Accent does exactly what you have described, but in 3 keypresses. Like that:

Accent " [aeiouy] = ëäïöüÿ
Accent ` [aeiou] = àèìòù
Accent ' [aeiouyns] = áéíóúýńś
Accent , [aecdghiklnorstu] = ąȩçḑģḩįķļņǫŗşţų
Accent ^ [aecghijosuwyz] = âêĉĝĥîĵôŝûŵŷẑ
and so on with all possible accents...

For each accented letter you need three subsequent keypresses. In fact on Pandora it's four, because Accent=Fn+Down.

Polish language has 9 accents: ąćęłńóśżź ĄĆĘŁŃÓŚŻŹ. Your font may display ąĄ wrong. See wikipedia, the little tail is on the right below of the letter (not centered).

 

[greendots]

I didnt really like how the keymaps started moving so far away from norm so I tried to make my own...
Thanks to who ever made SVG files

This should work well for English and German types

why:
-I think the contrast buttons work best on the arrow keys and is the same for most laptops and TI calculators
-The top number row is the same as US qwerty layout... FN for function number (makes sense)
-I did not map mousebuttons or ctrl/alt because people have different opinions as to where they work best... I left A / Y and L / R open for those.
-space+fn = tab makes more sense then a special purpose hardware control... also it can be accidently press pretty easily in that position
-special to german alphabet keys located together in the left corner
-I removed caps lock and fn lock because I think with a keyboard this size, sticky keys is better.
-----Press shift 2x to have caps lock and once more to turn off
-----Same idea for fn
-theres 3 extra spaces for function keys ill post svg so some one can figure out what to do with them

Edit: SVG: http://dragon0scale.googlepages.com/pandora_greendots.svg

 

[MWeston]

- can be use (semi)translucent material for DIY adding backlit?

No, there is more to light distribution under the keypad than just semi clear buttons. If we were to go that far then it would just make sense to go all the way. Unfortunately, it is a cost thing.
QUOTE

- how can meta keys act, can they act sticky and nonsticky, is this fully under SW solution or nothing needed and only system configuration will suffice?


Everything is under software control. However the software wants to handle keys will be independent to each program. The driver under the kernel should be rather basic and only report back key press/release events and decode rows and columns to a unique ID which for the basic implementation will decode to the standard QWERTY layout you see. This would be my take on the buttons and then higher levels can re-abstract the buttons by the ID number and make it whatever it wants.
QUOTE

- LCD has just only brightness or contrast control or both? It need to clear doe to mapping LCD controls to keys.


I only see the point of labelling brightness control. Contrast is done in software in the form of gamma correction and probably isn't something you set often. I usually play with it once and then forget it.
QUOTE

- I don't clearly remember about Menu/Select/Start trio, just have something about directly wiring to omap on mind, so I ask if Fn+Select can act as SysRq, or even if anything else can be mapped on this 3 keys. So they are so unique, as I recall or not?


The three buttons in the middle are mapped to GPIO pins like the game buttons. There isn't anything special about them, but you can enable interrupts for any GPIO so I had plans to do that for the MENU(Pandora?) button with the intent of letting the kernel take over for task switching and stuff like that. I was also wondering if I should take the FN button out of the keypad matrix and make it a GPIO so that 3-key combos can be done. I'm not sure if that is pointless yet. For something this small and hand held, trying to get on top of three buttons simultaneously sounds difficult (if one of them isn't a shoulder button that is).

The buttons currently labeled MENU and START have alternate functions when the power switch is pressed. This is tied directly into the hardware to reboot the board into different modes. Again, during normal operation, they are just regular GPIOs.
QUOTE

- And at last if you can comment our linked design.


I've been reading through this topic. It is a good discussion and one we need to figure out right away. I have pretty much ignored it for months because you can prototype and make molds without worrying about the last step of stenciling characters on the keys. I want to learn more from the assembler in the next couple of weeks about what it would take to have different batches of labeled keypad buttons for shipments to different countries. I'm not saying it will go down that way, but if it were a couple pennies more, then maybe it is a good idea? I don't see it being cost effective only on a batch of 3000 units though. The solution is likely to be one layout that makes the most people happy right from launch day and for the life of Pandora and then focus on software solutions for any other characters.

If I had to make one complaint, it would be about clutter. I really don't like the idea of five or six different symbols on a button. These drawings in this topic are super sized! The real buttons are small (8.25x7.75mm top surface) and making the text tiny to fit it all seems counter productive. I would like to continue to sit back and watch this topic though. It doesn't fall on blind eyes and everyone is paying attention.

I remember Steve Jobs bragging about the iPhone's lack of a physical keyboard because it prevents dealing with problems like this. Well, I like physical keyboards but it is a real challenge with an international product. I don't think there will be a way to please absolutely everyone so the final solution will likely be the english letters as primary and a mixed subset of common, important letters from other languages common to GP32X users. An onscreen keyboard is probably going to be necessary to get everyone covered and it might be nice to make consideration in software for an easy way to pop one up any time it will be needed.

