Keyboard Layout - Prepare Voting Pool.

[cosurgi]

EDIT: delete a really stupid idea about wasting more time. (I deleted it to avoid it causing more flames)

I posted 20 keyboards to choose from, I hope I didn't miss any from previous thread. I cannot post it here because of image limit per post. So please scroll below

I want to make a voting poll, but I don't know how Can someone help me, or make that poll himself?

 

[impreziv]

yippee. lets waste as much of the pandora team's time as possible. a September launch is sounding less and less believable if stuff like this isnt yet decided.

 

[plopperz]

I can't believe you want to cause more delays over a fucking keyboard.
If you don't like labels now, make stickers.

 

[Cervante]

waste of time

 

[AireTamStorm]

After hearing the promise of upcoming preorders people here are rabid, and will express extreme hostility to those who could possibly delay the device over something that could almost be considered a non-issue. The keyboard discussion was good, but you should have just listed the designs from the original thread and made a poll. Doing otherwise guaranteed that you would be flamed.

If it gets bad, I suggest the topic be closed.

 

[gibberish]

i couldnt give a toss what the 2nd and 3rd functions of the keyboard do, or where the ctrl or alt etc keys are placed.

wherever they are, i'll get used to it.
please lets stop discussing every minute detail.

i want this thing in september (2008).

 

[cosurgi]

The keyboard discussion was good, but you should have just listed the designs from the original thread and made a poll. Doing otherwise guaranteed that you would be flamed
Oops, you are right, I'm really sorry. Here's a complete list (roughly in the order of apperance):

EDIT UPDATE - so many initial proposals were withdrawn (and final revisions submitted, shown below) that I was able to re-edit this post.

1. Original:

2. chip+hotcooler: Cyryllic:

3. cosurgi: US, without L/R buttons - WITHDRAWN by author
4. CoMiKe: Simplistic: - WITHDRAWN by author
5. conso: US+punctuation marks - WITHDRAWN, I wasn't sure from conso's PM answer, but he did not consider it complete. And so I am withdrawing it, because we don't want proposals considered incomplete by their authors. Maybe he will send an update before the voting opens.
6. Kagato: Lot's of available symbol places: - WITHDRAWN by author
7. Kagato 2: - WITHDRAWN by author
8. Kagato 3: - WITHDRAWN by author
9. cosurgi 2: - WITHDRAWN by author
10. Kagato 4: Roman alphabet only - WITHDRAWN by author
11. Kagato 5: Cyryllic: - WITHDRAWN by author
12. Hotcooler: cyryllic: - WITHDRAWN by author
13. Peca: - WITHDRAWN by author
14. Peca 2: - WITHDRAWN by author
15. Synthetix:

16. Arialia: - WITHDRAWN by author
17. cosurgi 3: - WITHDRAWN by author
18. Greendots: - WITHDRAWN by author
19. Greendots 2: - WITHDRAWN by author
20. Chip:

 

[cosurgi]

21. Kagato 5: Final revision. Unlabeled functions: Tab, Ctrl, Alt, AltGr, PgUp/Down, Home/End, Accent, SysRq - can be revised without affecting the printing.

22. greendots: modification of Kagato's final revision:

23. cosurgi: modification of Kagato's final revision with Ctrl, Alt on bottom left - WITHDRAWN by author, because double Fn symbols could be removed with a small price of losing currency symbols €,£ and ¥. See final revision.

24. Caine proposal - WITHDRAWN, because there's a better one.

25. Hootcooler Cyryllic, final proposal. Characters after "/" are accented. "Ь" "Ъ" "Э" are in the corners, and can be memorised. "Ъ" and "Ь" are in the same respective row and corner. "Э" is moved under accent because it's not frequently used. "Е" "Ё" and "Ш" "Щ" don't need to be printed.

26. cosurgi: modification of Kagato's final revision with Ctrl, Alt printed and Fn on the left. - WITHDRAWN, because position of Alt,Ctrl,Fn will be a 2nd poll question.

27. cosurgi - another revision - WITHDRAWN, because in 28. there are more comments/explanations and FnLock is obtained by Fn+Fn not by Shift+Fn

28. cosurgi - Final revision

29. Caine - Final proposal, In case the software cannot determine the order of keypresses as described by Kagato above then: (1) move wifi toggle to Fn+enter, (2) put AltGr on Fn+Space (3) Move Compose to right shift as shift value (i.e. lshift+rshift (sticky))

