Two shifts on keyboard when one can be sticky, on a keyboard that has no keys to spare, is a waste of one key. And it also adds a hack to allowing it to be on shoulders.
What key is that you feel you're missing out on that you need this wasted spare button for?
If you have one, why can't you remap the Shift key on the right side later to this vital missing key you need so badly so that others won't be shortchanged? :mellow:
As for using this sticky Shift business to excuse away only one keyboard Shift, some of us would like our keyboard Shift keys to behave like they normally do, where you hold it down and press another key, and not press the key, go make breakfast and walk the dog then come back later.
The thing about sticky shifts is they behave like a normal shift if you want to. You can hold it, press another key, and then release it, and it will behave like a non-sticky shift. It makes sense to use on devices where you normally cannot press as many keys as on a full size physical keyboard; that is why all touch screen keyboards use it and that is why all modern physical keyboard handhelds I have operated use it.
I never (or well, rarely) use the shift on my N900 as a sticky one, but the ability to do so makes sense even with two keyboard shifts as ultimately, you can type faster; you tap shift and already start moving your thumb to the next key before having pressed the other one, making it more efficient.
AFAIK non-sticky modifiers are only as efficient as sticky ones if you have at least four typing inputs i.e. 4 thumbs with this handheld; humans don't.
And about the spare shift key:
You asked what key would be good to replace it with; the answer is it's very layout-dependent. Some are already missing dedicated ESC or WiFi keys, nevermind if they lose yet another space,
Even though your point on remapping is valid, it makes sense to try to stick to a vanilla layout for app compatibility; remapping a shift key with symbols can be problematic for that, plus logistically it feels odd to change a modifier to a normal key... But that's just my opinion
I understand the appeal of 2 keyboard shifts but I really think that, having limited keys, sticky modifiers available and only two thumbs, one keyboard shift is comfortable for those that refuse to use shoulder modifiers for whatever reason; again I only have one shift on the N900 and never thought about adding another one at the expense of any key.
I would rather lose the ability to write in Spanish entirely than make coding constructs difficult or inconvenient to access. I rather we don't have a 50 language layout that sacrifices symbols locations to achieve so.
That being said I would very much like the dead key toggle I mentioned a page back
EDIT: Grammar oh grammar, changed 'loose' for 'lose'
Yes. That is why I want to have the German üöäß and the French éèàç and dead circumflex/diaeresis available directly, as well as a dead acute for Spanish áíóú, dead tilde for Spanish ñ and Portuguese ãõ, and dead grave for Italian ìòù.
We could make it configurable whether ` ~ are direct symbols or dead diacritics: the default could be that ` ~ are the direct symbols and Shift+`~ are dead diacritics, with the option to swap them.
Scandinavians can remap üöä to the three letters they need (åöä for Swedish, åøæ for Danish/Norwegian).
The above covers all major Western European languages. Eastern European languages can use an AltGr layer, hidden dead diacritics (caron, macron, ogonek etc), or Compose. With RightAlt on a shoulder button, AltGr symbols are efficient to type, e.g. for a Polish layout.
That covers all Latin-script based languages except Vietnamese. I don't think we should try to support non-Latin-based languages, although I still want my "dead Greek" key at Fn+Shift+G to be able to produce all Greek letters easily. (and perhaps pressing Fn+Shift+G twice could enter "Greek Lock" mode and make it reasonably easy to type Greek).
For convenience, I repeat the link here to a layout that is a blend of #7 and #1 with influences from the other proposals and the remarks in this thread:
Yes. That is why I want to have the German üöäß and the French éèàç and dead circumflex/diaeresis available directly, as well as a dead acute for Spanish áíóú, dead tilde for Spanish ñ and Portuguese ãõ, and dead grave for Italian ìòù.
We could make it configurable whether ` ~ are direct symbols or dead diacritics: the default could be that ` ~ are the direct symbols and Shift+`~ are dead diacritics, with the option to swap them.
Scandinavians can remap üöä to the three letters they need (åöä for Swedish, åøæ for Danish/Norwegian).
