Keymat Layout - the Final Poll!

[comradekingu]

Alt and AltGr can be printed on the typewriter part of the keyboard, you said there was no way to do another set on shoulders when technically there is.

+2 is too little for German, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian etc etc, while +3 fits their alphabet. All of these 100 million+ users, which are as central to the demographic buying pyras for language reasons as you can get, dont have an alphabet that fits into +2 amount of letters.

If you press FN+L here  the +3 keys (that now have brackets, turn into those respective keys, on the users regional layout) Fn+L again, and you are back to normal.

(This answers the matter of compose.) Since regular typing is better than "polylingual". You could use your argument to say that with regular typing in place, there is less need to have "polylingual" printed, which is a ideal bonus for everyone.

What i meant to say was the ü (not the ä) cant be typed without the use of Fn on layout 6. I see the intention, but it doesnt work with the given matrix if you want to have backspace on backspace.

AltGr is a basic function for all of europe, international US, and every other layout there is(?), point is it should work out of the box. Fn should not type symbols, and there should be an Alternate graphics layer on the expected AltGr button, which is known to do thirdlevelshift.

I mean both, Fn combos are unavailable in some places with Fn on shoulder, as a result of otherwise triggering Fn-combos with shoulders+ gamekeys in games that utilize shoulders, you cannot do Fn-hotkeys on +dpad (4) + start select (2) (other shoulders 3-4) and buttoncluster(6)  Edit: i forgot the two nubs are buttons (2)

in total 18 less possibilities.  You can utilize the Fn layer as much as you like, but when there is only 5 available buttons not used, that is a whole lot less than 39.  This is not very evident, and its about as sexy to explain as accidental Alt+F4, Fn ESC (on some layouts) or Ctrl+alt+F* taking you to a different TTY, all it takes is to forget some shoulders or buttonmash blindly and hit either 4 or any other number.

I am only seeing the 5 US diactrics on layout 6, 10 is still less though.  The difficulty arises from mainly Fn being used to both invoke dead-keys (i got the ones with the funny o's) and producing symbols.

The difference between printing the symbol ( and the dead-key (  is way less in my opinion. I also think people dont even want to see funny o's, ED being one of them.

Yes, azerty can be had via cutting into the keymat (if not multiple layouts) if you move symbols along with it, the relevance as to where the symbols are (even when they arent supposed to be there) is gone.

Its not a huge deal, but its a qualitiative difference.

With dualwide space you end up having to move j for NEO, and you are out of keys for DVORAK. Its a question of remapping to a matrix, with the potential to produce keymats.

My view is that a laptop keyboard works for the most people, and has the broadest market to sell to, because its what people expect not on a mobile device, but in the sense that they type.

Laptops usually have no dedicated powertoggles or brightnessbuttons on the keyboard with the amount of keys they have, why should the pyra do so with less?

To me it makes no sense to say that because it has less keys than a regular laptop, it should be willingly different. Fn+up is for example the first thing i try to adjust the brightness, that should work.

Ending up with more symbols than a regular keyboard, when a lot of them can and should be hidden, is strange. It doesnt do more things well, it does more things halfway and in nonstandard-ways, introducing quirky problems to deal with.

Me and saber are pointing to valid concerns that you can miss if you just let popularity control design. Some things only look like they work.

 

[Grench]

I just said they can exist that way on the keyboard, you said there was no way to do it technically when there is.

+2 is too little for German, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian etc etc, while +3 fits their alphabet. All of these 100 million+ users, which are as central to the demographic buying pyras for language reasons as you can get, dont have an alphabet that fits into +2 amount of letters.

And there still simply are not 4 Alt keys in the available mappings.

2nd AltGr simply does not exist.

AltGr can only exist IFF the right Alt key is switched/changed/sacrificed to AltGr.

The layouts you keep suggesting with "Two Alt AND two AltGr" keys, regardless of how many times you suggest them, are still and will remain impossible.

 

[shadow.8]

Lots of great layouts here. Ultimately, I voted on layout 10 and 7. 10 is by far my favorite but 7 would be my 2nd choice. Here's some notes on what I liked and didn't like.

