Keymat Layout - the Final Poll!

[bzar]

The primary goal is to find a keyboard SUITED for as many users and usecases as possible - so when looking at a layout and choosing your favourite one, widen your horizon and carefully think if it is useful for a wide range of tasks.

If you get sufficient answers in numbers this kind of statement does not make sense. Either you are doing a qualitative research or quantitative one, you can't mix both purposes at once. Let the majority decide what they prefer regarless of what they want to do with it, and if you get 100 answers this will be probably close to what you need to do for most people anyway.

Unless he's looking to gain information from outside the voting body. In that case we're not voting what we think is best, but what we think would win if all potential customers would vote.

 

[CrazyIvan]

Too much choices. Can we use this poll to narrow the list down and then have a second round?

Some layouts are quite similar so there is a problem misunderstanding of poll results if for example ED have different criteria for choosing the best layout than voters.

 

[Luke-Jr]

Can't you get any of these by remapping anyway?

 

[Kev2442]

P.S. / TL;DR : please read only if you have some spare time and would like to know more about my voting conditions as a random member, I didn't take a hour to think and write this down just for the laughs, but I don't want to bore you either

Here is the detail of my vote, I hope it explains a thing or two :
 
As I don't really see one or the other fitting me more/best, here are my lucky seven I voted for : 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11.
I didn't really know whether I should have voted only for the ones I like best or the ones who suit me.
 
Parts where I'm tied :

Spoiler

- Backspace above Delete or Enter (I understand why for both of them),

- Esc on Q, Tab, top left corner or above the nubs (equally usable to me),

- Position of \, /, ., ,, <, >, etc (whether it is their position or if they're normal/shifted/Fn-made - coming from AZERTY, everything looks better to me  <_< ),

- Any Terminal, X-App, Vim, DosBox, etc problematics and solutions (still on Windows until Pyra comes out - will be first longtime try at Linux),

- F-numbers on the Numbers row or elsewhere,

- Hardware and LightingMinus respectively being on seperate keys or grouped.

 
What I liked in particular in the chosen layouts (even if it may not be practical in other aspects) :

Spoiler

- Most Layouts : explanations (especially about the coding symbols' positions),

- Layouts 1, 4, 5 and 6 : F-numbers arranged in an aesthetically pleasant and logical way,

- Layout 3 : Backspace above Delete (looked better and made more sense - erase before/after - with these symbols, may not be best otherwise),

- Layout 4 and 6 : Risks taken (respectively Esc on the right and F-numbers on 2nd row),

- Layout 6 : F-numbers and Numbers on a different layer with Fn Lock for gaming.

 
What I'd like to have in the final layout :

Spoiler

- Shift and Meta on the same shoulder column (like L1-L2), same for Ctrl and Alt,

- Shift and Ctrl on the same shoulder row (like L1-R1), same for Meta and Alt,

- L1 and R1 being the lower shoulders, aka the ones in the corner (probably where most people rest their fingers),

- All frequent french accents available either as dead keys or accented letters (é, è, à, ù, ç, ^, ¨),

- Whatever accented letters the layout has, being Shift-compatible for capitals,

- Presence of a Compose key (no one in AZERTY, would appreciate to have - especially if not all french letters are available),

- Use of both Shift/Meta keys to make a Caps Lock/Meta Lock (solves the Caps Lock issue),

- No hidden keys on the layout, even (especially ? ) if it looks messy (dead diacritics on logical places are fine though),

- Math and/or Greek symbols (don't really have the use myself, but cool to have anyway).

 
I think that is all for now. Sorry for the length, sorry if it kinda looks like if I were back into the layout thread.

All in all, thanks to everyone involved in these layouts. That was quite a big topic to discuss. Let's hope we'll see the end of it soon.

 

[CrazyIvan]

Can't you get any of these by remapping anyway?

The layout determines labels to be printed on keys. You can remap however you want but you wouldn't change labels.

 

[Bosbeetle]

I won't vote since I cannot possible forsee how usable each of those would feel to me, let alone remember the differences between all of these layouts before voitng. So my vote would only dilute the poll.

But I do want to mention that I really apreciate all the deep thought and time people have put into the keyboard layout!

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

What a shame, only one layout have 3 essential spanish keys.

 

[Bosbeetle]

What a shame, only one layout have 3 essential spanish keys.

¿?

 

[DaMummy]

There isn't a single cyrilic key on there either. You don't hear me whine.

 

[ptitSeb]

A voté...

 

[txus]

What a shame, only one layout have 3 essential spanish keys.

Sadly we are a minority here... And there are too few keys to include a full international layout anyway. We have to start thinking "Compose + ~ --> n" for ñ, for example, and pick one that allows these kind of combinations in the easiest possible way (same for French, nordic languages, etc.)

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

What a shame, only one layout have 3 essential spanish keys.

Sadly we are a minority here... And there are too few keys to include a full international layout anyway. We have to start thinking "Compose + ~ --> n" for ñ, for example, and pick one that allows these kind of combinations in the easiest possible way (same for French, nordic languages, etc.)

