Keyboard Poll, Finally!

[Caine]

It is quite surpsing for me to see that original design is currently going on better than Kagato's design. Actually I was expecting hard competition between mine and Kagato's. And I had no plans (really) to win this poll. Current results are quite surprising for me that my design fares that good

Thank you for voting!

I have never doubted that your design would be (amongst) the most popular. It is straightforward and provides most of the required functionality. But I agree with you. The support for the original design is surprising. It's placement of special characters feels so random.

One thing I particularly like more about your layout than mine is that it's much easier to use when typing on a table without holding the device. With Ctrl and Alt on the shoulder buttons the design is more optimised for dual thumb typing.

<edit>
Wow! This poll is going great. I did not expect so much reactions in so little time It makes it all worth it.

Btw. Cosurgi, you forgot the das keyboard clone in the poll options
</edit>

 

[CCmachined]

definitely cosurgi ( B) ).

however i would appreciate a way to type £ and € symbols, even if i have to press Fn+L+4 or Fn+L+3, etc.
i definitely think L or R should be used as additional modifiers, for some symbols.

also, the ABXY placement of PgUp, PgDn, Home and End is an _excellent_ idea.

 

[AireTamStorm]

The placement of Ctl, Alt, the accessible punctuation, and the Pandora functions (Wireless toggle, TV out, etc) make cosurgi's my choice. Fn + Space = Tab was also a good idea, too. It looks clean, is functional, and it will fit my needs fine. I voted for the SCIM idea, as well. The IME is very functional and I believe more than enough people will find it satisfactory for their alternate language input needs. Lastly, I voted for Ctl, Alt to be printed on the keyboard, but that I didn't care where. As long as they are accessible and on the keys I believe it will be intuitive and easy to use.

Great job to everyone that submitted their layouts. You all provided a perspective that few of us thought of, and definitely influenced the design of other layouts. The sharing of ideas brought every layout to their best, and no matter how I look at it we will end up with a better set of keys as a result.

 

[_VWV_]

I have never doubted that your design would be (amongst) the most popular. It is straightforward and provides most of the required functionality. But I agree with you. The support for the original design is surprising. It's placement of special characters feels so random.

One thing I particularly like more about your layout than mine is that it's much easier to use when typing on a table without holding the device. With Ctrl and Alt on the shoulder buttons the design is more optimised for dual thumb typing.

At least you don't have to be a sniper to enable wi-fi in original layout.

 

[TaG]

It is quite surpsing for me to see that original design is currently going on better than Kagato's design....
....But I agree with you. The support for the original design is surprising. It's placement of special characters feels so random....The original design is clear and uncluttered. It is easy to vote for. People might also be assuming that it is the dev's current design and voting for anything else is voting for change and delay. I'm no longer convinced about it but can understand why people would vote for it.

 

[Hotcooler]

cosurgi Paper model is based not on final design. So It may be quite different.

QUOTE
Whether the dev's agree is another matter, but it does seem like they might take some notice or some ideas.


Agreed. And actually I dont really complain about keyboard. Just because I can pretty much predict that CYR chars will be usefull for like 5% of all Pandora owners (and that will not make any commercial point of printing them). Just because 99% of Russian speaking IT crowd dont know anything about it. And 50% of that remaining 1% would not buy it because of many reasons (shipping, payment, plain not knowing how and where to buy it e.t.c).

So basically I will be happy with any keyboard and software to remap keys. It will be hard to type RUS for some time, but I think I'll get used to it.

SCIM or IME is useless if you use that language frequently and get used to normal keyboards, that will just confuse the hell out of you IMO.

Stickers if not shipped with Pandore will cost a lot (They need to have custom size, custom layout e.t.c and every custom bumps the price really high if you need only one). Dunno maybe laser Engraving will work, but I guess it will cost not less than stickers.

So all of that IMO makes other languages not so commercially good for Pandora. IMO.

TaG - Dev's said that printing keys would not make any other delays.