Layout 10

Pros:

• Most keys where I generally expect them to be: ESC, backspace, enter, shift of the right side and Fn in the bottom corner. 
• ESC given a top level key but not in a place I'll likely press it by accident.
• Brightness up/down two keys instead of one key using Fn
• Caps lock is included
• Ins and Del on the action buttons
• Looks like there is some international key support. I won't use it but I am glad there is some support on this keyboard
• Seems like it will be a decent keyboard for terminal use, coding and general text input. 

Cons:

• Two shift keys. Since L1 trigger is also shift, I think it would make sense to drop the left shift key (label R Shift on the layout). I would love to see double quotes there instead of on Fn+V
• F11 and F12 would be better positioned on Fn+backspace and Fn+enter IMO.
• I'd rather see / and ? on the right side of the keyboard to match where I would expect to see them. 

Layout 7

Pros:

• Again, most keys where I expect them. I think this is huge for new users as well as everyday use.
• Includes Pause, printscr
• Seems like it has better international support than layout 10 (more keys)
• One shift key on the keyboard instead of two
• Tab has its own key

Cons:

• I would like to see F11 on Fn+backspace
• Question mark is in a weird spot. Could it be on Fn+M instead?

Overall I'm pretty happy with the layouts so far. I'm confident Ed will make a good decision. 

 

[comradekingu]

I just said they can exist that way on the keyboard, you said there was no way to do it technically when there is.


+2 is too little for German, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian etc etc, while +3 fits their alphabet. All of these 100 million+ users, which are as central to the demographic buying pyras for language reasons as you can get, dont have an alphabet that fits into +2 amount of letters.

And there still simply are not 4 Alt keys in the available mappings.


2nd AltGr simply does not exist.


AltGr can only exist IFF the right Alt key is switched/changed/sacrificed to AltGr.


The layouts you keep suggesting with "Two Alt AND two AltGr" keys, regardless of how many times you suggest them, are still and will remain impossible.

There is not even a first AltGr to begin with, in linux that is. Its just whats printed on the keyboard. The keycode on shoulder is different from the keyboard one, and you can have as many thirdlevelshifts as you want, ive done that on my own keyboard, or do fifthlevelshift, groups, xmodmap or loadkeys, or other hackery, the point is that it works as if it was a second AltGr. If you want to call that meta, Fn2 or whathave you, for technical reasons, ok, its not printed anyway.

(I find it strange to call AltGr AltGr if you want to do that though.)

Think of the shoulder AltGr as the exact same thing you deviced, only it doesnt do F-keys, and it behaves without colourcoding regular thirdlevelshift, which is what it does.

 

[ible]

Layout 7 has ? on J because it puts the shift-pairs one key up and to the right, for most of the keys on the bottom row.  (Notable exception is -_, which is reversed, but for good reason.)

So I wouldn't call it a weird spot.  Moving it would definitely make it weird, and break the pattern.

 

[comradekingu]

> "puts the shift-pairs one key up and to the right"

> ? on a regular letterkey

Typed with "L-meta" from the bottom right.

> not weird

???????????????

It just doesn't add up. Fixing it matters more than anything else, i dont see how it could be any worse.

 

[sepulep]

I voted 7 and 10, the only thing I don't like is having F12 (or any other key) under <enter> since this seems a recipe for disaster, or at least a lot of unnecessary sweating anytime you need to hit the f12 when enter confirms a repartition of your harddrive :rolleyes:  

 

[Saber]

Wow... you might want to calm down a bit.

Insulting the process. Insulting your peers working on this. Insulting ED. Negative campaigning against 'competing' layouts. Snipping at minor piecemeal details instead of considering themes.

This coming from the guy who multiquotes to death every post he disagrees with. Probably a third of the text in this forum is from your daily, longwinded tantrums correcting someone else(like mine here in the near future). 

As for snipping the other layouts, I was shocked they received votes given the not so subtle flaws in them. How they escaped the viewer is a mystery but the poll doesn't reflect the rationality of the layouts within. Symbols / and ? should not be on the right half, unless they are primary and Shift. How people excused these errors is poor comprehension on the reader's part and not indicative of what I imagined from them.

As for insulting ED, hardly. I am only annoyed we are at this point when the decision for all this should of been set in stone months ago. I am and always have been with ED 100% on whatever layout he finally, finally decides on, but that doesn't mean I won't question his reasons beforehand. I have always had fidelity for this man's work but I do not nor ever will follow someone blindly. 

I cannot believe that anyone thinks that labelling the shift keys such that they inhabit the wrong side of the keyboard is at all sane. This is gonna get the piss ripped out of it when it comes to reviews.


