Swappable Keyboard Layer?

[mrpalmtop]

Hello everyone. It's my first post here but I have been a pocket computer user for a very long time and as such have been following the Pandora/Pyra progress for a long time. I'm a professional editor and also a web developer and I've long loved the utility that one can achieve from pocket-sized computers that have real keyboards.

I started off with a used HP 95LX in 1995 and have been using handheld computers non-stop since then in various form factors (200LX, WinCE, Psion, Zaurus). One thing that has always bothered me about the Pandora is its keyboard. I write a lot of text on my HP Jornada 728 and as such, I like a keyboard that has 5 rows of keys with the spacebar in the middle and sufficient space for dedicated punctuation keys.

That said, I know that many, probably most, Pandora users purchased the devices for gaming because of the joysticks and d-pad on the keyboard.

Given that there appear to be very few people interested in something other than a very limited tablet or smartphone, might there be a way to achieve compromise between the two groups of people who like the Pandora?

I think there is: the swappable keyboard.

I'm not an engineer but it would seem to me if the Pyra were to have a layer on the top of the base that could be slid out, this would enable us to have more than one kind of keyboard for the device.

Wouldn't it be neat to have the ability to swap out your keyboard to have a 5-row keyboard like on your laptop or desktop directly within your pocket? And when you wanted to be able to do some hardcore gaming, you could just slide off the typing layer and slide on the gaming cover? A swappable layer could also allow someone to easily switch between different alphabet systems as well. Imagine working in Japan using your Japanese keyboard and then swapping in your Chinese one when you go to that country. Pretty cool, no?

I think it would be possible to execute this without adding too much to the production expense but I would love to hear some feedback about feasibility. I think this feature would really help the Pyra stand out and get more people to be more interested in it.

ETA: In the interest of simplicity, I would even be ok with allowing the user to choose from two different keyboard layouts when they order their Pyra. One with nubs and one without.

 

[levi]

In the Pandora and the Pyra prototype boards we've seen so far, the keyboard is part of the main board, with the analogue nubs and gaming controls on, and the CPU etc. on the other side. Having another replaceable layer on top of that would add more bulk, and the options you have for it, given you'd still want the analogue nubs for mouse emulation probably, and the gaming controls give you the arrow keys and page up/down etc., are limited.


You might be surprised how quickly you get used to an off-center space bar, and I'm a big fan of using the left trigger as a shift key, which really speeds up typing when handheld. Of course, the Pandora has it's problems when typing for a long time on it, but I'm hopeful the Pyra will use the Pandora experience to come up with a better keyboard.

 

[mrpalmtop]

Having another replaceable layer on top of that would add more bulk, and the options you have for it, given you'd still want the analogue nubs for mouse emulation probably, and the gaming controls give you the arrow keys and page up/down etc., are limited.

To be honest, I would be fine with no nub at all. I have no problem maximizing the keyboard space by relying on the touch screen and the keyboard for input. Cursor keys would be part of the keyboard and Page keys could be done via Function modifier.

 

[DrHAX]

Having another replaceable layer on top of that would add more bulk, and the options you have for it, given you'd still want the analogue nubs for mouse emulation probably, and the gaming controls give you the arrow keys and page up/down etc., are limited.

To be honest, I would be fine with no nub at all. I have no problem maximizing the keyboard space by relying on the touch screen and the keyboard for input. Cursor keys would be part of the keyboard and Page keys could be done via Function modifier.

Yes you would, but 99.8 Wouldn't. I could see maybe a keymap film and have the case pop open to swap them, but more realistically I could see different keyboard layout maps being ordered with the system then installed at the point of manufacture or sold seperately.

 

[cinaeco]

I have a Jornada 720 that I used a fair bit for mobile word processing as well.

I'm not sure how you're using the 728 but in order to use the 720 I found I mostly had to be at a table, and once there, the keyboard was good to use.

Typing on my lap was not that great because of how low down the screen would be (and there were also balancing issues).

The 720 was also too wide to do thumb-typing whilst hold it in the air.

For longer/faster typing sessions, perhaps you could grab a small usb keyboard?

The pyra will have normal usb ports, so my HHKB is going to be happy indeed

Either way, it's pretty much impossible to to resolve the touch-typing-like experience of the old handheld pcs and what the pandora/pyra are about.

 

[_wb_]

I like the dpad better than keyboard arrows and the home/end/pgup/pgdn layout of the Pandora better than the normal one on keyboards. It makes more sense, and those keys are very important for all kinds of navigation (cursor positioning in text editing, switching between tabs/windows/workspaces, etc.) so I think making them easy to reach is actually one of the features of the Pandora keyboard that in my opinion improves upon normal keyboards.

