Keyboard Poll, Finally!

[WizardStan]

I move that we have a poll to decide if there should be another poll.

 

[timofonic]

I use dvorak and would like to use the one hand dvorak for left handed people. I hope be able to reorder the keys or an easy way to change the letters on the keys.

 

[Arialia]

I use dvorak and would like to use the one hand dvorak for left handed people. I hope be able to reorder the keys or an easy way to change the letters on the keys.

i 'm thinking of that too, but i never tried

as i read for better use, Dvorak keyboard must be adapt for every language : need to know frequencies of each letter/symbols to find best position, it is for that i don't suggest it

 

[cosurgi]

I move that we have a poll to decide if there should be another poll.

Your wish is my command, you can head off to Off-topic discussion. If you want h34r:

 

[fusion_power]

I really would like to know, if SONY had the same endless discussions, when they designed this:

http://scr3.golem.de/?d=0808/GC08Playstati...a=61865&s=5

:lol:

 

[Esn]

If you look at the poll, only about 55% of people chose an option which did not have the "," and "." keys as primary keyboard keys, far from the 70% that some have been claiming.

I don't think we can say that a design has won outright if it has not gotten over 50% of the vote, which is why I support a simple "A or B" poll with the 1st and 2nd winners to be sure. Like French elections, you know?

Does anyone else agree? h34r:

Of course, this is only relevant if the devs still actually have time to change what's printed on the keys, and are actually taking these polls seriously. Is that the case?

 

[mechanizeddeath]

I really would like to know, if SONY had the same endless discussions, when they designed this:

http://scr3.golem.de/?d=0808/GC08Playstati...a=61865&s=5

:lol:



interestingly enough, i was planning to post this picture:

it's hard to see in the photo, but the green and amber keys allow access to most, if not all of the characters that have been debated on, not to mention a few things specific to the Xbox.

the thing that gets me is that the keypad doesn't look nearly as cluttered as i would have expected, with 28 of the 47 keys having 3 functions.

 

[TaG]

Anybody have a better pic of the xbox one?^

 

[Chip]

Anybody have a better pic of the xbox one?^

Here you go.

 

[kagato]

It's a pity nobody posted a picture of the Chatpad 2 weeks ago, it might have saved us some trouble.

Unfortunately, the Pandora is one key short of being able to duplicate their main layout.
You could maybe keep [.] with , as Fn1 and ? as Fn2.
Then you'd need to reshuffle a bit more to find a place for : ; ¿ -- some of the least used symbols could be moved onto the number keys.

(Exactly duplicating Microsoft's layout might not be a good thing anyway, legally speaking)

I'm really busy at the moment, but when I get the chance I'll attempt an inspired layout.
Note that there won't be room for Ctrl & Alt on the main keys, which seems to be unpopular.


Regarding 2nd, 3rd round polls, keep in mind that this project isn't actually a democracy. In the end the developers will pick the layout they want based not only on popularity, but also technical feasibility, practicality and even personal preference. We can all keep ourselves amused here, but this thread most likely won't determine the true final layout.
(As a consequence, I also doubt this discussion will be holding up production either, as when they need to make their final decision, they will.)

 

[multiplex]

Warning: Long, rambling post about a beaten-to-death topic (I just arrived here).

I like cosurgi's layout. No explicitly printed national characters, but I'd expect good European AltGr functionality, with £, e→€, s→ß, !→¡, ?→¿, etc., maybe <→«, >→», m→µ...
I think that with that and enough compose key functionality, I won't even have to create a custom layout. (Scandinavian, need åäöæø.)
I'll probably experiment a bit with a Dvorak layout, etc. but having good defaults is important for user experience. I'd rather spend days tweaking it than spend an hour getting it working.

As for Alt/Ctrl, I'd like to have them on the keyboard. I'm hoping I'll be able to use this thing for remote desktoping, where they'll come in handy sometimes, but I don't think they'll really be in frequent use. Still, they should be primary keys, since they are used as modifiers, sometimes together, etc. And as I said AltGr is important to me, and it should probably be a secondary key on one of those.
And I don't really like to have secondary functions on the L/R buttons. (I'm easily confused ). Except maybe if their functions were printed somewhere front visible, like the bottom corners of the top screen?
Additionally, I have a unsubstantiated feeling that I'll be writing text more often with the unit sitting on a surface, while I'll prefer mousing around when I'm holding it.
I liked the mousing stuff too. It maps well to games, and it should make it very easy to just click through a couple of dialogs without having to pick up the stylus and putting it down again, which in my experience with the DS takes ages. I guess I'd set it to a Left-handed setup, so I can click with my dominant hand.

A concern with cosurgi's layout could be convenience of Ctrl+X/C/V. And I'd like primary punctuation keys too, of course, but I don't see what could possibly be sacrificed for them. Maybe move pgup/down/home/end to fn + d-pad (they're less important when you can scroll with a nub), and have fn+A/fn+Y→backlight (or trade some punctuation from number keys), B→. , X→, ? (You'd have to print that besides the buttons then, too important keys not to.)

They have a prototype with keys now, right? So they know whether it's easy to press two adjacent buttons with the same finger, and if there's any key you can conveniently slip up a third finger to for combo presses...

Sorry for coming in late and being verbose, just wanted to vent some opinions. I won't blame anyone for not reading this.

 

[timofonic]

I use dvorak and would like to use the one hand dvorak for left handed people. I hope be able to reorder the keys or an easy way to change the letters on the keys.

i 'm thinking of that too, but i never tried

as i read for better use, Dvorak keyboard must be adapt for every language : need to know frequencies of each letter/symbols to find best position, it is for that i don't suggest it


Not for me, as I write English and computing stuff more than Spanish on my computer.