The above covers all major Western European languages. Eastern European languages can use an AltGr layer, hidden dead diacritics (caron, macron, ogonek etc), or Compose. With RightAlt on a shoulder button, AltGr symbols are efficient to type, e.g. for a Polish layout.
That covers all Latin-script based languages except Vietnamese. I don't think we should try to support non-Latin-based languages, although I still want my "dead Greek" key at Fn+Shift+G to be able to produce all Greek letters easily. (and perhaps pressing Fn+Shift+G twice could enter "Greek Lock" mode and make it reasonably easy to type Greek).
For convenience, I repeat the link here to a layout that is a blend of #7 and #1 with influences from the other proposals and the remarks in this thread:
Some of this is direct response to Saber (and indirect response to others). Parts of it might be more of interest to EvilDragon and others that may work on the final keyboard layout. I will hide some of it to save ED time.
A lot of people who have purchased the Pandora don't realize that having two shift keys on the keyboard is very important to a lot of people who wouldn't purchase a Pandora. It's ludicrous imo to expect people to use gaming controls for their typing.
Seriously... I never even considered it when I first got my Pandora, I just struggled along with the single shift on the keyboard. (Sometimes going so far as to use Capslock to enter single letters) The most I used the Shoulder shift for was dragging windows about on the desktop. Then one day _wb_ showed up and made a comment about how efficiently he could type on the Pandora by using the shift key on the shoulder button with his index finger while typing on the keyboard with his thumbs... My immediate reaction was "really? huh..." So I tried it out. It took me a couple of days to get used to it, but once I did I never looked back, and started wishing I had Fn on the shoulder buttons as well.
Remember not everyone's fingers can reach those low corners so easily while thumb typing, and people have different "styles" when using keyboards. Essentially forcing all people to use the Shoulder button for basic text entry isn't so inviting. :mellow:
As for using this sticky Shift business to excuse away only one keyboard Shift, some of us would like our keyboard Shift keys to behave like they normally do, where you hold it down and press another key, and not press the key, go make breakfast and walk the dog then come back later.
You do know that you can turn sticky modifiers off on the Pyra if you don't like them, right? I plan on deciding if I need them or not once I have spent some time with the Pyra.
Two shifts on the keyboard is a waste of a key, and we are already limited on keys. (This is like the double wide space bar. I would really like to have that split into two keys to give us more flexibility in the default layout, and to help those that prefer something else (which they could take care of themselves), but that won't otherwise fit in our limited keyboard space due to the spacebar.)
You can't really compare the Pandora to most other palmtops because it has less keys, and gaming controls take up a lot of the space where there could be more room to add those keys. Additionally, even the HP LX DOS palmtops weren't designed for thumb typing (the numpad gets in the way, and the device width is greater than that of the Pandora/Pyra...I do sometimes thumb type on my 100LX, but it sucks, and may be part of why I will move a thumb across the Pandora keyboard to type a character on the same side as a modifier. Other people seem to have trouble doing that, or simply don't want to.).
If real estate on the keyboard is not a concern why has it taken so many people so long to work on layouts, and we still don't have something that everyone feels is "right"? What some of us can live with leaves others unable to easily type in their native language.
Everyone does have their own way of typing. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of the design of the device we will have to adapt. For some, that may mean sticky modifiers, using shoulder buttons, or remapping to add or remove a second shift. Why would you dismiss "forcing" people to use the shoulders as modifiers, then turn around and do the same to making them sticky? These options are there to help people. Let the user decide.
#10 is one of the layouts I voted for because it has a lot of good things going on, however the second keyboard shift can probably be put to better use. I also liked #4, however it had a few too many things wrong for me (I prefer escape near the keyboard, but at least top left makes sense to me, but top right does not; it might be easier to type /?., and other such characters with them on the left for some people, but they will mess me up every time I pick up the Pyra after having used a real keyboard (yes, #10 has this problem too, but Esc is on the left, and...); the otherwise standard US shifted characters on the number row are broken by moving parantheses/brackets...in the end there were too many things I use frequently that were not in the first few places I would expect them, and using my Pandora has shown me that I will not learn them quickly and will probably lose a lot of time staring at the keyboard trying to find them. An interesting side note is that all of the layouts I voted for have pipe on G or the bottom row near where it is on the Pandora, and this is one of the that I did actually learn.).
