Keyboard Layout And Durability

[TaG]

You know what? Just ship it with a sheet of colored stickers for all ASCII symbols and include an app for configuring the keys
For what it's worth, today I happen to have three laptops to hand and four external keyboards. The external keyboards do not utilise stickers. All three laptop keyboards do utilise stickers. Very good stickers that you have to look at the keyboard closer than normal to see that is what they are. Maybe there's a reason for that - so that they don't have to localise laptops maybe? Also, if you think when you install linux (or windows) you select the keyboard layout - so that the keys can be mapped to your localisation. So this is a normal situation, just not for a Pandora layout.

Am I the only one here that thinks having 4 functions to one key is by no means a good idea?
No.

 

[Chip]

@Chip - you have added a lot of completely useless symbols (letters with accents? inverted ¿ ??). There's no point at all doing that. Instead the symbols that will be most often used should be added.

No point at all, unless your native language actually uses those characters. A lot of Pandora users will not be native English speakers. Spanish, French, German and Turkish all have a few unique characters that are necessary for proper communication.

I'm actually shocked by how many people here have expressed the opinion of "Let them use stickers or something". Really? Is the mere presence of non-latin characters so insulting to you that you'd alienate a sizable portion of the European market just so you don't have to see them? English users would loose nothing with the layout I propose, but what Pandora would gain in international appeal cannot be understated. The ability to type in their native language out-of-the-box would likely seal the deal for many potential users.

As for the "totally unacceptable" location of the ? key, I wonder how many of you have used a device with a thumb-typable qwerty keypad before? I've owned three different qwerty cellphones, and the locations of the punctuation keys are never the same. They are also never an issue. You hunt for them for a day or two, then you're used to it. Honestly, what is more of a problem: "The punctuation mark I need is not exactly where I expect it to be!" or "The letter I need is not on this keyboard!"

With production runs for the Pandora being as small as they are, it is really not economically feasible to print multiple keypad layouts. The international layout I propose is a "One keypad to rule them all" sort of thing that would provide (nearly) as much functionality as three or four different layouts. Since you have to design a layout and have it printed on the keys, why not cover as many bases with that one design as possible?

The keypads will be one of the last things finalized before manufacturing can begin, and Craig may not have even put that much thought into it yet. Nobody asked me to come up with this design and I have no idea if they're even interested in suggestions. It just seemed to me that if I'm going to spend my evening obsessing over a device that isn't out yet, I might as well do it in a constructive fashion. Better to spend several hours on something that is potentially useful than posting another "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if Pandora could run [Insert closed-source, Windows-only game here]?" thread.

 

[Tom`]

@Chip - you have added a lot of completely useless symbols (letters with accents? inverted ¿ ??). There's no point at all doing that. Instead the symbols that will be most often used should be added.

Ctrl, alt as separate keys is a good idea.

Cyryllic? Kanji? Calm down, it's only 49 keys, you can't do that. The "Fn LOCK" can serve that purpose, and stickers on the keys. Focus, please focus - I'm talking here about DEFAULT keyboard layout, not alternative layouts. You have designed a darn good ALTERNATIVE layout.

Back to the drawin board


Admittedly there's a lot of uncommonly-used stuff on Chip's second layout, but I think your #1 design assumption is one that many here disagree with. Most people, or at least a large number of people on these boards, are not from the US, and so I don't think starting from US layout is necessarily going to be appreciated. There are large numbers of German and Spanish speakers, considering that both Germany and Spain are well-represented in the scene by gp32spain and gp2x.de, as well as other languages (French, for example).

I agree that there probably is no simple and satisfying way to do Cyrillic or any of several Asian alphabets, but speakers of those languages, among potential buyers of the Pandora, are a small minority.

What I'm trying to say is that any default layout should probably contain characters with accents or umlauts or whatever else as a matter of convenience to the numbers of people here who will use them, rather than assuming a US-centric layout as standard and trying to follow it as closely as possible.

 

[Sphinxter]

I spent the last three hours laying out the best possible keypad labeling scheme
People wonder why I don't like you. You just showed why. You think in a couple of hours you can come out with "The best possible keypad labeling scheme." Who voted on that? Where is your award for that design feat?

Your design is *not* the best. I mean, you bury some of the most often used characters in any language - like the Question mark. ? - The FN of the C key? Seriously. That's the "Best possible" place for the ?. Why wouldn't it be closer to where it actually goes on a keyboard - like the M key?

I'm not saying your design is bad - it might be the best one we've seen for the Pandora. But what pisses me off is your arogance of saying it's "The best possible keypad labeling scheme." You really think you are qualified - not just to make that judgment (which you're not) - but to come up with it in just a few hours. Do you have any idea how much R & D companies put into keyboard layouts?

