Regional Keyboards

[Monk]

What confuses me is than in this render Shift+2 is a "^" but in that render Shift+2 die "#" which both is not EN-US. Is one of them EN-GB?


No. On a full UK/GB keyboard Shift-2 is quotation marks (") and Shift-3 is the Pound Sterling symbol (£). Having the symbols moved around looks confusing but I have been assumign that something like...

EDIT: EvilDragon just answered in the German forum: QUOTE
Man tippt ja nicht wie an einer normalen Tastatur, sondern hat das Gerät meistens in der Hand und tippt mit den Daumen.
Wenn man links Shift drückt, sind die Tasten rechts am leichtesten zu drücken, die links sind mit dem rechten Daumen schwerer zu erreichen.
Also sortieren wir die nach Häufigkeit des Gebrauchs um
[rough translation]You are not typing like you would on a regular keyboard, but mostly with your thumbs.If you type shift on the left, the keys on the right are most convenience to type, those left are uncomfortable to reach with your right thumb. So we sort the keys after frequency of usage.[/rough translation]

would be the case and that the devs are making key location decisions based on actual experience of playing with prototype hardware. Remember, most standard keyboard layouts (QWERTY, Dvorak, whatever else) are based on trying to optimise some use of a specific keyboard (whether it is to speed access up or to slow it down for reliablity or whatever). With the Pandora having a unique keyboard it kinda makes sense that it might need a unique layout to be optimal, while retaining as much familiarity as possible.

 

[PortaSoup]

I'd prefer a standard english layout myself...

 

[hedwards]

Just make it a standard English Layout without any region specific keys, and provide region specific layouts for a small adidtional cost. This way, everyone has the same keyboard to begin with, but is free to change it.

EDIT: And I say that althought I'm German...

I like the idea that's been apparently adopted, of a standard US layout with the ability to buy a replacement of another language. Perhaps even English. ;-)

I'm not sure how involved swapping layouts is going to be, but it would be great for those that are learning foreign languages to be able to switch the layout over to something else and see it on the keyboard. I'd probably leave mine in German, mainly because after the first bit I'd have the English layout memorized.

I'm assuming that we'll be able to buy them later on via CC if we need to.

 

[greendots]

The keyboard is so small cant everyone reach either side of the keyboard with their farthest thumb? It still makes more sense not to change things like how !@#$%^&*() are arranged on the number pad. The lower portion can be arranged by frequency-typed with out having as much of an impact.

As for the couple people who didn't like what I said about the mouse keys: No matter what, it has nothing to do with the printing of the keymats.

 

[Monk]

As for the couple people who didn't like what I said about the mouse keys: No matter what, it has nothing to do with the printing of the keymats.

No - it has NOTHING to do with the printing of the keymats. It has everything to do with the way the thing works.

 

[salasq]

So I would prefer a keyboard layout that is as close as possible to the EN-US-layout.

Yah, same here, it's pretty much the standard. What I'm aiming for is to have the umlauts available if needed w/o having them printed on the keys or having to swap layouts every time you want to use a different languague.

 

[WizardStan]

As for the couple people who didn't like what I said about the mouse keys: No matter what, it has nothing to do with the printing of the keymats.

Except that it does. If the triggers are made mod keys, those keys do not need to exist on the keyboard, and therefore do not get printed. However, if the triggers are designed to be LMB and RMB, the mod keys will need to be put on the keyboard and therefore printed.

 

[Patrick R Ludvigsen]

Fffff I want the one with German letters

Ah well, if it's not possible, so be it! It'll still be remappable

 

[Bronek]

Fffff I want the one with German letters

you should be able to buy one, for just few €

 

[1qwerty]

Remappable default keyboard will be just perfect for me.

 

[moxie]

If we did this, would it make you all happy? or is it ?

I will completely bypass the whole thread, since I'm sure it will be full of flames and silliness

Different regional keyboards on the production machines - no, thank you.

One completely bog standard US/EN keyboard on every machine from start (preferably with the non-alphabetic characters weighed towards symbols like {}[]$@| and so on, for programming/shell usage), and (later) a selection of swap-yourself keyboard mats and downloadable xmodmaps - Yes please.

Despite my first line, I have actually seen a few postings worrying about confusion with different keymats around. That cant really be an issue, can it? I mean, there isn't a lot of keys on this keyboard, The main glyph on each key will still be one of the ascii characters, except for a few around the edges. There can't be much to be confused about. Unless you plan to write an app with instructions like "Press the ñ key to go back, press the ð key to continue" And, even with weirdities like AZERTY, most apps will go through the os, and thus will be translated by the keymap.

But, still - If every pandora comes with a bog standard boring keymat to start off with, every coder who needs to use loads and loads of keys can code towards the standard one, and if I decide to write the next big swedish novel on my Pandora, I can just switch in the ÅÄÖ keymat and all is well.