D.

Shift keys won't say anything but the word Shift on them. If you were referring to my layouts Paul, I already explained in the keyboard thread recently about it. Short answer: it was so people could remap the one and only Left Shift to whatever they want without disturbing the shoulder Shift(which is Right Shift).

Lots of great layouts here. Ultimately, I voted on layout 10 and 7. 10 is by far my favorite but 7 would be my 2nd choice. Here's some notes on what I liked and didn't like.

Layout 10

Pros:

• Most keys where I generally expect them to be: ESC, backspace, enter, shift of the right side and Fn in the bottom corner. 
• ESC given a top level key but not in a place I'll likely press it by accident.
• Brightness up/down two keys instead of one key using Fn
• Caps lock is included
• Ins and Del on the action buttons
• Looks like there is some international key support. I won't use it but I am glad there is some support on this keyboard
• Seems like it will be a decent keyboard for terminal use, coding and general text input. 

Cons:

• Two shift keys. Since L1 trigger is also shift, I think it would make sense to drop the left shift key (label R Shift on the layout). I would love to see double quotes there instead of on Fn+V
• F11 and F12 would be better positioned on Fn+backspace and Fn+enter IMO.
• I'd rather see / and ? on the right side of the keyboard to match where I would expect to see them. 

The issue I have with F11 on backspace is different from the one I have for F12 on Enter. In my opinion, I think it wise to leave backspace without any value other than just backspace on it, should the person find themselves in Fn Lock mode and would like to backtrack on a mistake made in text entry, instead of having to unFn themselves out of the lock first before the correction.

I sort of feel similarly to Spacebar being empty of other values, but I compromised on it for a certain good guy in the board here. F12 apparently closes some old programs and putting it under Enter seemed strange too just to keep things prettier in the layout. Not saying anything you want is wrong, but those are my reasons for my choices.   

Edit: I just noticed God Ginrai is here. Welcome back! 

 

[comradekingu]

If FN is on shoulders i wont dare to type anything out of fear of missing the shift on shoulder and instead Alt+F4-ing out of the editor.  

Should never happen, and you will remember it more than anything the rarer cases it does.

With how unergonomic Fn bottom right with often used ? on the same side so that you cant hold the device properly, i dont see how it could work in practice.

Keeps happening, is annoying.

On the pandora, and this is one of the few times i have something ok to say about it, the often used symbols are on the opposite side of Fn, that is atleast better.

 

[Grench]

Alt and AltGr can be printed on the typewriter part of the keyboard, you said there was no way to do another set on shoulders when technically there is.

That statement. That one right there. Please prove it - with citations.

There are, and can only be, two Alt keys. Left Alt and Right Alt.

If you activate the AltGr on a keyboard, then there are is one Left Alt key and one AltGr key.

Please tell us where the other two Alt keys that you insist are technically possible will come from and how they will be mapped.

 

[Grench]

Lots of great layouts here. Ultimately, I voted on layout 10 and 7. 10 is by far my favorite but 7 would be my 2nd choice. Here's some notes on what I liked and didn't like.

Layout 10

Pros:

• Most keys where I generally expect them to be: ESC, backspace, enter, shift of the right side and Fn in the bottom corner. 
• ESC given a top level key but not in a place I'll likely press it by accident.
• Brightness up/down two keys instead of one key using Fn
• Caps lock is included
• Ins and Del on the action buttons
• Looks like there is some international key support. I won't use it but I am glad there is some support on this keyboard
• Seems like it will be a decent keyboard for terminal use, coding and general text input. 

Cons:

• Two shift keys. Since L1 trigger is also shift, I think it would make sense to drop the left shift key (label R Shift on the layout). I would love to see double quotes there instead of on Fn+V
• F11 and F12 would be better positioned on Fn+backspace and Fn+enter IMO.
• I'd rather see / and ? on the right side of the keyboard to match where I would expect to see them. 

Layout 7Pros:

• Again, most keys where I expect them. I think this is huge for new users as well as everyday use.
• Includes Pause, printscr
• Seems like it has better international support than layout 10 (more keys)
• One shift key on the keyboard instead of two
• Tab has its own key

Cons:

• I would like to see F11 on Fn+backspace
• Question mark is in a weird spot. Could it be on Fn+M instead?