REMOVED proposals:
I cannot edit the above post because I get error "too many images" when I try to save it. So Instead I'll list here what proposals are removed:
- No 3 (cosurgi 1)
- No 4 (CoMiKe) - withdrawn in favour of Kagato's design.
- No 5 (Conso 1) - maybe be updated soon to final version. This one is not final, and therefore will not be in the poll.
- No 6 (Kagato 1)
- No 7 (Kagato 2)
- No 8 (Kagato 3)
- No 9 (cosurgi 2)
- No 10 (Kagato 4)
- No 11 (Kagato 5)
- No 12 (Hotcooler)
- No 13 (Peca 1)
- No 14 (Peca 2)
- No 16 (Arialia)
- No 17 (cosurgi 3)
- No 18 (Greendots)
- No 19 (Greendots 2)
- No 23 (cosurgi 4) - withdrawn because double Fn symbols could be removed with a small price of losing currency symbols (€,£,¥). See revision 27.
- No 24 (Caine)
- No 26 (cosurgi 5) - withdrawn because Alt,Ctrl,Fn positions will be a poll question
- No 27 (cosurgi 6)- withdrawn because in 28. there are more comments/explanations and FnLock is obtained by Fn+Fn not by Shift+Fn

INFO:
Greendots, Kagato and Cosurgi (me) want to submit only their latest one to the poll
Conso will send a new version of his proposal number 5.

 

[yosh64]

hey

Gees there sure is alot of intense feedback here, I don't think this was a bad idea as it may provide some information about what those within the pandora community look for in the layout of the keyboard and what not. Although as it has resulted in so much conflict I think you have done a wise thing to cancel the poll.

From my understanding of what MWeston has mentioned late in the other thread the keyboard layout/stencil can still be changed without hassle, and so no one should worry about such things causing any delays. You should also remember that there are intelligent people behind the pandora who are not obligated todo/accept anything we offer and who decide on such things with the best interest of the pandora and the community. As such I think even if it was going to cause a delay then I'm quite sure such a decision would be made with great consideration and ultimately serve in the best interest of the pandora and the community.

I'm sure everyone here has the best interest of the pandora in mind, but these just may differ from person to person and some may beleive the best interest is to leave those who are behind the pandora todo their thing without any disturbance, and others may beleive the best interest of the pandora is to take the time and help design things such as keyboard layouts/stencils and put them on offer knowing that the pandora team will use them if it is indeed in the best interest of the pandora.

Anyhows I hope I made some sense here, hehe.

cyas

 

[cosurgi]

Anyhows I hope I made some sense here, hehe.
Thanks for understanding, I behaved like a jerk :unsure: Sorry. For now, I'll just try to keep the list of all proposals up-to-date, when more keyboards appear in the other thread. And I will add them to the post above, as they appear. I just hope to not hit the image limit.... (max. 6-7 images per post). Maybe I'll need to merge several proposals into single image to solve that.

 

[cloud858rk]

Kagato 3 and 4 are the same, except 4 doesn't have the red x's and labels printed on the d-pad, buttons, and triggers (but they still function the same). With that in mind I'm all in favor for Kagato 4, he did it the best IMO.

Kagato 3:
http://i37.tinypic.com/9vgkyo.png

Kagato 4:
http://i35.tinypic.com/2ebyjbc.png

 

[Chip]

From my understanding of what MWeston has mentioned late in the other thread the keyboard layout/stencil can still be changed without hassle, and so no one should worry about such things causing any delays.

It's not so much "Can still be changed" as "Was never decided on in the first place." The layout on the renders was just something that ED threw on there - It was never intended to be a final or official design. If anything, these suggestions have sped development, since somebody was going to have to sort it all out eventually.

A poll on this issue would only confuse matters, as polls only reflect the view of the majority. The majority of users on this board are native English speakers and are not affected by the keyboard layout one way or the other. It is enough that we have submitted several usable international layouts that the devs can pick from and modify for the final design.

 

[AireTamStorm]

A poll on this issue would only confuse matters, as polls only reflect the view of the majority. The majority of users on this board are native English speakers and are not affected by the keyboard layout one way or the other. It is enough that we have submitted several usable international layouts that the devs can pick from and modify for the final design.

So the majority vote via a poll is not an acceptable way to determine what the majority of the community wants? Granted, If you get 200-300 votes, it only represents 10% or less of the market, but still. It is a worthy statistic. If the majority are english speakers, and do not want a ton of clutter on their keys then that is as much of a community opinion as any.

Thoughts?

 

[impreziv]

to whoever is incharge of the keyboard layout: just try to make it as logical a possible, and we will all figure it out

a poll is a horrible idea. a poll reflects the majority. and the majority of people dont care

 

[Chip]

If the majority are english speakers, and do not want a ton of clutter on they keys then that is as much of a community opinion as any.

Thoughts?

"Clutter" does not affect a user's ability to type properly. Inavailability of necessary characters does. There are apparently quite a few short-sighted folks here who put mere aesthetics above functionality. As I have said, as long as the English characters are legible, they are not affected whether there is only one character per key or twelve.