I don't think everyone should have to give specific details to justify why they feel a second shift is a waste, but since I am sure I will be asked: move tab down, and put escape where tab is. "Oh, noes!!! I just closed what I was doing by accident." It will probably happen, but I prefer things that help me do things my way, not those that slow me down to to protect me from myself ("Yes, I am sure I want to permenantly delete this directory!"). There are better options for other people, and that is merely my preference. Now you don't have to ask. I would like a user assignable key on the uppermost row, and I have an idea that I would like to use it for if I can do it or get help, but those are a lower priotity than letting everyone type in their language easily, and getting things done (without staring at the keyboard trying to figure out how).
Since I have already explained some of what I like and dislike I might as well flesh it out some more.
I did get a little carried away while voting. I ended up voting for 4 layouts: 1, 6 , 7 and 10. The process took me a while, and I started right after ED created the thread. I went through each layout and dismissed those that had a lot of things I disliked. I think I could probably tolerate all of them, however I wanted to try to help out and give feedback.
For those that don't know, I am fond of several of the layouts ck has come up with due to eveything being easy for me to find. I got rid of #8 since it won't work without splitting the spacebar, so it was first to go.
#2 had some things I greatly prefer to ones I voted for (period and comma close to where I expect them), however the modifiers felt out of place for some reason. Esc was surrounded by other keys and may be hard to feel for, backspace was in an inconvenient location, etc.
#3 has Esc in a good spot. Backspace is not. Menu/Ins I have commented on in the past, but this key should be Super imo, and Super should not be on a shoulder, based on how I use it (often for navigating). Usr key is nice, along with some other things. There were other minor things I dislike but that I can work with.
The colored gaming buttons are nice on #5, and I might like something along those lines, however I didn't consider that while voting since it can be added to any layout, and as I understand it we will only have a black background with 2 other colors for key labels. Esc, backspace, delete and super are all in good locations. I question some of the choices (currency keys where other things might make more sense, double keyboard shifts, comma next to A), and only partially understand some things which I like and would benefit me (the whole right side meta layer). It feels a bit odd, but would probably work for me. The final straw for this one was the lack of certain German letters that I understood to have a high priority.
After my first round I ended up with 7. Those were the ones that seemed like they would work for me for all things I do regularly. I also gave some weight to non-English use, however it seems that since I don't use these languages my choices were not sufficient for some of the languages which I though they were.
I already gave some reasons why #4 got cut. Too much is out of place for me.
#9 is one that I really like, but it seems selfish since it may not work for others. The 4 Alt/AltGr keys might be a problem, but it depends on what is going on behind the scenes (I didn't give this much thought because it doesn't matter what is printed on the key as long as it does what people expect). Some things are not where I expect them, however it only takes me a moment to find them. If I was not concerned about others this would be one of my finalists, and I would only need to make a few small changes to be happy with it.
#11 has a few interesting things going on (F11 and F12), and has many things where I like them. Others worked slightly better and kept the shifted characters on the number row to typical US characters, and I was already struggling to limit my choices, so it was out.
I had the 4 left up and kept looking at each one for a while, and compared them against each other. I felt they worked well enough to fit my use and would help out others so I stuck with them. I would be fine with them as they are for my use, but they weren't perfect.
#1 had all of the keys I care most about in areas I expect them. Usr key is nice. It had those funny vowels with weird stuff over them and other strange characters. I would prefer punctuation on the right, but the tradeoff for letting weird letters be over there is I get the ones I use most as primary characters, and they are opposite the spacebar which, while I will forget they are there when picking up the Pyra after a while on a normal keyboard, are easier to type for me in the "punctuation then space" order they are often used in since alternate thumbs are used for those key presses...not so good for using on a desktop, but you can't have it both ways. KILL CAPS LOCK! (brought to you by holding down shift) This is a huge bonus for me, as I hate losing time fixing mistakes made by turning caps lock on by accident.