 

[jaycee900]

I voted for one that only had English characters and a British £ pound sign....so i went for A

 

[cosurgi]

definitely cosurgi ( B) ).

however i would appreciate a way to type £ and € symbols, even if i have to press Fn+L+4 or Fn+L+3, etc.
i definitely think L or R should be used as additional modifiers, for some symbols.

also, the ABXY placement of PgUp, PgDn, Home and End is an _excellent_ idea.

Thanks a lot!

I started from Kagato's design and was thinking how to put Alt and Ctrl there. In fact removing €,£ and ¥ turned out to be the only price of putting Alt and Ctrl on the keyboard. A good deal, I think

Stickers if not shipped with Pandore will cost a lot (They need to have custom size, custom layout e.t.c and every custom bumps the price really high if you need only one). Dunno maybe laser Engraving will work, but I guess it will cost not less than stickers.
You can do laser engraving for 50 bucks, maybe it's a good deal for you.

 

[CCmachined]

definitely cosurgi ( B) ).

however i would appreciate a way to type £ and € symbols, even if i have to press Fn+L+4 or Fn+L+3, etc.
i definitely think L or R should be used as additional modifiers, for some symbols.

also, the ABXY placement of PgUp, PgDn, Home and End is an _excellent_ idea.

Thanks a lot!

I started from Kagato's design and was thinking how to put Alt and Ctrl there. In fact removing €,£ and ¥ turned out to be the only price of putting Alt and Ctrl on the keyboard. A good deal, I think



as long as I can manually map Fn+L+R or simliar (as R is used for $) to printing a "£", i'm happy ^_^
i'm sure many other europeans here would like a way to type a "€".

 

[cosurgi]

as long as I can manually map Fn+L+R or simliar (as R is used for $) to printing a "£", i'm happy ^_^
i'm sure many other europeans here would like a way to type a "€".

Of course you will be able to map it. Otherwise how Hotcooler will have a working cyryllic keyboard with laser engraving of cyryllic letters on his Pandora from first batch? B)

EDIT:

In fact I can suggest a very simple mapping for you: AltGr+L = £ ([Fn][Alt][L]) , AltGr+E = € ([Fn][Alt][E]) and AltGr+Y=¥. Or AltGr+P = £.

I'm using polish language, so for me it will be polish letters AltGr+L = Ł and AltGr+E = Ę. But I'll be able to do AltGr+#=€ (that would be [Fn][Alt][Fn][E])

 

[WizardStan]

My ideal keyboard would have just the qwerty labels, and that's it. Closest appears to be the original, so I picked that. If you don't like that layout, prefer Dvorak or azerty or whatever, just open it up, rearrange the keys, and close it back up. No problem.
Any extra features could be handled by clear stickers.
That being said...

Stickers if not shipped with Pandore will cost a lot (They need to have custom size, custom layout e.t.c and every custom bumps the price really high if you need only one). Dunno maybe laser Engraving will work, but I guess it will cost not less than stickers.

You can buy a 10 pack of 8.5x11 decal sticker paper for about $15 from Michael's. Just print off your stickers on a regular ink jet printer, and cut them out yourself.

 

[kagato]

Some of you have proposed to place FN button in the right corner. At the same time some of you have proposed those adjacent buttons to have additional functions activated by FN. The question is how will you press two small adjacent buttons in the proper order holding P in your hands? This is going to be a pain in the ass I think.
The original layout also had Fn in the right corner. As virtually every key has a Fn effect, it's always going to be close to something. (P & L on the original)
As for how you can press those sequences: Sticky Keys. (Press Fn, release, press next key.)

however i would appreciate a way to type £ and € symbols, even if i have to press Fn+L+4 or Fn+L+3, etc.
For the default english layout (which otherwise doesn't need AltGr), they could be mapped to AltGr-P,E & Y.

At least you don't have to be a sniper to enable wi-fi in original layout.
That's right, because the original layout didn't even have a key to toggle wireless. (Presumably you'd have to hit Menu, go to Settings, then Wireless, then select Enable Wireless. Which, of course, you'll still be able to do.)