Overall I'm pretty happy with the layouts so far. I'm confident Ed will make a good decision.

Thank you thank you thank you for an actual well thought out and reasoned opinion.

 

[shadow.8]

Lots of great layouts here. Ultimately, I voted on layout 10 and 7. 10 is by far my favorite but 7 would be my 2nd choice. Here's some notes on what I liked and didn't like.

Layout 10

Pros:

• Most keys where I generally expect them to be: ESC, backspace, enter, shift of the right side and Fn in the bottom corner. 
• ESC given a top level key but not in a place I'll likely press it by accident.
• Brightness up/down two keys instead of one key using Fn
• Caps lock is included
• Ins and Del on the action buttons
• Looks like there is some international key support. I won't use it but I am glad there is some support on this keyboard
• Seems like it will be a decent keyboard for terminal use, coding and general text input. 

Cons:

• Two shift keys. Since L1 trigger is also shift, I think it would make sense to drop the left shift key (label R Shift on the layout). I would love to see double quotes there instead of on Fn+V
• F11 and F12 would be better positioned on Fn+backspace and Fn+enter IMO.
• I'd rather see / and ? on the right side of the keyboard to match where I would expect to see them. 

The issue I have with F11 on backspace is different from the one I have for F12 on Enter. In my opinion, I think it wise to leave backspace without any value other than just backspace on it, should the person find themselves in Fn Lock mode and would like to backtrack on a mistake made in text entry, instead of having to unFn themselves out of the lock first before the correction.

Ah, I hadn't considered that. I was thinking about how easily it would be to find F11 from muscle memory to full screen programs. I could see myself trying to backspace while in Fn Lock and hitting F11 instead... I don't see a better location in the layout so maybe it's better off as you had it. 

 

[Neelix]

. Symbols / and ? should not be on the right half, unless they are primary and Shift. How people excused these errors is poor comprehension on the reader's part and not indicative of what I imagined from them.

This is your opinion, not a fact. You may see it as an error but going by the poll results so far not to many people share that opinion. (or maybe they do but it isn't as high a priority for them) Either way, if they don't agree with you that doesn't make their opinion any less valid than yours.

-Neelix

 

[_wb_]

Here is my attempt to start from layout 7 and rework it to take the best elements from the other proposals with many votes:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6c42d11dbc48dd6de88a0b05f20eebe0

 

[Grench]

Wow... you might want to calm down a bit.

Insulting the process. Insulting your peers working on this. Insulting ED. Negative campaigning against 'competing' layouts. Snipping at minor piecemeal details instead of considering themes.

This coming from the guy who multiquotes to death every post he disagrees with. Probably a third of the text in this forum is from your daily, longwinded tantrums correcting someone else(like mine here in the near future).

If someone directs a series of questions to me, I usually find it courteous to multi-quote to split them up. That way they are less likely to misunderstand which answer was to which question.

As for snipping the other layouts, I was shocked they received votes given the not so subtle flaws in them. How they escaped the viewer is a mystery but the poll doesn't reflect the rationality of the layouts within. Symbols / and ? should not be on the right half, unless they are primary and Shift. How people excused these errors is poor comprehension on the reader's part and not indicative of what I imagined from them.

No flaws. Only features you personally do not care for. Flaws are things like 4 Alts, 3 Spaces, keys mapped to the Fn layer of modifier keys, etc. The only thing you seem to have found so far to dislike in that layout is that / and ? are as close as possible to their position on a standard US English keyboard. Maybe they should be shuffled leftward in that row - that is something to consider. It doesn't change the overall thematic elements - which is what we should be concerned about now. Insulting the voters comprehension isn't overly helpful. Maybe they understand quite well.

As for insulting ED, hardly. I am only annoyed we are at this point when the decision for all this should of been set in stone months ago. I am and always have been with ED 100% on whatever layout he finally, finally decides on, but that doesn't mean I won't question his reasons beforehand. I have always had fidelity for this man's work but I do not nor ever will follow someone blindly. 

So, me, the voters, ED, the others who built layouts - none of us know what we're doing and require you to lead us? No thanks.
The reality is that there are lots of good ideas. You even had several. The one you are currently championing though... Dump the 3rd shift key and pick a theme/rule for arranging the Fn layer and it could be greatly improved.