Not that I'm questioning your arrogance of questioning him but he does seem to have put a lot more thought into this since the right thumb would be on the fn key the C would be much easier for the left thumb to hit than the M. Frequency and convenience of use would have to be considered a much higher priority than where they are on a full size keyboard after the most basic layout is set.

 

[cosurgi]

If we set the Pandora to "german" for example, the keys in combination with FN or whatever give Ä Ö Ü if you press A O U etc... same for other Language settings.
(...)
I recommend to keep a standard english Layout in one or 2 Colours only and not more than 2 or 3 labelings per button. Never forget: LESS IS MORE!

Thanks fusion_power, I totally agree. I live in Poland, and to get all polish letters, I usually press AltGr+LETTER, and get those polish letters: ąćęłńóśżź (one exception: to get ź I press alt+X, because ż is alt+Z)

And yeah - keep standard english layout! We are comming to some consensus here.

Am I the only one here that thinks having 4 functions to one key is by no means a good idea?

I would say that 2 functions to single key is OK. 3 is exceptional, and 4 is useless.

Thak you for your comments, with them we can make more precise design assumptions:

1. As advertised standard english QWERTY keyboard layout. (this means - US layout )
2. Every symbol from standard QWERTY keyboard must be accessible with no more than TWO keys pressed simulataneously
3. Let's not forget about LCD brightness control.
4. We cannot add or remove keys! That would be a hardware change.

I hope that we can come up with something actually usable.

(edit: fix typo)

 

[AireTamStorm]

Chip, that layout is hardly international. I do not see why using software to accomplish the same thing isn't a go here, because software is the only real way to make that small amount of keys able to input pretty much any language. If they want their own keyboard layout physically, let them use a USB keyboard of their choice. Don't cram 4 or 5 different things on one key (See 0 "Zero" Key in your example).

I can see printing a sticker sheet as a viable alternative, but ultimately I firmly believe software is a much better solution. Thoughts?

 

[nubie]

I spent the last three hours laying out the best possible keypad labeling scheme
People wonder why I don't like you. You just showed why. You think in a couple of hours you can come out with "The best possible keypad labeling scheme." Who voted on that? Where is your award for that design feat?

Ugh, it is English, he said that he spent "three hours laying out", that doesn't mean that he assumed he made the best layout.

Perhaps he simply forgot to clarify that he wasn't finished, but his meaning was fairly clear: he spent three hours working on the layout.

Your problem is one of misreading, so please calm down.

Edit:
I for one would be quite upset if I couldn't map Fn and Shift to the trigger keys, it seems like it would be pretty easy to use them that way.

I hope that up can be escape, down delete, left backspace, I don't know about right, maybe right? That would mean the analog would need to be the up/down/left/right though, no biggie. (or delete backspace and escape can be on the action buttons.)

 

[cosurgi]

@Chip - we posted our replies at the same time, so I didn't saw yours when writing mine. So I'm answering a bit later.

[...adding letters with accents is no point at all...] )

No point at all, unless your native language actually uses those characters. A lot of Pandora users will not be native English speakers. Spanish, French, German and Turkish all have a few unique characters that are necessary for proper communication.

Every letter with accents has an unaccented sibling litter. The method proposed by fusion_power (and me) should work well enough:

1. press AltGr (or Fn) + unaccented letter = get letter with accent
2. that will reduce number of symbols printed per key, because it will be very simple to memorize the combination.
3. I should actually add AltGr in my proposal I think that Fn+ALT is the best place for it.

Ad.1: I prefer AltGr, because Fn can then be used to obtain all other symbols that are NORMAL KEYS on a standard 101 key QWERTY keyboard.

So, press AltGr + O = Ü, AltGr + L = Ł, etc...

I'm actually shocked by how many people here have expressed the opinion of "Let them use stickers or something". Really? Is the mere presence of non-latin characters so insulting to you that you'd alienate a sizable portion of the European market just so you don't have to see them? English users would lose nothing with the layout I propose, but what Pandora would gain in international appeal cannot be understated. The ability to type in their native language out-of-the-box would likely seal the deal for many potential users.


I live in Poland, and here I have 9 polish letters. Letters with accents are not insulting, it's just DARN TOO MANY of them. Of course I want to be able to type polish letters, but I don't need them freaking printed on the keyboard. I always remember which key combination to press to get the accented letter which I want. And for that reason I opt to skip all accented letters, and instead use the keys for something more useful.

Those letters WILL BE THERE! It will simply depend on nationality of the user what letters are there. For example, 'O' key should have there 'Ü' or 'Ó' ? Huh?