I also think using a custom dvorak for certain languages like Spanish gives me no enough benefits, I'm interested on variations as Programmer Dvorak for example.

 

[mechanizeddeath]

Anybody have a better pic of the xbox one?^

Here you go.


thanks for the better pic Chip. i actually have the thing and failed at taking a better picture so i settled for a stock photo shot. <_<

i originally voted for the "clean" design due to clutter concerns, but having seen this Microsoft layout, i'm having second thoughts on that. perhaps it's the font, or the colors, or the size, but the chatpad just doesn't look cluttered to me. unfortunately i didn't have this accessory a couple weeks ago or i would have mentioned it.

 

[cosurgi]

If you look at the poll, only about 55% of people chose an option which did not have the "," and "." keys as primary keyboard keys, far from the 70% that some have been claiming.

It's a pity, but I don't see any sensible way to put "," "." as primary keys in my design.

I have one inspired thought though. About merging Kagato's design with mine:

1. move the "mouse switch" from [Fn][8] in Kagato design to left shoulder button: [Fn][L]
2. the "mouse switch" [Fn][L] will change keyboard behavior between two states:

State1 "Alt,Ctrl on keyboard": (cosurgi)

• shoulder buttons are mouse buttons LMB and RMB
• Alt, Ctrl are on keyboard

State2 "Alt,Ctrl on shoulders" (Kagato)

• shoulder buttons are Alt, Ctrl
• "," "." keys are on the keyboard in place of Alt,Ctrl
• it is now possible to type "," "." in two ways because there is also [Fn][Z]="," and [Fn][X]="."
• the Fn functionality still remains: [Fn][,]=[Compose] and [Fn][.]=[AltGr]

EDIT: An indicator will be necessary to allow quick checking which state the keyboard is currently in. For example as a taskbar icon on the panel, or even better - as a LED (but that would be a hardware change actually). Clicking on this icon would of course switch the states too.

The "mouse switch" is in the most convenient place - when you want to type with thumbs you are already holding Pandora in such a way that pressing [Fn][L] is very easy.

However this design might be too difficult to implement in the keyboard driver for initial release of Pandora. I wouldn't mind if such a driver came later with a firmware upgrade. And the only thing to do here, is to print those "," and "." on the keyboard (and update the driver later).

How do you like this solution?

please don't print the brightness up & down controls on the dpad, it looks awful, and as JayFoxRox said, will look even worse after it fades/wear off from lots of use.

This reasoning is quite convincing. Currently I don't see a way to solve that. Except for indeed not printing them, but instead documenting this brightness control on an attached sheet of paper. This paper would have keyboard printed on it and all hidden keys marked in bold or red (including ß, £, €, ¥ and others from the picture too)


PS: of course we don't know if we are really deciding about the true Pandora layout. But still it does not prevent us from trying to find The Ultimate Solution <_<

 

[cosurgi]

I'm really busy at the moment, but when I get the chance I'll attempt an inspired layout.

Hi Kagato, if people will like my "merge" proposal then perhaps indeed we could make a final runner-up poll with only two choices: yours and mine.

My question is (sorry for pushing you) - do you plan to submit your layout updated? (and uhh... when?)

 

[kagato]

I've had a flat out week, but I'm on vacation now. (yay!)
I'll see if I can have a go at something later on tonight.

 

[cosurgi]

I've had a flat out week, but I'm on vacation now. (yay!)
I'll see if I can have a go at something later on tonight.

Great to hear that!

Maybe you could add some comments below your design also, just as I did. I suspect that those explanations were one of the factors that my design is currently winning. If you put explanations too you will have a better chance I think.

 

[JayFoxRox]

I still don't really get why we need a mouse via keys...
We have the touchscreen for mouse stuff
IF WE REALLY NEED ONE:
the right analog stick for moving the mouse makes sense, because the digital pad right / left could be used for the mouse buttons. The left analog stick could be used for mousewheel (up / down) and page up down (left / right) emulation
So ctrl and alt can be moved to the shoulder buttons (which makes more sense for key combinations because you most hold multiple buttons which is hard on a portable device), ctrl and alt ex-placing can be used for ".:" and ",;" now (Which is important for typing and programming)

//Edit:

We got three Fn-Combination left.. (One at enter, one at dot and one at comma)
//Edit-2: (Moved free one to enter)
//Edit-3: I would like to see t he pandora key reserved for the OS/Firmware, so that user apps shouldn't use it. (Unmap SysRq?)
//Edit-4: Moved ":" and ";" to shift instead of Fn. Basicly "compose" and "alt gr" could be moved to "." and "," moving the free Fn slots to the right.
//Edit-5: Changed a bunch of function keys, looks pretty good to me now =), added ² and ³ for example which should come handy in calculators. (Look through the whole design, it has alot of changes)
//Edit-6: The orange keys should be pre-mapped and documanted, the others should be free for user combinations (for €,ß etc..) - (maybe downloadable presets for each country?)

 

[greendots]

...
So ctrl and alt can be moved to the shoulder buttons (which makes more sense for key combinations because you most hold multiple buttons which is hard on a portable device), ctrl and alt ex-placing can be used for ".:" and ",;" now (Which is important for typing and programming)
...

Thats subjective... what about the markup languages??

I doubt the touchscreen will be at all useful in a WM environment with the balance of the unit. If you use touch screen it will probably be while you hold the unit on its side like a palm pilot.


I really wish we could hear from MW or Craig about the keyboard. We know that they are listening and trying to stimulate discussion but I'd like to hear the direction they are going or at least leaning.

 

[zaoin]

Great keyboard layout. JayFoxRox. But I think ctrl and alt should be in keyboard.
Anyway I 've never used handheld's thumbtyping.