#6 would take me some time to adjust to. I like where many things are, however I question the locations of some non-English letters (I don't know if everything on backspace and the other upper right keys would be a problem for those that need them). Enter on the bottom row is different. I really like the possibly gimmicky locking of Fn/Meta to get F1-12 and numbers at the same time. The Pyra is a gaming device, and this shows that.
#7 feels like the best compromise. Nothing too crazy, and everything is pretty decent. Honestly, it seems more like it is a layout that is "good enough". That is a good thing in this case, as it gives enough that I don't see anything major being taken away. Things that I don't use very often are in locations where I may make a habit of using them more, and seem to my untrained eye to be useful for those that would use them for linguistic purposes (tilde, for example). It looks like there was a lot of attention to detail, and a good balance was found (caps lock is present, but I will never turn it on by mistake, escape is in the second place I would look for it if I had no experience or knowledge of these layouts). My guess is Goldilocks would pick this, and I understand why so many others voted for it.
As I said before, #10 is pretty good. My major concerns are addressed, and there isn't too much I don't like (some punctuation and the second shift, but those don't detract from the layout). I want to use #10 to point out things that I think are good choices.
-I prefer Escape closer to the rest of the keyboard, but most people at least expect it in the upper left corner, and there it is. This is convenient, yet out of the way, for use in games. If it is near the main keyboard it isn't as easy to hit for exiting and bringing up options and settings in various titles. This seems the optimal location.
-The keys along the right side of the keyboard are in a great order. Where possible, this is the order that makes the most sense imo. Nothing extra on these keys, so they are what they are at all times.
-The gaming buttons are the set of keys that make the most sense to me, they conveniently fit here, and they are backwards compatible. Nothing is broken up and it mimics a full size keyboard.
-US shifted characters on the number row are all as they should be.
-Super is where I think it belongs.
-I don't mind if the brightness keys are combined as long as the default function increases display brightness. Having 2 keys dedicated to it is easier to use. If we need one for something else (such as a user assigned key) it can be sacrificed.
-If we can fit 2 keyboard shift keys, and they don't cause anything odd to happen, it might be a good choice for some users. If it is a toss up between 2 shifts and language support I think it is more important to have better language support.
-I think the orangey-reddish Meta/Fn/Amazing key labels look nicer than blue. It also fits the name and theme of the Pyra.
Sorry this was so long.
I would like to thank everyone that spent countless hours, days, weeks, and possibly months working on layouts. I am confident we will get something that works well for most potential owners. If I was not detailed or clear enough please let me know so that I can give more info, however I will not be further arguing about my opinions and preferences on these layouts.
Two shifts on keyboard when one can be sticky, on a keyboard that has no keys to spare, is a waste of one key. And it also adds a hack to allowing it to be on shoulders.
What key is that you feel you're missing out on that you need this wasted spare button for?
If you have one, why can't you remap the Shift key on the right side later to this vital missing key you need so badly so that others won't be shortchanged? :mellow:
The difference is layout 8 and 9. The latter is garbage, I don't mind telling you, because I made it. It was meant to carry the label "only if it has to be a dualwide space"
Remapping anything is a straight bust for any user below a certain threshold, just like remembering keys is a level of advancement that excludes a lot of people.
To go from a most efficient default (8), to something akin to a shoe that fits everyone is this. (which wasnt included)
Any other convention fails to answer a most important question, that people can actually type on the device, what does that mean, and how important is it?
Take a look at TOHKBD made in 1200 or so units total. 560 of which were scandinavian alone. Granted the jolla phone is a scandinavian phone, but the pyra is german, so it compares.
It is said that only 400-ish were qwerty, so way less than half went for English. The only difference is the addition of Fn-free typing out of the box, or the buttons to do so if you will.