 

[cosurgi]

I've been reading through this topic. It is a good discussion and one we need to figure out right away. I have pretty much ignored it for months because you can prototype and make molds without worrying about the last step of stenciling characters on the keys. I want to learn more from the assembler in the next couple of weeks about what it would take to have different batches of labeled keypad buttons for shipments to different countries. I'm not saying it will go down that way, but if it were a couple pennies more, then maybe it is a good idea? I don't see it being cost effective only on a batch of 3000 units though. The solution is likely to be one layout that makes the most people happy right from launch day and for the life of Pandora and then focus on software solutions for any other characters.

This is great news!

I have started another thread dedicated for listing keyboard proposals, it should be helpful for everyone to just see the pictures, without comments.

I must thank Kagato for his SVG template

 

[Dio]

I didnt really like how the keymaps started moving so far away from norm so I tried to make my own...

Yeah, that's been my complaint watching this thread. Within the vagiaries of internationalism, there should be as many 'familiar' reference points as possible.

But that's excellent - by far the best so far, I think. (While I miss ctrl and alt from it, something's got to give somewhere, and perhaps putting those on L and R would be acceptable. Or maybe live without altogether.) In general I think modifiers are better than dedicated keys for accents, in order to provide better accomodation than for just one language, though.

I would immediately reject any design that doesn't have something akin to the standard shift behaviour on 1-0 - and the symmetry of pressing the Fn button to get a function key also seems impossible to ignore.

 

[impreziv]

i dont understand why everyone is so concerned about the placement of accent/special keys. i mean, are you planning on writing up any important business letters on your Pandora? are you too good for internet shorthand? what to you do on your Qwerty-keyboard-equipped cell phones?

whenever i type in french/german/spanish i skip accents entirely, and so does most mostly everyone i know. if youre planning on using the pandora for professional purposes, perhaps this is the wrong device for you?

the most typing i imagine myself doing on the Pandora is posting on the occasional forum (when i have wifi connection), and whatever other web activities i find myself doing with this thing. i dont ever expect to be typing anything where i would use any better grammar than i do when Texting on my mobile phone. . and i text message in 4 languages

 

[Arialia]

i dont understand why everyone is so concerned about the placement of accent/special keys. i mean, are you planning on writing up any important business letters on your Pandora? are you too good for internet shorthand? what to you do on your Qwerty-keyboard-equipped cell phones?

whenever i type in french/german/spanish i skip accents entirely, and so does most mostly everyone i know. if youre planning on using the pandora for professional purposes, perhaps this is the wrong device for you?

the most typing i imagine myself doing on the Pandora is posting on the occasional forum (when i have wifi connection), and whatever other web activities i find myself doing with this thing. i dont ever expect to be typing anything where i would use any better grammar than i do when Texting on my mobile phone. . and i text message in 4 languages

and why not do the best for everyone if possible ?
I have not enough money to waste in a more expensive device like you mean ( i was thinking on a Zaurus before but very too expensive for me ) and i want a Pandora for playing, programming and to serve as dailer , talk on irc, send email.

and well when i type i use accents and dislike read my language without good accents and good grammar and i'm not alone in this case ...

it is a great challenge to make international little keyboard, maybe good ideas in this thread could influence more devices in future :rolleyes:

On Pandora we have the chance to give our ideas

And this thread it's not only on label writting on keys but also for the keytables we must do for each languages supported .

 

[greendots]

First thanks again to Kagato for making the SVGs


Ive added one additional key to complete spanish alphabet. It now contains all the keys needed for English, german, and spanish. (would help marketing I think)

More Whys:
-Removed extra volume controls from dpad (not necessary)
-added escape to select key because other two buttons there have another function in firmware
-rearranged f11 and f12 to make room for ctrl and alt
-ctrl and alt sometimes needs to be clicked at the same time so its easier to press both with this layout
-L and R are mouse buttons because mouse is likely to be used more. Also because middle mouse button emulation
-removed yen because it is least often used in english speaking languages (??)
-added much needed multimedia controls

 

[AireTamStorm]

And then there is the issue of clutter. I'd rather have symbols like ?><":{}|+_)(*&^%$#@! than accented characters, (admittedly from USA) and I'd much rather have to functions to a key than 3 or more. By putting those characters on the keyboard itself, rather than using an IME you are cluttering up each TINY key hence making it impossible for some people to read what is on it and furthermore make each key's use less effective. Problem is we will have a cluttered keyboard unless we limit the keys to common symbols and use software for the rest. It is not the end of the world if you lose accented characters, but it is a big pain in everyone's ass to lose the period to the BETA key.

 

[mechanizeddeath]

agreed.

some of these layouts are almost comical, simply due to the number of characters on each key. the way we're going with this, i've been waiting for someone to request Klingon or Elvish. :lol:

seriously though, there is only so much room on that keypad, and the line has to be drawn somewhere. no international characters? some international? six characters per key?

anyway, whatever the layout is, i'll get used to it.

