Pandora Keyboard Layout

[greendots]

It is very important! I hope when it comes time that all 3 or 4 threads on this subject will be picked through (again?) by the dev team.

I would still like to see layout that is something close to normal qwerty-us keyboard.

Greendots':
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?s=&am...st&p=640451
Cosurgi's:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?s=&am...st&p=641110
Kagato's:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?s=&am...st&p=640601

Maybe I'll try another mapping just for fun.

 

[cosurgi]

Thanks greendots for those links! How do you think - maybe I should edit the opening post and add those layouts there (not a part of voting - only for quick reference for dev team)?

There's a limit of 6 images per post, it means that I would need to remove something though... Or I could make a single picture with several layouts on it!

 

[paddy]

looks sound to me ,tho i do hope theres an option to switch the mouse
scroll - move ,as i am a lefty and will completly hate it if i need to move the mouse cursor with the right anolog.

so please please please ,give that option to all us lefties.

 

[Alpha2]

why cant we just have a setup mode? then we can determin where we want certain keys, granted some key indications have to be on the main board. but others like dollar, pound and euro signs could be switched between in the OS for which ever region is using it. Period and comma should be easy to access. Put the switcher for that in the shoulder buttons rather than on the keyboard that makes it easier to type and still hit your punctuation without having to hit two extra keys in awkward postitions. remember we're going to be doing everything on this thing with our thumbs and pointer fingers.

Again this is stuff that could be editable in the OS.

 

[cosurgi]

Again this is stuff that could be editable in the OS.

T'was said 1000 times. Lets rephrase that 1001th time: of course you can remap everything. Mouse actions and buttons. Just use "xmodmap" or change xorg.conf. All this thread was about what will be printed on the keys

With editing opening post (to add those pictures linked by greendots above) I prefer to wait until more people will say that it's a good idea. Because I'm still not sure.

 

[greendots]

This layout is more of a combination of all three layouts. Media buttons where removed because they can be accessed through a keyboard shortcut easy enough. Ideally, LMB and RMB will be on shoulder's while in environments where a mouse is used. MMB can easily be emulated with both at the same time. Compose and AltGr on the game pad buttons on so that only one keypress is required. F11, F12, and Insert are mapped to make them easier to locate.

This layout should be easier for other languages. For those of us who don't use the other currency symbols and the Gr keys, they can be easily mapped to launch a web browser, control music and movies, launch email, launch RSS agg., or a favorite game/ emulator.

optional stuff-
Start button could be equivalent to the enter key? Select key could be same as arrow key? (both for menu navigation)

---------------------
@Cosurgi: It might help just to link those posts rather then add pictures. It would give the poster a chance to explain their reasoning.

 

[cosurgi]

@cosurgi: It might help just to link those posts rather then add pictures. It would give the poster a chance to explain their reasoning.

OK, but I changed the order. Hope you don't mind

 

[Skofo]

I don't understand what sane person would pick the Cosurgi layout over Kagato or greendots. Do you people really use Ctrl and Alt more than periods and commas? If so, wouldn't using the shoulder buttons for Ctrl and Alt be easier and faster? In Cosurgi, if you wanted to press another letter on the left side with Ctrl or Alt you'd have to set the thing down or hold it in one hand unless you have insanely long thumbs.

What are you people thinking? I honestly want to know the advantages of Cosurgi other than the analogs used for the mouse, which could probably be assigned to use both ways.

 

[MentalFS]

What are you people thinking? I honestly want to know the advantages of Cosurgi other than the analogs used for the mouse, which could probably be assigned to use both ways.

In the end I voted for Cosurgi's Layout because of 3 reasons:

1. I think it's far better to have mouse control on the shoulder buttons. The touchscreen is fine and good but not always the best. When using both, keyboard and mouse, you would have to pull out the pencil for a single click, put it back in, write something, and so forth. Also, while on the go, I personally would rather like not to use a pencil (it feels kind of unsafe to me).
2. Ctrl and Alt (and Compose and AltGr) are important buttons. If they are put on the shoulders, they are "hidden". A new user would have to ask or look up where those buttons are. I think it would be far more user-friendly to have them somewhere labelled, to keep the Pandora a bit less of an insider-only device.
3. I think we should settle for ASCII as the lowest common denominator for characters. Cosurgi left out the currency symbols, except of course $, which is ASCII. Also, I think if we start using non-ASCII chars, there are far more important ones than currency symbols.

 

[Olexxy]

On "temp?" forum thread:

Hi guys,

My attempt at defining the perfect layout for me and hopefully others

- Main concern for me was to have all the control keys accessible (ctrl, alt, shift, tab), and cater for key combinations like Ctrl+shift etc.
-- I hope to be able to use my pandora for office apps like OOo, and I would love to keep default shortcuts as much as possible. Also, in current proposed layouts I don't see how you can do Ctrl+F4 for instance as F4 is mapped to a shift key, so key combination shortcuts like Ctrl+shift can be useful.
-- Also like most here I guess I want easy access to "," and ".", therefore I mapped them to A and X on the right pad
-- Menu key is the same as the windows key (is it useful on linux ? I guess it is.. on WinXP I use that often to launch the explorer Win+E or show desktop Win+D, etc)

- 2 sticky keys : Fn and Fn2, to allow selection of all usual special characters (on UK keyboard anyway). They are accessible via the Shift key.
-- These can be locked to give access to the corresponding keyboard subset. In case we want to perform special keys combinations as well, that means Ctrl, Shift and Alt need to be available all the time (with/without Fn/Fn2), and that's why I put key combination like Ctrl+Shift on other keys
-- Assumption : if one sticky key is locked, pressing the other sticky key will temporary switch to this sticky only for the next pressed key (or combination of 2 keys), pressing the same sticky once temporary disable it, and pressing twice disable it.