You should actually understand that putting accented letters is actually insulting for those who would like to see at that place another letter. Like the Ó vs. Ü conflict. So it's better to put nothing there.

As for the "totally unacceptable" location of the ? key, I wonder how many of you have used a device with a thumb-typable qwerty keypad before?

That's a good reasoning. We might as well move all those Fn symbols towards left, and let the right side of the keyboard have less frequently used Fn symbols.

I propose is a "One keypad to rule them all" sort of thing that would provide (nearly) as much functionality as three or four different layouts. Since you have to design a layout and have it printed on the keys, why not cover as many bases with that one design as possible?

Rememer that less is more, and more is less. KISS, Keep It Simple, Stupid.
If you try to satisfy everyone, you will get lots of complaints instead, because there will always be someone that you have missed. Don't do that. Better have a simple goal which is possible to realize.

Like for example - simply mapping all characters that are present on 101 key QWERTY keyboard, and letting every nationality to have a mapping which uses AltGR+LETTER to get their language specific letters. And not printing them on the keyboard!

It just seemed to me that if I'm going to spend my evening obsessing over a device that isn't out yet, I might as well do it in a constructive fashion.

Thanks for that, it helps a lot driving this discussion.

So based on above feedback I have modified my proposal ((1)useful symbols, like '?' are moved to left, to allow easier typing with thumbs, (2) added AltGr to allow ANY accented letters):

Of course it's by no means the best possible layout. But at least it's a usable one. And there are still a few unmapped keys. (red ones are of course triggered with Fn) Ther's a duplicated DEL, and Fn+Q is not TAB. There are also ESC? and TAB? placed. How it will be solved depends on further discussion. "Fn LOCK" is used to swich to another mapping, like Kanji or Cyryllic.

PS: I've seen voting pools in other threads. How is it possible to add a poll? I didn't find an option for that. I'm sure that we could use some voting to solve some problems here.

EDIT: typos, question about voting pools, updated explanation under the picture (those two sentences below it)
EDIT2: And here's the GIMP .xcf source file for that picture. Please edit it!

 

[andyB911]

Cosurgi - well reasoned argument (with perhaps exception at taking a pop at Chip). I was previously convinced that including the major special characters was logical but I think you have convinced me otherwise.

ie somewhat ironically, the way to make it 'most' international is to actually not include any accents / special characters.

 

[cosurgi]

I for one would be quite upset if I couldn't map Fn and Shift to the trigger keys, it seems like it would be pretty easy to use them that way.

I hope that up can be escape, down delete, left backspace, I don't know about right, maybe right? That would mean the analog would need to be the up/down/left/right though, no biggie. (or delete backspace and escape can be on the action buttons.)

@nubie: I'm not sure that I understand what you mean. Could you download the GIMP .xcf file, edit it, and post a picture here? I hope that you have GIMP around. SHIFT+key is written using green color here. Please try to not delete existing labels, just move them somewhere outside, and we will try to find a place for them, later.

If you can't do this, let me try to understand - are you talking about the left, or the right controller? Do you mean that SHIFT+(left)UP = ESC, or Fn+(right)UP = ESC? If you can clarify I can make a picture instead. But better if you can make a picture

EDIT: thanks AndyB911 for your support.

 

[cosurgi]

@nubie - OK, I think I understand now what you were saying. I updated the layout with your suggestions, and I agree actually, with the idea to put backspace on the left. Now it's easy to press with both thumbs. But I think that I've found a much better place for ESC now. Remember where DEL/BACKSPACE were in the previous solution? On the top right. So let's move all the numbers to the right, and put ESC on top left! Just where it is on a normal keyboard, I think it's a really good place.... Also I've moved HOME/END to the analog nubs, so now Fn+ANALOG_UP = HOME. Exactly the same as to control LCD brightness on th eright analog nub. Also I thought to better keep 'Start','Select','Menu' as they were in the original design. There was a whole thread about it, so maybe better not touch those buttons.

So now we have a couple of unmaped keys: 'A' controller, 'J','K','L','N','ENTER','SPACE','Start','Select','Menu'.

Here's the GIMP .xcf file

Please criticize without mercy!

EDIT: I moved AltGr to Fn+ENTER - and now it's possible to press AltGr with only one thumb! That makes it much easier to press a sibling unaccented letter using free left hand.

EDIT2: moved TAB to Q. So now it's possible to press ctrl-TAB. Removed "Fn LOCK" because it conflicts with SHIFT.