Yeah, i know it, still sadpanda.

 

[NoeleyC]

I voted for 7 with another vote for 5 as I do like the coloured action buttons on that. I have a very quick query though (apologies in advance as it's possible this might never be an issue depending on the final selection), but if the FN key was on a shoulder button (as it is in one of the proposals), is it still possible to remap that if needs be? If it's only a modifier key I don't know enough to be sure if it produces remappable keycodes or not?

Apologies for the noob query!

 

[WizardStan]

Layout 8 assumes the spacebar can be used as two distinct keys. I'm pretty sure it can be eliminated as "physically impossible".

 

[Tenka]

Voted for 5 because I felt very positive about most of it, everything besides FN being replaced with shift, and there being three shifts.  In voting for 5, I don't mean to vote for including three shift keys.

 

[EvilDragon]

The primary goal is to find a keyboard SUITED for as many users and usecases as possible - so when looking at a layout and choosing your favourite one, widen your horizon and carefully think if it is useful for a wide range of tasks.

If you get sufficient answers in numbers this kind of statement does not make sense. Either you are doing a qualitative research or quantitative one, you can't mix both purposes at once. Let the majority decide what they prefer regarless of what they want to do with it, and if you get 100 answers this will be probably close to what you need to do for most people anyway.

That statement does make sense, as it might affect your choice in a positive way.

The main goal is to find a layout that fits as good as possible for ALL people out there, not for certain tasks. However, different users can think of different tasks and more eyes find more flaws on a keyboard layout than only two.

e.g. if we had a keyboard only consisting of a numblock (wthout letters):

For  person who only wants to use it for entering numbers, this would be the best choice.

However, the goal is not to find out if there's a person who want to enter single numbers, but to find out what everyone thinks would be best for a great majority.

And even a person who would prefer only numbers would understand that it doesn't make sense for the rest of the world and would not choose this as best layout in that case.

That statement DOES make a lot of sense, it's to find out which everyone thinks is the most flawless and most usable ones for EVERYONE out there, not just himself.

 

[benoitb]

I voted for 1, I see that 7 is ahead but I also find it quite good now that I look closely at it. Good results so far

 

[rygD]

with another vote for 5 as I do like the coloured action buttons on that.

I think this applies here:

3. When choosing your favourite layout, do NOT be affected by the labels of the keys. We're ONLY choosing the functional layout right now - it does NOT mean stuff will be printed exactly like you can see it on the keymat

I don't think he wanted more than 2 colors.  If that is the case I doubt the gaming buttons would get those colors even if he uses that layout.

So many posts here already.  I was avoiding saying anything to keep the discussion from getting out of control.  I didn't feel any of them were perfect for me, so I voted for what I thought would work best for me in most situations and what I thought offered the most possibilities to others (but it seems they are lacking for some languages).

 

[Emnasut]

I like 4 the most, closely followed by 10 (pretty similar) and 7.

That said, my main criteria are:

* ESC not on TAB (or anywhere, where it could be hit accidentally): As TAB is used in a lot of programs and ESC is used in even more I wouldn't want to accidentally hit ESC e.g. while typing too fast or trying to Shift-TAB to go backwards and instead hitting the wrong modifier. I see this happening e.g. in the for shell autocompletion or in Excel to get to the next cell after entering something, both times discarding what you already typed (especially annoying in Excel when you have to type a whole sentence again because of that.

* Insert above Delete on the gaming buttons to mimic the cluster everybody knows, so no searching is required. Failing that, at least have Insert as a primary key and not something with a modifier, as it is used quite often in different programs (and for more than copy/paste, although it would be easier to copy/paste with it on the gaming cluster and without moving the right thumb at all).

* I especially like the dead diacritcs in Layout 4, as they allow at least a lot of european characters without dedicated keys for all of them with two key presses instead of the need for compose. But granted I wouldn't know if that would be enough, as I mostly type in English and German (although I for me would be ok with a dead diacritic for ÖÄÜ).

 

[ekianjo]

That statement DOES make a lot of sense, it's to find out which everyone thinks is the most flawless and most usable ones for EVERYONE out there, not just himself.

The problem is, you can't know how everyone thinks out there, that's the part that does not make sense to me. It's already hard to know what YOU really want as an individual in the first place, then if you are asking to evaluate something on the whole population out there, all bets are off. Nobody ever conducts research/product qualification with this kind of statements, really.

For example I can have an opinion about what is useful for a gamer in general, but I can't begin to imagine what keyboard is useful for someone who does LaTex editing at all. Putting this kind of statement will end up with choosing the worst keyboard in the end, the one that nobody really likes or nobody really dislikes, which is not necessarily the best for anything, but just average or even borderline-bad for every other use as well. It's like voting for the canteen food everyday, since the extremes will never be chosen you end up with eating pasta everyday, which is a poor choice for everyone.

You need to set priorities when it comes to make choices - as you said yourself the keyboard cannot be good at everything at once, so why do we have to imagine how it would best fit most uses out there?