- Mouse wheel on right analog to help scroll easily in firefox for large web pages, or in spreadsheets, etc. I kept a Desktop scroll option (if shift is pushed) as per cosurgi layout, but not sure what this is.. in case the desktop area expand beyond the screen resolution I guess (but personnaly I won't do this I think, hopefully 800x480 should be enough), or maybe emulate the Scroll Lock key action ?

- Mouse cursor on left analog to allow simultaneous use of a mouse button (mapped on A and Y) ; this should allow all mouvements / drag and drop etc, without the need of a stylus (to preserve the touchscreen from daily routine operation in a windowed environment)

What do you guys think of this ?

Question to the pandora team: will it be possible to easily and completely redefine the keyboard keys as we wish (for instance to do what I pictured above) ? Like a nice keyboard layout screen on which we have the possibility to redefine everything, and then save it as a keyboard layout that can replace the default one during boot ? And maybe even a template print of all the keys, filled with the settings as defined in this configuration software, to easily print the right sized keys and symbols that we could then stick on the keys.. ?

 

[kloplop321]

just my opinion, but I really don't care how labeled it is or not after I learn the layout, I mean when playing games, do people look down at the A button or the black button or the right shoulder button each time they press it? I would not think so and near same with keyboards, however I am not sure about the pandora's since it is more like a thumb keypad

 

[absolofdoom]

Wouldn't it be a better idea to just include some sort of permanent stickers with the pandora, then leave the bottom-left buttons unlabeled, so that you can just choose whether you want "." and "," or "ctrl" and "alt" ? Then both parties get what they want, without having two keyboard versions, or changing the layout in software and having an incorrectly labeled keyboard.

EDIT: This of course would depend on there being a type of sticker that would work for this purpose.

 

[yosh64]

hey

I just noticed something, I think the A and B buttons should be switched, to be like on the Nintendo . I mean, to me (who likes Nintendo games and such, hehe) it seems odd to have the cancel button to the right and accept to the left.

Hmm, I'm guessing this has been talked about before.

cyas

 

[emip]

I can cope with any layout printed onto the keyboard so long as the software allows comprehensive rebinding

I'd particularly like the mouse-move analog nub to be on the opposite side to the mouse click buttons, but the ability to change this in software would obviously be most desirable.

 

[Striker21]

Most of the designs are fine for me except for one detail that is missing in every one of them.... A shift key on the right.

Most of the current designs make the typing of a question mark very round-about. I'm used to the shift and question mark being next to each other so you can just roll off of them.

I'm sure it's far too late to consider a new layout anyway.

 

[grasshoppir]

cant copy/paste with cosurgi
cant use bash (that command line thing) with cosurgi

remember you only got your thumbs to type with!

vote Katago! go go go

 

[Olexxy]

I wouldn't put any application-specific functions (browser navigation, playback controls) on the Fn-mapping for the keys.
Aside from only being useful to a limited selection of software, when you're running those programs you won't want to have to press a Fn combination to get to them -- they should be 'first class' controls for that app. ABXY should be the first choice for application control.

But that's why you can lock Fn or Fn2 as explained in the notes, to keep these keys available all the time while you're running the dedicated application.. Anyway because I had already mapped all the keys of my standard UK keyboard the way I wanted, and as there was spare top keys for Fn, I "filled in" with these app specific keys as they become popular on recent keyboards, but it can be replaced by any more useful/international symbols if people have sugestions.. (being french myself I would select things like é à è ç etc, but not sure people would like this ^^)

If not, I still think that the tri-color design above with numeric mapping into the keypad (for calculator use) rocks.

Bit of a problem, there... There is no zero in orange on the keyboard, as far as I can see. If you lock Fn2 to use a calculator, you need to unlock to enter '0'? :huh: That should make for lots of inconvenient key presses, or some interesting approximations. :twisted:

beljam

Well, removing the ß for instance, I've added the missing 0, see below

Also to complete my previous post concerning app specific keys, as we should be able to do multitasking on the pandora, I now remember I also had in mind that for instance one could have a media player in the background while working on office files / chatting on irc / playing a game without great background music etc; having these keys accessible could help having a basic control on a background app, avoiding having to swap between the media player and whatever you are doing in parallel.. But maybe that's not really important, I don't know..

 

[grasshoppir]

wont be any good multitasking or irssi with that layout, alt ctrl are used in combination with other keys.

stop typing things into the internet

 

[Username]

Nice to see that the boards are back and you guys are at it again . By the way, I vouch for Cosurgi's layout.

 

[Olexxy]

@grasshoppir
Sorry I don't understand both of your posts ; for instance what is preventing you from doing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V with cosurgi's layout ? And do you think it's going to be easier with the Ctrl key on a shoulder button ?

I understand from my search on this topic that we are allowed up to 2 keys pressed at the same time, so what's wrong ? (and if you want to use only your thumbs, you can reach the left keys with your right thumb, as you say, the pandora is small)

Edit: Also in your 2nd post you mention Ctrl Alt, I think I just understood what you meant, eg using Ctrl+Alt+x ?
But there is AltGr available in the layout, which at least under windows is equivalent to Ctrl+Alt; is it not the case in linux or your prefered editor/bash ?