 

[Cervante]

can we save this for the next batch ? I want a pandora like now

 

[yosh64]

hey

Just wanted to say that I like Kagato's design most, and I think ya have all done well .

greendots, I think you make a nice suggestion also about the mouse buttons, but I don't agree with what you done with the ABXY buttons and think F11 and F12 arn't needed as much as pgup, pgdown, home, and end. I'm also not sure if it will be possible to map keys as mouse buttons, but I dunno.

Anyhows instead I would suggest you map mouse left and mouse right to the dpad left/right and place the tab on the spacebar also, but I'm not sure about back tab. But yea, I don't really know how useful the mouse scroll on the analog stick would be if ya were unable to click on anything.

cyas

 

[PandoraLox]

How about we just like, kill the design process... and just start voting on all the design templates submitted thus far?

Also, how much more difficult would it be to saaay.... include stickers representing special characters & just include them with Pandora's incase someone wants to customize it for say... their own international needs? Would be nice to allow folks to easily map the keys to their own liking aside from whatever we vote for the default standard to be.

Either that or we can just scrape the old design of traditional keyboards & just use the Maximus design of having every key being programmable LED screens... just gotta pay an extra $700USD to the price tag that's all :lol:

 

[Chip]

Also, how much more difficult would it be to saaay.... include stickers representing special characters & just include them with Pandora's incase someone wants to customize it for say... their own international needs? Would be nice to allow folks to easily map the keys to their own liking aside from whatever we vote for the default standard to be.

Significantly more difficult. Significantly more expensive, at least. It's not like Avery makes Pandora-sized labels, and even if they did it's not like simple paper (or even vinyl) stickers would hold up for more than a couple weeks under normal use. If you've seen professionally made keyboard labels, they're usually plastic with a very strong industrial adhesive. I suspect it would be nearly as (if not more) expensive to manufacture durable labels as it would be to have multiple silk screen rigs to print different layouts on actual keys. That is why it is so important to get it right the first time and accommodate as many languages as possible.


QUOTE
Either that or we can just scrape the old design of traditional keyboards & just use the Maximus design of having every key being programmable LED screens... just gotta pay an extra $700USD to the price tag that's all

If it were an option, I'd be tempted to pay it

 

[greendots]

...
greendots, I think you make a nice suggestion also about the mouse buttons, but I don't agree with what you done with the ABXY buttons and think F11 and F12 arn't needed as much as pgup, pgdown, home, and end. I'm also not sure if it will be possible to map keys as mouse buttons, but I dunno.

Anyhows instead I would suggest you map mouse left and mouse right to the dpad left/right and place the tab on the spacebar also, but I'm not sure about back tab. But yea, I don't really know how useful the mouse scroll on the analog stick would be if ya were unable to click on anything.

cyas

Page up,page down, home, and end have little use when you have mouse scroll set to the right analog and the d-pad to move the blinking text curser/line.

You can't map mouse buttons to the dpad at all... you would not be able to drag items or anything like that. Again mouse scroll replaces pageup/down, home, and end.

 

[TaG]

Page up,page down, home, and end have little use when you have mouse scroll set to the right analog and the d-pad to move the blinking text curser/line.

You can't map mouse buttons to the dpad at all... you would not be able to drag items or anything like that. Again mouse scroll replaces pageup/down, home, and end.
I don't agree. I often use home and end, also in conjunction with ctrl, and to a degree I use page up and down, when editing a variety of doc types. They enable you to get around quickly and accurately. To those brought up on keyboard controls and shortcuts mouse controls don't always cut it.

 

[Caine]

My attempt at a somewhat traditional US layout

Keyboard

- All US keyboard buttons available
- special (international) characters: use accent mark followed by character. In conjunction with the AltGr. People that actually use these specific characters should provide details how this can be mapped best.
- Double shift keys to ease thumb typing (non-sticky behaviour)
- Red keys (and upercase letters) are accessed with shift, blue keys with Fn
- backspace (deletes to left) on A and del (delete to right) on B
- ESC on X which is often used as cancel in games
- Tapping LMB, MMB or RMB performs corresponding click.
- Holding LMB, MMB or RMB modifies the action of stylus presses.
- For left-handed people, the analog pads should be reversed in function
- TAB is an important button (completion in cmd line)

Additional points
- scroll lock / num lock not needed a lot, therefore they can be combined with ctrl and alt
- Are the Pause, Winkey and AppKey (windows menu key) at all useful?
- Do we need special characters for the Euro, pound or yen? There is still plenty of space for
these on QWASDZ
- ABXY buttons can also be easily accessed with shift modifier.
We could add Mute, Volume Up, Volume Down, toggle video-out keys.
- Fn Lock and Caps could alternatively be accessed by a single press and release of the shift keys.
- It would be nice if common url characters such as . (dot) and / (slash) were available without modifier.

I don't have a cardboard pandora case handy, so it is hard to judge if the shift and Fn keys would feel cramped.

 

[Gilrad]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this--or if somebody did, it went ignored because I haven't seen much discussion of it--but what is the deal with everybody mapping various keys to the control pad, face buttons, and shoulder buttons? Looks to me like a formula for some severe inconsistency problems for game and app developers.