I cannot believe that anyone thinks that labelling the shift keys such that they inhabit the wrong side of the keyboard is at all sane. This is gonna get the piss ripped out of it when it comes to reviews.

D.

If we somehow wind up with a layout with 3 shift keys, two of which are direct duplicates of each other - then yes, there will be well deserved mocking laughter and much finger pointing. The same goes for 4 Alt Keys.

 

[comradekingu]

His opinion is infinately more important, because he uncovered a flaw that can't be denied.  There are many other things to a layout than ?, saber pointed out a reason it is cumbersome, and suggested rightly that it appears that this has gone unnoticed.

_wb_: Why is that any better than the pandorakeyboard for anything? All the flaws are still there, just the odd conventions have changed enough to be incompatible. And it introduces new flaws mentioned above.

 

[Grench]

Here is my attempt to start from layout 7 and rework it to take the best elements from the other proposals with many votes:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6c42d11dbc48dd6de88a0b05f20eebe0

I kind of thought we would let the poll time finish out before proposing another set, but I'm actually good with what you just put forward. It retains thematically what #7 was about and adds some efficiency in the Fn layer symbols left to right. It breaks up the order from the 'standard' keyboard, but it sounds like that is an acceptable efficiency.

The only substantive change that I would want to make to that is to:

1. Consolidate brightness controls to a single key.

2. Add a menu and Fn=hardware menu key where the 2nd brightness key was.

But hey, I think we may be onto something.

 

[Saber]

. Symbols / and ? should not be on the right half, unless they are primary and Shift. How people excused these errors is poor comprehension on the reader's part and not indicative of what I imagined from them.

This is your opinion, not a fact. You may see it as an error but going by the poll results so far not to many people share that opinion. (or maybe they do but it isn't as high a priority for them) Either way, if they don't agree with you that doesn't make their opinion any less valid than yours.


-Neelix

Strangely misguided. If the user presses the keyboard Fn/Meta key with their right thumb but the symbol they want is too far to reach with their left thumb, like ? or / in some of these proposals, they must use their same right thumb again to create the symbol. It's not efficient for one thumb to do the work that two thumbs could do if / and ? are placed correctly as they should be on the opposite half from keyboard Fn/Meta.

You should know this, and I don't understand why it is you don't yet realize not everyone uses the Shoulder buttons so we can't excuse these oversights.     

His opinion is infinately more important, because he uncovered a flaw that can't be denied.  There are many other things to a layout than ?, saber pointed out a reason it is cumbersome, and suggested rightly that it appears that this has gone unnoticed.

Exactly. My faith in humanity is restored. 

 

[Roto Prime]

Man I really wanted the keyboard to be more along the lines of this!!

 

[Grench]

. Symbols / and ? should not be on the right half, unless they are primary and Shift. How people excused these errors is poor comprehension on the reader's part and not indicative of what I imagined from them.

This is your opinion, not a fact. You may see it as an error but going by the poll results so far not to many people share that opinion. (or maybe they do but it isn't as high a priority for them) Either way, if they don't agree with you that doesn't make their opinion any less valid than yours.

-Neelix

Strangely misguided. If the user presses the keyboard Fn/Meta key with their right thumb but the symbol they want is too far to reach with their left thumb, like ? or / in some of these proposals, they must use their same right thumb again to create the symbol. It's not efficient for one thumb to do the work that two thumbs could do if / and ? are placed correctly as they should be on the opposite half from keyboard Fn/Meta.
You should know this, and I don't understand why it is you don't yet realize not everyone uses the Shoulder buttons so we can't excuse these oversights.

You insult him as misguided and then continue to harp on a single key pair that can easily be adjusted within the theme. Give it a break - we heard you. It isn't a 'big deal'.

His opinion is infinately more important, because he uncovered a flaw that can't be denied.  There are many other things to a layout than ?, saber pointed out a reason it is cumbersome, and suggested rightly that it appears that this has gone unnoticed.

Exactly. My faith in humanity is restored. 

I find it amusing that you two are suddenly, 'on the same side'. You two keep harping about the /? "flaw". _wb_ showed how easily it could be to 'fix' simply by shuffling within the overall theme.
Frankly, if that is the only thing you two can find to criticize, then the layout must be pretty darn solid.

Man I really wanted the keyboard to be more along the lines of this!!

It had me going until I saw shape of that Enter key - it's one of those that covers two rows and kicks \| elsewhere - I hate those keyboards.