 

[Hotcooler]

Actually I dont think we need that much of 101keys mapped. I donwt think we need pgup,pgdown, altgr, some symbols like ~`| e.t.c. printed on the keypad. Tey are not commonly used in basic typing.

Plus I think it will be good to have a keypad "to rule them all". Just because there is plenty of languages to cover. I actually agree to have Cyrillic stickers, just because it would be hard to remember what is mapped and on wich key. But I consider it's a good idea to make them out of the box. Just because Cyrillic is pretty widely used. Russia, Ukrain, most of post-USSR countries (latvia,bulgaria e.t.c), and there is plenty of russian speaking people in europe and even that is pretty big, but potential market..

Atleast you can make it somehow popup on the screen, but I dont really now how it may look. So.. Please. Make atleast Cyrillic stickers


P.S. Edited Cyr layout is here.

 

[gaterooze]

I'd prefer the Dpad to replicate the cursor keys.

 

[fusion_power]

Every letter with accents has an unaccented sibling litter. The method proposed by fusion_power (and me) should work well enough:

1. press AltGr (or Fn) + unaccented letter = get letter with accent
2. that will reduce number of symbols printed per key, because it will be very simple to memorize the combination.
3. I should actually add AltGr in my proposal I think that Fn+ALT is the best place for it.

Ad.1: I prefer AltGr, because Fn can then be used to obtain all other symbols that are NORMAL KEYS on a standard 101 key QWERTY keyboard.

So, press AltGr + O = Ü, AltGr + L = Ł, etc...

Yes, but AltGr + O should be no Ü, this letter is better set onto the U Button. Not forget that the SOFTWARE Setting decides, which special letter you get when you press FN or AltGr or whatever. So in german you will get Ö onto the O key (+FN etc) and in other languages Ò or whatever.

This whole discussion could be ended by ONE Sentence of Craigix if he just tell us about the status of the Keyboard Layout *winkwink* :lol:

Oh, While watching the Pix of the Keys, I see "L2" and "R2" onto the layout for all these "we need 4 Shoulder Buttons for our PSX Games" guys: Topleft Button (1, ESC, whatever) is L2 and the Topright Button (DEL, 0, whatever) is R2 - DONE!

 

[cosurgi]

Yes, but AltGr + O should be no Ü, this letter is better set onto the U Button.

I don't know German, so you must be right. I was wondering if someone will bring it up. Actually at first I wrote Ö in that post, but then I looked at this rendering and saw that there's 'Ü' on 'O' key. Which means... that there's a mistake (woohoo) in the keyboard mapping proposed by EvilDragon (who did the renders). Which means - that this discussion is probably being watched carefully by the devs, and they're waiting until a good layout will come up!

Not forget that the SOFTWARE Setting decides, which special letter you get when you press FN or AltGr or whatever. So in german you will get Ö onto the O key (+FN etc) and in other languages Ò or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. AltGr, I believe, solves a lot of problems now. And it's 'Ó', not 'Ò', you insensitive clod

Oh, While watching the Pix of the Keys, I see "L2" and "R2" onto the layout for all these "we need 4 Shoulder Buttons for our PSX Games" guys: Topleft Button (1, ESC, whatever) is L2 and the Topright Button (DEL, 0, whatever) is R2 - DONE!

Heheh, nice joke But We are trying to get some serious layout here <_< There are only 11 buttons on the top row. So you can't have both L2 and R2 without sacrificing either '1' or '0' :rolleyes:

 

[cosurgi]

Actually I dont think we need that much of 101keys mapped. I don't think we need pgup,pgdown, altgr, some symbols like ~`| e.t.c. printed on the keypad. Tey are not commonly used in basic typing.

1. AltGr - is for typing letters with accents, like Ö in german, or Ó in polish language.
2. pgup,pgdn - for scrolling, eg. in firefox, you know. Arrows may be sometimes too slow. Sometimes touching the screen may be 'too much work' - need to find stylus, to 'click' on the scrollbar of a webpage. (fingers being too imprecise to 'click' on a scrollbar)
3. Actually those ~`| keys are useful when hacking linux. And Pandora is a linux device, so it will be handy for people we need most - the developers . ~ is a home directory, ` allows echoing an executed command, | is a stream pipe.

Plus I think it will be good to have a keypad "to rule them all". Just because there is plenty of languages to cover. I actually agree to have Cyrillic stickers, just because it would be hard to remember what is mapped and on wich key. But I consider it's a good idea to make them out of the box. Just because Cyrillic is pretty widely used. Russia, Ukrain, most of post-USSR countries (latvia,bulgaria e.t.c), and there is plenty of russian speaking people in europe and even that is pretty big, but potential market..

