Keymat Layout - the Final Poll!

[EvilDragon]

And once again, this has moved away from being a poll where the normal users should only vote and maybe explain why they chosen what into another keyboard layout discussion thread with more new layouts and the same people who were discussing the keyboard layouts for months now are discussing everything here once again.


That's the reason so many members were annoyed about the discussion threads that we even created a temporary forum are for them.


The time for discussion by all designers was meant to be over with this poll, but it simply doesn't seem to work.


Mention 'keyboard' and in the end the same members will restart a discussion with 5 posts per second (approximately).


It seems the only way to deal with this is wait for the outcome of this poll, filter the reasons why users chose what out of this thread and create the final layout without further discussions from those results.


It will be over soon. Period.

 

[antisol]

My 2 cents:

It took me quite a long time to make a vote, there were a lot of layouts and it's a complex decision. I've tried to consider a wide number of use cases, but in the end I think my decision was more based on what I want (for instance, being an english-only speaker, I don't have a preference where international characters are concerned). But I do use my pandora (and intend to use my pyra) for a wide range of things, including coding, typing, using the linux terminal, and games.

I chose #7, but #10 was also close.

The reasons why I didn't choose #10 were:

* I think that the 2 shift keys is a waste of a key, since one is duplicated on a shoulder button.

* I don't think I want a wifi / bt / 4g toggle button - I'd hate to press it accidentally and waste my battery, I'd prefer to explicitly turn it on via software

* I think the location of F12 is unintuitive

The reasons I chose #7 are mostly the location of tab and esc. I also like the location of insert and del. The addition of a del key will be very welcome.

I think that #7 could be improved:

* I'd prefer pause and capslock to be swapped (i.e capslock should be the primary function, pause should be the meta function), since I use capslock more than pause

* I think it would make more sense to move F11 to the backspace key (still requiring meta press), keeping it on the same row as the rest of the f-keys, with f12 directly below it. This would also allow an extra symbol to be placed on the P key

I also liked #1 but I use capslock a lot.

I'd also like to note that I perhaps the layout should try to mirror the layout of the pandora keyboard - I'm familiar with the location of all the symbols on the pandora keyboard, and it would be nice for that muscle memory to carry over to the pyra. But given that the layout and number of keys is going to be quite different, perhaps this is wishful thinking.

In the end, I trust ED to make a sensible decision based on how great the pandora is, and I don't think that any keyboard layout would be enough to make me not buy a pyra.

 

[foft]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law_of_triviality

 

[_wb_]

So you prefer having () in location you expect them to be, but are hard to reach?


Did you ever had problems with that on the Pandora (where almost every key is in an unfamiliar location, but based on the importance).


Because that's something I will most likely change in any final layout... () is too important in my opinion to be in an uncomfortable location. Okay, if you have Shift on the left side...

Please don't change the Shift+number symbols into something non-standard.

I don't mind if keyboard Shift is on the left (that is how it is in many of my proposals), but even if it is on the right and even if you refuse to use the shoulder button Shift, then the problem can be solved with sticky keyboard Shift by default.

Sticky Fn and sticky Shift makes sense anyway on a thumb keyboard. Have you ever seen a smartphone touch keyboard where Shift is non-sticky? They could very well have done that, those screens are multi-touch so they could have required you to hold Shift down while pressing the other key. But that's not how they implement it, and there's a good reason for that.

This is also the main reason why shoulder buttons are a superior mechanism to implement modifiers: it is easy to hold them down (any combination of them) while still having both thumbs available.

 

[_wb_]

sticky modifiers could be default, since power users know how to change these things...

also, i'm not fond of _wb_'s mod of 7, because it would make Space=Space hard to type (code combo).  i feel like there's a way to rearrange the bottom two rows to help make code combos more efficient.  but it still is "hard" to type certain combos if you give yourself the handicap of not using the shoulder modifiers...

Is Space=Space really that important? I mean, if you're really concerned about efficiency, you can just drop those spaces, nearly all programming languages ignore whitespace

Here is another mod of 7:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/f3a55b10bf43f3b150b49f98de4c1447

The bottom two Fn rows still follow the US-QWERTY Shift-keypair cheat sheet convention. The Fn+QWERTY row is all "foreign stuff" that can safely be ignored by English-only users. I added £ for the UK people so they don't feel ignored.

 

[Caine]

Is Space=Space really that important? I mean, if you're really concerned about efficiency, you can just drop those spaces, nearly all programming languages ignore whitespace

Any nearly every development team has coding guidelines and/or format checkers to enforce the presence of that whitespace. So yes, it is important as it defines the readability of code. You read code more often than you write it.