 

[cosurgi]

There is one thing about results which I was expecting - people who don't need accented letters - can accept them on the keyboard :rolleyes:

People who would need them - don't want them

 

[mechanizeddeath]

i didn't submit a layout for a variety of reasons, the main one being that i simply don't care and consider myself to be an adaptable person. but it's nice to see all these layouts and how everything came together through the community. i applaud the efforts of everyone who did submit a layout, as well as all the others who debated on them. in the end, i think we'll have a much better device because of this interaction.

 

[conso]

There is one thing about results which I was expecting - people who don't need accented letters - can accept them on the keyboard :rolleyes:

People who would need them - don't want them

yeah, I guess, that's because the bloat of accented letters would make the accessibility even harder then just mapping your accents for yourself.

You made an awesome poll that very much reflects the discussions we had.
Sorry I didn't send in my own design yesterday, but I had serious problems with my internet-connection and couldn't upload it to a image-hoster.
Still want to send it in, so it may be critizised The picture additionally contains my first design of what I think would be the perfect addon for the pandora. Not as a docking station for your home, but ass an additon to its handheld functionality. Don't want to go into details here. Perhaps I will start another thread about it or put it in some existing with a similar topic.

so, here's my keyboard design. It's very basic, but still leaves room for fast access to accents, as I didn't map any keys that are regularly used with accents. I tried to put all signs in context and didn't use anything that is regularly used in key-combinations nor for gaming. Fn+touchscreen should meen rmb. All the other gaming controls should just directly be accessed by the app itself (maybe with help of a special library), so there would be no conflict inside the games.

 

[cosurgi]

so, here's my keyboard design. It's very basic, but still leaves room for fast access to accents, as I didn't map any keys that are regularly used with accents. I tried to put all signs in context and didn't use anything that is regularly used in key-combinations nor for gaming. Fn+touchscreen should meen rmb. All the other gaming controls should just directly be accessed by the app itself (maybe with help of a special library), so there would be no conflict inside the games.




I'm sorry that's because I was too excited to wait any more. I should have put an empty voting slot for you, where picture could be added later. Maybe we could replace your design with the Synthetix design (becasue it still has zero votes). But for that he himself would need to upload your image to replace the current image from him. Maybe you could try to PM him and ask if he is willing to do this for you... (then you would need to write on th epicture a short explanation that you are the author, because I cannot modify my opening post - there are too many images, and I have error when trying to save it)

 

[conso]

so, here's my keyboard design. It's very basic, but still leaves room for fast access to accents, as I didn't map any keys that are regularly used with accents. I tried to put all signs in context and didn't use anything that is regularly used in key-combinations nor for gaming. Fn+touchscreen should meen rmb. All the other gaming controls should just directly be accessed by the app itself (maybe with help of a special library), so there would be no conflict inside the games.

I'm sorry that's because I was too excited to wait any more. I should have put an empty voting slot for you, where picture could be added later. Maybe we could replace your design with the Synthetix design (becasue it still has zero votes). But for that he himself would need to upload your image to replace the current image from him. Maybe you could try to PM him and ask if he is willing to do this for you... (then you would need to write on th epicture a short explanation that you are the author, because I cannot modify my opening post - there are too many images, and I have error when trying to save it)


No, just leave it as it is Probably most people had already voted and your design is really ok (I voted for it myself.) I guess some feedback is all I can hope for

 

[Sphinxter]

Bit of a conflict between a and b on the alt-ctrl location.

 

[atomicthumbs]

I sure would love to be able to type a full stop comma or other punctuation without pressing function Its much easier and makes more sense

if the devs go with Cosurgis layout Ill be making a custom keymap and posting it so that I dont have to type like this

 

[Javacat]

Just thought I'd say that I love the cosurgi layout

I don't think that not having direct access to the punctuation characters is really a problem. I've got a blackberry where ALL punctuation is done through a second (or third) function of a character and it is no way a problem. It took me all of 5 seconds to get used to it and I can now throw together huge emails in pretty much the same speed as I do on a desktop machine with a full keyboard.


PS, the size of the polls on this thread are insane, although due to the size you do end up thinking about what you are voting for