Look what happens to the right of P and L↓
Including them means taking away a button, even a single one, for more non-central space or additional shift gets ugly right away. Its no longer a question of "do i want a space-bar", its what really happens when you implement it. And for case of argument, space-bar is something that belongs in the middle of a keyboard. If you cant reach it with both thumbs, the bar-part of the argument falls for technical reasons, and becomes a question of familiarity.
A keboard without the functional layout (matrix of where the buttons are) employing a full alphabet, as per the layouts that are on them, is forever more off-putting than any familiarity a big space brings. We are in the very least talking about half the people here.
Both possibility for Azerty is achieved (by not printing symbols on letters) and the option to produce stealth keymats, which really is a question of being able to do things with more buttons, like NEO, or Dvorak, which having a singlewide space solves.
To that effect extra shift or dualwide space are both detrimental, but dualwide space is worse, because if the mold is made like that, it at the very least ruins things similar to layout 9 for all these people.
So what people are we not consulting, novices (non-pandorians), and to a great extent international users (non-pandorians). And people in it for things the pyra could answer, photography, pro portable audio, etc. TOHKBD is a prime (and the only) example of what it takes for a keyboard to sell a phone-device in 2015.
Selling more devices is a benefit to even monolingual English users, so please consider how awesome it would be if someone removed any 3 keys from A-Z.
The jornada looks to be a 10 finger ordeal, and the only modern in terms of design and age. Allthough both that and the Psion have no printed F-keys.
What makes it stand out is that you can type something other than English on it. I'm unsure sticky shift was even a thing back in the 200LX days.
Edit: Turns out it was, and they even advertised it in the manual:
■ A typewriter keyboard layout with a "sticky" shift key — you don't
need to hold down [ Q ) while you press another key; you press it to
activate it and then press the other key. Shifted key definitions are
shown in orange on the keyboard.
With two thumbs sticky shift makes all the sense in the world, because you tie up 100% of the usable input (not counting shoulders) to use regular shift, that doesnt translate from a 105key.
Something that also doesnt translate is that numpad, having to reach over it to type makes little sense to me. I guess it works in a sense as badly as right hand desktop numpad in a largely right-handed world.
I have a Jornada 720 and can tell you that typing on it with 8 fingers is extremely fast. It's actually easier to type on than with a desktop or laptop. I have held off from purchasing a Pandora and I know of at least 5 other people who have refused to purchase it on account of its strange keyboard configuration.
Until you've tried typing with 3 or 4 fingers on each hand on a palmtop device, you really have no idea how much faster you can be. I literally can type 70-90 words per minute on my Jornada. Can anyone do that with two thumbs on a Pandora? I really don't think so. Not only that, but thumb typing is very much prone to RSI.
I imagined it would be. Looks very nice. Good typing devices never die.
When i show international people the pandora layout (mostly scandinavians since im from here) they like it, but then dismiss it on account of "no real keyboard" referring to the problem explained above.
The thing I draw from that is if we are doing thumb typing, which is the case, it should be effective, for two-thumbs. Right off the bat, Fn-typing is for any amount of fingers or thumbs very detrimental to input.
Instead you have something non-standard annoying you every sentence.
The jornada looks to be a 10 finger ordeal, and the only modern in terms of design and age. Allthough both that and the Psion have no printed F-keys.
What makes it stand out is that you can type something other than English on it. I'm unsure sticky shift was even a thing back in the 200LX days.
Edit: Turns out it was, and they even advertised it in the manual:
■ A typewriter keyboard layout with a "sticky" shift key — you don't
need to hold down [ Q ) while you press another key; you press it to
activate it and then press the other key. Shifted key definitions are
shown in orange on the keyboard.
With two thumbs sticky shift makes all the sense in the world, because you tie up 100% of the usable input (not counting shoulders) to use regular shift, that doesnt translate from a 105key.
Something that also doesnt translate is that numpad, having to reach over it to type makes little sense to me. I guess it works in a sense as badly as right hand desktop numpad in a largely right-handed world.
