SoC Poll - What's most important for you?

[LEOXD]

But I guess I'll just map away Q, W, Z or some other less useful keys.

Do you never make mistakes and need to ctrl+z?

 

[slaeshjag]

That's something I'd have to live with. I'd rather have an easily accessable Ä than an easily accessable Z, as I use Ä a few orders of magnitude more often.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, I'm sorry, but I can't offer Time Lord technology and put big keys into a small case :/

 

[Klumpen]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/hq22SxmgIBg?feature=oembed

 

[klapse]

The physical layout is already fixed, what we need to do is put the letters and symbols on the keymat

Aww. The dummy board layout looked as crap as the pandora one

And how would you improve that?


We put the maximum number of possible keys onto the PCB.


You can't put more keys on than you have space for - and less keys would make it even more complicated to create a better layout.


So what's it you wanted?

That's a darn shame. I wanted a keyboard with a usable amount of keys.

You managed to type that entire post without requiring extra keys. There is no way the pandora can accomodate all non english symbols. Be realistic.

 

[bzar]

^

1. You do realize he could do that only because he was writing english?
2. Not sure I recall how he feels about my idea, but I'd be ok with just an extra unmapped (so it doesn't interfere with applications' key bindings) shift to put all my non-english symbols behind. 2 buttons is not as good as one, but better than 5 or 6.

 

[slaeshjag]

The physical layout is already fixed, what we need to do is put the letters and symbols on the keymat

Aww. The dummy board layout looked as crap as the pandora one

And how would you improve that?


We put the maximum number of possible keys onto the PCB.


You can't put more keys on than you have space for - and less keys would make it even more complicated to create a better layout.


So what's it you wanted?

That's a darn shame. I wanted a keyboard with a usable amount of keys.

You managed to type that entire post without requiring extra keys. There is no way the pandora can accomodate all non english symbols. Be realistic.

FOR FSCK's SAKE...

Nobody, NOBODY asked for every darn symbol in the known universe to be on the keymap. That's a horrible way to solve it. What I and many others want, is the scancodes of those keys that would be used, to be present. That way, we can use whatever keymap we like. Who cares what the keymaps say? If we use a non-default keymap, we know where the keys are. We're talking 5 keys. 5 keys. Not 345815891712. 

ED has already said that those 5 keys won't be present. Fine.

The second best would be that those scancodes are instead reserved on a second modifier, probably fn. I don't like this solution, but it'd be usable, unlike the situation with the pandora.

 

[_wb_]

The physical layout is already fixed, what we need to do is put the letters and symbols on the keymat

Aww. The dummy board layout looked as crap as the pandora one

And how would you improve that?


We put the maximum number of possible keys onto the PCB.


You can't put more keys on than you have space for - and less keys would make it even more complicated to create a better layout.


So what's it you wanted?

That's a darn shame. I wanted a keyboard with a usable amount of keys.

You managed to type that entire post without requiring extra keys. There is no way the pandora can accomodate all non english symbols. Be realistic.

FOR FSCK's SAKE...

Nobody, NOBODY asked for every darn symbol in the known universe to be on the keymap. That's a horrible way to solve it. What I and many others want, is the scancodes of those keys that would be used, to be present. That way, we can use whatever keymap we like. Who cares what the keymaps say? If we use a non-default keymap, we know where the keys are. We're talking 5 keys. 5 keys. Not 345815891712. 

ED has already said that those 5 keys won't be present. Fine.

The second best would be that those scancodes are instead reserved on a second modifier, probably fn. I don't like this solution, but it'd be usable, unlike the situation with the pandora.

Which 5 keys do you need exactly? On a standard QWERTY keyboard, there are 8 keys to the right of the letter keys:  [ ] \ ; ' , . /   -- which ones of these do you need? Is it the same for all international layouts?

 

[bzar]

IIRC sweden has pretty much the same layout as finland:

You may notice some differences to the typical QWERTY keyboard in the key layout.

 

[slaeshjag]

The lower keys are already more or less present, aren't they?

 

[Askarus]

We're missing the Windows key.

 

[TrashyMG]

We're missing the Windows key.

I wouldn't say I've been *missing* it...

 

[Mongo]

I grabbed this from EvilDragon's FOSDEM presentation.


PLEASE NOTE!!!!


EvilDragon has always struck me as a very nice guy, and all around competent person. Please realize that none of this discussion should be considered an opportunity to make demands. It should be a discussion which is based on useful opinions which people have actual experience with. (Example: I have owned many devices including the Pandora and Zaurus so I will speak about them. On the other hand I only speak English and will stay out of the discussion about the extra keys required for some languages other than English).


Having said that I have some notes about this proposed layout...


That TAB key is awesome. The Pandora lacked this.


I love the numbers being below the controls, but it may be unavoidable to keep them up top since the fourth row could be used for modifiers, language-specific keys, and a larger space bar. The 3 rows on the Pandora were lacking.


An escape key so so would be very useful.


Why is the fn key still on the right? Most people are right handed. Right-handed people will hold the Pandora with the left primarily. The hand holding the device is the modifier-key hand. This is why being able to swap these to either side is critical. Who cares what the keys have written on them?


Any other ideas? (Based on fact, not unsubstantiated opinion)

 

[_jr_]

Unstaggering the rows would give us two more keys and splitting space would give us a third. We need another poll

 

[TrashyMG]

Unstaggering the rows would give us two more keys and splitting space would give us a third. We need another poll

I hate un-staggered keyboards with a passion.

 

[Grench]

No more polls on number of keys or placement.

We just need ED to give us a clean picture of the 'top side' of the board where the key switches are. Then we can argue for the next month and a half on where to put the ~.

 

[Mongo]

I have some small unstaggered qwerty keyboards and they are unbelievably terrible. I am not sure why it makes such a difference.

 

[Granitehead]

Then we can argue for the next month and a half on where to put the ~.

I actually don't care. If the physical layout is good I can map whatever I want wherever I want.But the physical layout is the important part. If it's bad it can make it impossible to map everything the way people want. That's why double wide or otherwise differing key sizes are bad.

 

[ghostpatch]

We're missing the Windows key.

not including the super key is really really annoying when you're using a lot of key combinations/shotcuts. The logo used for super is not important

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Hope it will be possible to change the physical layout like Askarus did.