As I recall, when the first Pandora renders made their way around the tech sites, the biggest complaint was that it looked "ugly" and "too cluttered". Some folks prefer their devices to be pretty, and there is clearly a market for that. However, the Pandora was supposed to be different. It was understood that while it may not be a visually appealing as some other devices, the added functionality of having a qwerty keypad and full gaming controls in such a small device was more than worth the aesthetic tradeoff.

I see the keypad issue in the same light. While I have no personal need for non-English characters, it is my desire that the Pandora be a functional as possible for as many people as possible. Cutting out usability for a sizable percentage of European countries just because "It looks cluttered" is absurd, whatever the majority opinion.

 

[AireTamStorm]

"Clutter" does not affect a user's ability to type properly. Inavailability of necessary characters does. There are apparently quite a few short-sighted folks here who put mere aesthetics above functionality. As I have said, as long as the English characters are legible, they are not affected whether there is only one character per key or twelve.

As others have pointed out, the Pandora is a small device. The keys on the Pandora are MUCH smaller than these layout pictures give away. 3 Characters to one key will be a problem in terms of legibility. So you reduce the room taken by common punctuation !@#$%^&*() by cramming 3 on a key, and put an international layout on the device. That affects my ability to quickly input those symbols, and to easily locate them. Clutter will sacrifice ease of use in favor of a layout that could easily be reproduced in software anyway.

 

[Chip]

As others have pointed out, the Pandora is a small device. The keys on the Pandora are MUCH smaller than these layout pictures give away. 3 Characters to one key will be a problem in terms of legibility. So you reduce the room taken by common punctuation !@#$%^&*() by cramming 3 on a key, and put an international layout on the device. That affects my ability to quickly input those symbols, and to easily locate them. Clutter will sacrifice ease of use in favor of a layout that could easily be reproduced in software anyway.

Take a look at some of the English / Cyrillic devices that Hotcooler posted. Those designers managed to legibly fit 3-4 characters on keys that are significantly smaller than what Pandora has to work with.

There is no "easy" software solution to be had. On-screen keypads suck. They may be necessary for some alphabets, but we should do our best to ensure that as few people have to deal with them as possible. You can obviously map any character to any key, but without the character printed on the key, you had better have a good memory. If you think it's difficult to find a letter on keys with multiple characters on them, just imagine how difficult it is to remember which keys produce which characters when they aren't printed at all.

 

[AireTamStorm]

There is no "easy" software solution to be had. On-screen keypads suck. They may be necessary for some alphabets, but we should do our best to ensure that as few people have to deal with them as possible. You can obviously map any character to any key, but without the character printed on the key, you had better have a good memory. If you think it's difficult to find a letter on keys with multiple characters on them, just imagine how difficult it is to remember which keys produce which characters when they aren't printed at all.

I'm using an english keyboard. なのにこれでも日本の文字を書く事ができる。It is called an IME. You can use a hardware keyboard from any language, and write in any language using input methods. On Screen Keyboards suck, I'll agree. But there are better software solutions readily available. I have no problem remembering what keys do what character, either, and as you could see, I could freely switch between them. Apologies to anyone who cannot display asian characters in their browsers.

http://www.scim-im.org/

Trans: Yet I'm able to input Japanese Characters.

Edit:
Incidentally, a friend of mine speaks Russian. She's Ukrainian.

Я могу слехка печатать по руски пользюясь входным устройством без проблем.

She was able to produce that after a few minutes, admittedly, but it was the first time she has used a Russian IME. Point being, and basically what I wanted to find out, is if other languages were as feasible to input using a standard qwerty keyboard. SCIM doesn't use an actual Russian / Japanese layout. For instance, if I want to type the Japanese phonetic "Ro", I simply type r-o, and there you have it. From there, you can change the phonetic strings into kanji, and so forth.

 

[craigix]

It's worth noting that a single press of the FN key can be something else too, we were thinking of '/' that way all web chars are available to type in without hassle.

 

[greendots]

Id really like to see sticky keys on the pandora because the keyboard is so small. Using the shift key and another key on the left side is a big stretch for thumbs. To lock: Shift, FN, Ctrl, or Alt just press the respective button twice and once more to turn it off. Maybe control and alt dont have to work this way but continuity is good.

Also maybe there could be a double "click" for locks... this could work with shift,ctrl and alt. And the user could adjust double "click" speed.

If you use FN key for something else like a '/' then you would lose either Caps Lock or shift+/ which is a '?'. It seems less intuitive in either case.

I felt that the second keyboard mockup that I submitted was *perfect* (including sticky keys) but maybe its me