I have a Jornada 720 and can tell you that typing on it with 8 fingers is extremely fast. It's actually easier to type on than with a desktop or laptop. I have held off from purchasing a Pandora and I know of at least 5 other people who have refused to purchase it on account of its strange keyboard configuration.
Until you've tried typing with 3 or 4 fingers on each hand on a palmtop device, you really have no idea how much faster you can be. I literally can type 70-90 words per minute on my Jornada. Can anyone do that with two thumbs on a Pandora? I really don't think so. Not only that, but thumb typing is very much prone to RSI.
Obviously thumb typing is slower than finger typing. I do about 60 wpm on my Pandora. This is still faster than my thinking speed (when coding, on the command line or writing natural language), so for me it is, for most practical purposes, "full speed". If I want to quickly copy text without thinking, I use copy/paste, not fast typing
The point of a handheld is that you can hold it in your hands. This means you can use it while standing, or while sitting without needing a table or some other surface to put the device on.
The keyboard of the Pyra should be optimized for thumb typing. It should also work for finger typing, but that should not be the thing to optimize for.
I have a Jornada 720 and can tell you that typing on it with 8 fingers is extremely fast. It's actually easier to type on than with a desktop or laptop. I have held off from purchasing a Pandora and I know of at least 5 other people who have refused to purchase it on account of its strange keyboard configuration. Until you've tried typing with 3 or 4 fingers on each hand on a palmtop device, you really have no idea how much faster you can be. I literally can type 70-90 words per minute on my Jornada. Can anyone do that with two thumbs on a Pandora? I really don't think so. Not only that, but thumb typing is very much prone to RSI.
The Jornada 720 is a full 4 cm wider than the Pandora and Pyra, which gives it a lot more horizontal space on the keyboard. The Pandora and Pyra keyboards are really far too narrow for that to work unless you have unusually small hands. You can't put three fingers on adjacent keys without the one in the middle being squashed between the other two. You may get away with typing with 2 fingers on each hand, but any more than that you'll find that your fingers start to crowd each other out.
The jornada looks to be a 10 finger ordeal, and the only modern in terms of design and age. Allthough both that and the Psion have no printed F-keys.
What makes it stand out is that you can type something other than English on it. I'm unsure sticky shift was even a thing back in the 200LX days.
Edit: Turns out it was, and they even advertised it in the manual:
■ A typewriter keyboard layout with a "sticky" shift key — you don't
need to hold down [ Q ) while you press another key; you press it to
activate it and then press the other key. Shifted key definitions are
shown in orange on the keyboard.
With two thumbs sticky shift makes all the sense in the world, because you tie up 100% of the usable input (not counting shoulders) to use regular shift, that doesnt translate from a 105key.
Something that also doesnt translate is that numpad, having to reach over it to type makes little sense to me. I guess it works in a sense as badly as right hand desktop numpad in a largely right-handed world.
I have a Jornada 720 and can tell you that typing on it with 8 fingers is extremely fast. It's actually easier to type on than with a desktop or laptop. I have held off from purchasing a Pandora and I know of at least 5 other people who have refused to purchase it on account of its strange keyboard configuration.
Until you've tried typing with 3 or 4 fingers on each hand on a palmtop device, you really have no idea how much faster you can be. I literally can type 70-90 words per minute on my Jornada. Can anyone do that with two thumbs on a Pandora? I really don't think so. Not only that, but thumb typing is very much prone to RSI.
I type on my Pandora with it on a table/desk sometimes. It is not a good experience. The layout is only a small part of the problem, and having a single shift is less of an issue (for me) than many other things with the layout. The majority of the problem is the feel of the keyboard. It is squishy and you have to push too far down on the key for a device of this size (there are full size desktop keyboards that don't feel as long or deep or whatever you want to say). I believe ED was trying to fix that for the Pyra. Key size will be smaller on the Pyra (a little larger than the tiny LX keys). I don't know if this will make it harder to type on when it is on a table. Space between keys is a significant factor with that.