 

[CrystalGamma]

First off, I'll say that I will probably be fine with whatever layout is chosen in the end for the first few hours.

I'll hack up my own layout after that anyway, because my needs are way too specific: (Even though I wouldn't mind if some of these opinions would be in the final layout )

I NEVER use the right modifiers on my PC (well ok, I do use AltGr, which appears to be what many people call R-Alt, because that is the only way to get things like {[]} on a German keyboard, but with FN mappings, that would be irrelevant anyway).

I have only seen anyone use CapsLock once in the last 15 years, so that would be banned completely.

I also couldn't care less whether specific symbols match their position on any PC keyboard, since the Pyra will be a completely new form-factor for me either way.

Even though my native language is German, I don't use the umlauts and ß enough to warrant a separate key mapping for each of them. (Maybe a diaresis dead key or even a compose combination?)

Looks like I'll have a lot of space left in the Fn Layer

 

[Saber]

I hope the final layout will have 2 keyboard shifts

Well many like having a shift on a shoulder button as it's convenient and having three shift buttons is a bit excessive. 

It depends on the user if it's excessive. An individual that uses the Shoulder Shift finds two keyboard Shifts superfluous(yet they could remap it easily away to something else they feel is missing from them), but if they the user does not use the Shoulder Shift(many don't) for thumb typing as it's more comfortable for them not to, then a single keyboard Shift is limiting.

So it's a question of which group is being burdened by two keyboard Shifts the most. 

 

[comradekingu]

If the user doesn't use shoulders, and shift keyboard is sticky by default, what exactly is limiting? Adding two just limits how much usefull stuff you can have.

 

[moxie]

It will be over soon. Period.

Yes! Yes! Please!!! 

 

[Saber]

If the user doesn't use shoulders, and shift keyboard is sticky by default, what exactly is limiting? Adding two just limits how much usefull stuff you can have.

If the keyboard Shift is sticky all of us could get along with one of them. I haven't read any indication they'll be a sticky keyboard Shift. 

 

[_wb_]

Is Space=Space really that important? I mean, if you're really concerned about efficiency, you can just drop those spaces, nearly all programming languages ignore whitespace

Any nearly every development team has coding guidelines and/or format checkers to enforce the presence of that whitespace. So yes, it is important as it defines the readability of code. You read code more often than you write it.

Sure, no problem:

sudo apt-get install indent

 

[Rockthesmurf]

I haven't voted, I have looked at the layouts, but for all the theory behind each layout, it is hard to know how well any of them will work. I worry a little that a lot of people voting will by making their best effort, but could easily be overlooking very important traits (but without a large amount of study/effort it isn't so obviously where the potential problems/pitfalls are).

So, based on that, I am at least happy that ED will be making the final decision, as I have faith that he will use his usual cool calm head and balanced judgement to find something that works. To be honest, I am very glad it is ED having to get to the bottom of this keyboard problem, not me

 

[_wb_]

If the user doesn't use shoulders, and shift keyboard is sticky by default, what exactly is limiting? Adding two just limits how much usefull stuff you can have.

If the keyboard Shift is sticky all of us could get along with one of them. I haven't read any indication they'll be a sticky keyboard Shift. 

You got the direction of your dependencies wrong. Modifier keys being sticky or not is purely a matter of software.

If the keyboard Shift being sticky is desirable in a given keyboard layout, then that should be the default configuration in the default OS.

We shouldn't first decide whether or not keyboard Shift will be sticky by default, and then design the physical keyboard layout around that. As has been pointed out many times in the past two years, we can make it behave as a sticky modifier if we want to, so there is no real reason to add redundant Shift or Fn modifiers.

 

[matzesu]

I votet 1 and 5, because 1 should work for me (in ditnt like capslock (isnt this the button for GRANDLETTERS¿) )


And 5 have this realy cool Collorfull Gamingbuttons..


So why not the Layoat from 1 and the Collorfull Gamingbuttons from 5 ??

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Guys I think you're upsetting ED.

 

[Urben]

Guys I think you're upsetting ED.

inb4

Spoiler

 

[_wb_]

One more iteration of a blend of #7 with #1, this time with üöä as in #1, with diacritics clustered at UIJNM, and + = - more to the left:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6c958ec633ac3c5fac40d88d81ff628c

 

[FaeMinx]

Guys I think you're upsetting ED.

Evil Dragon has a very tough hide didn't ya know?
Impervious to the weapons of most puny mortals.

 

[Eight Bit]

I feel sorry for Ed too. A big part of the discussion isn't even interesting for other readers than those discussing so maybe it's better to go find a private room somewhere and fight it out there.