Atleast you can make it somehow popup on the screen, but I dont really now how it may look. So.. Please. Make atleast Cyrillic stickers

P.S. Edited Cyr layout is here.


if we have Cyryllic printed on the keys, then what about Kanji, Sanscrit or Abjad? How many letters do you want printed on each key, four? five? I'm sure you will agree that Asia is a really big market, and their letters should be printed too.

Please understand, this is WAY TOO MUCH of alphabets. Stickers is the only realistic way to go. Unless devs will make different keyboard variants (not gonna happen).

I'd prefer the Dpad to replicate the cursor keys.

Oh, sure it does! When you are just pressing Dpad without Fn! Please note that I've made all those labels in red. It means that to get 'PgUp' or 'Backspace' you must press Fn+Dpad. Otherwise you get an arrow/cursor key.

 

[Hotcooler]

I agree with that. And as I say. I'd like to have atleast stickers. But we need to make good layout for them too.

 

[Dio]

I'd have thought backspace was one of the most important keys. Or do you never make any mistakes...?

One other point to possibly bear in mind, albeit one that makes things a huge pain in the backside: function keys are very often used with CTRL and ALT to do useful things. Ctrl modifiers on ordinary letter keys are also perhaps quite important - ctrl-T in Firefox, anyone?

Whether this is a problem for the kind of apps that are going to be run is another question entirely...

 

[cosurgi]

I'd have thought backspace was one of the most important keys. Or do you never make any mistakes...?

Man, I make plenty of mistakes each day My advantage is that I accept that <_<

Yeah, Backspace is really important. I'd like to have it wihout any Fn key (a "white" key). But where? Maybe on place of 'Menu' or 'Start'. And then say that Fn+Start=Menu ?

Also I have another idea - make Fn+Space=Backspace. This way it will be possible to press Backspace with just one thumb (press two keys together). But I'm not sure if this will be actually comfortable. The Fn+Enter=AltGr should work, I believe, because Enter is above Fn, and this is the natural direction of thumb, so pressing is easier.

If you/anybody has an idea where to put Backspace as a base "white" key, let us know.

One other point to possibly bear in mind, albeit one that makes things a huge pain in the backside: function keys are very often used with CTRL and ALT to do useful things. Ctrl modifiers on ordinary letter keys are also perhaps quite important - ctrl-T in Firefox, anyone?

Whether this is a problem for the kind of apps that are going to be run is another question entirely...

Well - ctrl is a "white" key. So to press ctrl-T you just press those two keys, can't be better. About F1-F10 keys - I can't help with that, we have only 49 keys. So to press ctrl-alt-F1 you will need to press Fn+1+ctrl+alt (four buttons). A PITA... so if anyone has an idea how to make it better - let us know!

EDIT: Fn+1+ctrl+alt example means that we cannot have Fn+CTRL=TAB. Heh, We need to move TAB somewhere, maybe to ESC or 'Q'. And for the same reson "Fn Lock" cannot be on SHIFT. Uh-oh. Well, it means that switching to Kanji or Cyryllic will be done by SOFTWARE (eg. click on screen, or press some preconfigured keyboard combination - it's already configured like that in KDE). I'll have to update my proposal, but tommorow, now I need some sleep.

 

[conso]

No point at all, unless your native language actually uses those characters. A lot of Pandora users will not be native English speakers. Spanish, French, German and Turkish all have a few unique characters that are necessary for proper communication.

I'm actually shocked by how many people here have expressed the opinion of "Let them use stickers or something". Really? Is the mere presence of non-latin characters so insulting to you that you'd alienate a sizable portion of the European market just so you don't have to see them? English users would loose nothing with the layout I propose, but what Pandora would gain in international appeal cannot be understated. The ability to type in their native language out-of-the-box would likely seal the deal for many potential users.



I'm native german and I would very much prefer a plain english keyboard and some cool preconfigured mapping-profiles for several languages + a sticker sheet.
We only have such a small number of keys it would be plain stupid to put a >200 keys-input into the mapping. It gets confusing and complicated and It wouldn't be the optimal solution to anybody who isn't native cyrillic and additionally likes to chat in german, frensh and spanish.

The first thing I would do with a pandora with your keydesign would be taking a knife and rub of every sign I will never need (since I've never used that sign in my live.
http://img170.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p...intcyrilhd8.jpg

how optimal is that? I'd say it is way way way way suboptimal. I could get all typical german letters into the design with just the fn-trigger

Additionally, I'm a scientist. There are quite some greek signs I regularly use and I therefore need the possibility to map them on my keyboard. You didn't leave any space for this so I can't remap those buttons but would have to use a os-keyboard again.