Hopefully the Pyra keyboard will be better all around. I don't know if a layout that works well for all purposes, with multiple languages, and that is designed primarily as thumb keyboard will meet your standards with the number of keys present. When you are at a table or desk (and not out somewhere) you can connect another keyboard. You might as well add a larger monitor or TV as well.
For the people that care about tactile feeling, like me, who admittedly obsess about it, the doublewide spacebar lets the pandora keyboard down, even for basic english.
The most effective part of it is always the leftmost button it consists of. When you press a dome button that isnt stabilized (like real spacebars are) it collapses unevenly.
Unless you (are ok with loosing efficiency and) press it exactly in the middle, which is almost impossible, it does this. And even then, it is subpar to the singlewide buttons.
Having enough buttons to type is possible for the greatest part of the customerbase. Half of which are not monolingual englishspeakers.
With the amount of buttons it has, it can either be the way international keyboards do it, or the way the international space station looks.
I'm pretty sure I hit my Pandora's space bar right in the middle, as I've never felt it deform lopsidedly.
I also voted for a number of different designs, only really omitting ones I could find something significantly objectionable to me, that I'd have difficulty working around.
One weird thing I see; many designs that have a single shift have it on the right, and in the corresponding space on the left have single and double quote. I always use left shift for some reason, despite being right-handed, and single quote is on the right of the keyboard on every full-sized keyboard layout I can think of (indeed, the US keymap has a single and double quote key on the right hand side, L row). The location of shift doesn't really affect me as I will use the shoulder button almost all of the time, if my usage of my Pandora is indicative, and I'll adapt to any location of the quote keys, but it just seems a little strange to me.
I've voted 4 and 7. I prefer 4 as it has Spanish support, but it isn't a big hassle to xmodmap that into whatever layout is chosen.
What makes me like those layouts:
- Dedicated ESC key
- Ins and Del are in the block with PageUp/PageDown/Home/End
- Backspace/Enter/Shift/Fn are in the places I expect
- As most of the layouts proposed, the symbols used for programming and shell scripting are easy to type.
On layout 4 I like having the dead keys for accents really accessible.
OTOH, I appreciate that layout 7 is mostly a conversion of an US keyboard (I say that after messing a lot with dosbox keyboard mapping files in my Pandora...)
The reality is with two keyboard Shift keys, one of these can be mapped away to whatever else someone wants if they don't like/need two keyboard Shift keys. They can turn this "extra" Shift key to anything of their heart's desire. Use your imagination here as there are a lot of choices. With one keyboard Shift though, the user who wants to have two keyboard Shifts is stuck and either will have to uproot some punctuation(unlikely scenario), or live with one keyboard Shift(yes I know sticky keys can be disabled) and one Shoulder Shift, which some don't like to press while typing.
Over and over I read the same thing repeated about a key being wasted if we have two keyboard Shift keys but I never hear what this wasted key will be filled with. It's always vague, always elusive and just something we need to reserve for because of a lack of keys, but like I said, both camps, if you really really think on it a bit more, get what they want if we have two keyboard Shifts.
Please notice how virtually identical my two latest proposals are in symbol counts:
To be blunt here, what is unavoidable if people go with a layout with only one Shift key is ( and ) will be moved as Ed has said he will have to do, or the single keyboard Shift will be on the same left half like it is on the Pandora which means you can say goodbye forever to balance again.
Up to you guys what you'll have to trade off on. -_-
Over and over I read the same thing repeated about a key being wasted if we have two keyboard Shift keys but I never hear what this wasted key will be filled with. It's always vague, always elusive and just something we need to reserve for because of a lack of keys, but like I said, both camps, if you really really think on it a bit more, get what they want if we have two keyboard Shifts.
You asked what key would be good to replace it with; the answer is it's very layout-dependent. Some are already missing dedicated ESC or WiFi keys, nevermind if they lose yet another space,
Following that logic we can just add a key called "userMap" and people either map it to a shift or to whatever they prefer (which in my case would probably be a "ñ". It can still generate a custom or unused keycode for apps to detect and has the same functionality for both sides. If you want to create a key "that others can remap" then might as well call it "userMap"
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