With four shoulder buttons, all of the modifier keys can be mapped to shoulder buttons. As far as I'm concerned, that means that the modifier keys on the keyboard itself do not need to be easily reachable. The bottom row of keys on a normal keyboard is essentially just for modifier keys and space. On a normal keyboard, the center is easiest to reach since that's where your hands are, and in particular your thumbs are resting on the space bar in their base position. On a handheld/thumb keyboard, the edges are actually easier to reach than the center.

All of this is of course assuming you use the device as a handheld, i.e. you don't put it on a table and try to touch type with your fingers on it. Space does not really allow for real finger typing anyway in my opinion, although I know that some people attempt to do that, e.g. with 6 fingers. I don't mind giving some consideration to that use case, but I think we should optimize for handheld thumb typing.

 

[WizardStan]

To be honest, I would be fine with no nub at all.

Well that's a first, I think. Usually people come along telling us we should ditch the keyboard to save space and money. I don't have a "you should look at this instead" response for someone who doesn't care about the nubs, I'll have to do some research.

 

[Ziz]

How about swappable button layouts?

"Today I play with... greek letters!"

*hide and run*

Or if you don't like the greek case, just swap it. Got it? Greek case! Because they are made in Greece!

 

[mrpalmtop]

I like the dpad better than keyboard arrows and the home/end/pgup/pgdn layout of the Pandora better than the normal one on keyboards. It makes more sense, and those keys are very important for all kinds of navigation (cursor positioning in text editing, switching between tabs/windows/workspaces, etc.) so I think making them easy to reach is actually one of the features of the Pandora keyboard that in my opinion improves upon normal keyboards.


With four shoulder buttons, all of the modifier keys can be mapped to shoulder buttons. As far as I'm concerned, that means that the modifier keys on the keyboard itself do not need to be easily reachable. The bottom row of keys on a normal keyboard is essentially just for modifier keys and space. On a normal keyboard, the center is easiest to reach since that's where your hands are, and in particular your thumbs are resting on the space bar in their base position. On a handheld/thumb keyboard, the edges are actually easier to reach than the center.

I do like that the gaming controls have been put o good use a typing setting but still, the Pandora has an insufficient number of punctuation keys for fast typing.

All of this is of course assuming you use the device as a handheld, i.e. you don't put it on a table and try to touch type with your fingers on it. Space does not really allow for real finger typing anyway in my opinion, although I know that some people attempt to do that, e.g. with 6 fingers. I don't mind giving some consideration to that use case, but I think we should optimize for handheld thumb typing.

Actually, a more traditional keyboard layout and no gaming controls would work well for handheld use given the width of the Pandora. I don't think it needs to be any wider to enable touch and handheld typing. I have an HP 200LX and those can be used either way quite nicely and they have smaller keys than the Pandora.

 

[mrpalmtop]

I have a Jornada 720 that I used a fair bit for mobile word processing as well. I'm not sure how you're using the 728 but in order to use the 720 I found I mostly had to be at a table, and once there, the keyboard was good to use. Typing on my lap was not that great because of how low down the screen would be (and there were also balancing issues). The 720 was also too wide to do thumb-typing whilst hold it in the air. For longer/faster typing sessions, perhaps you could grab a small usb keyboard? The pyra will have normal usb ports, so my HHKB is going to be happy indeed Either way, it's pretty much impossible to to resolve the touch-typing-like experience of the old handheld pcs and what the pandora/pyra are about.

I don't think the Pyra needs to be bigger at all. With the swappable (or maybe just user specified at order time) keyboard this would be far more portable than having to lug around a keyboard. That is just like having to do that with a smartphone and Bluetooth keyboard. I like the idea of everything in one unit.

I can type 60-70 wpm on a 200LX or a Jornada. Given the lack of punctuation keys is that really possible on a Pandora keyboard?

Side note: for handheld use on my J728, I use one hand to type. It's not as fast but I can do pretty well with one hand. Same with the 200LX.

 

[DrHAX]

I bought my Pandora specifically to write on. I still need to memorize the keyboard layouts FN features but its working perfectly for me 25 pages of novels latter. Honestly I hope the pyra has the same layout maybe tweaked slightly. Overall the Pandora was worth every penny I paid for it.

Sent from my Z665C using Tapatalk

 

[mrpalmtop]

I bought my Pandora specifically to write on. I still need to memorize the keyboard layouts FN features but its working perfectly for me 25 pages of novels latter. Honestly I hope the pyra has the same layout maybe tweaked slightly. Overall the Pandora was worth every penny I paid for it. Sent from my Z665C using Tapatalk

How fast can you type on your Pandora, DrHAX? Do you find punctuation could be better?

 

[DrHAX]

I bought my Pandora specifically to write on. I still need to memorize the keyboard layouts FN features but its working perfectly for me 25 pages of novels latter. Honestly I hope the pyra has the same layout maybe tweaked slightly. Overall the Pandora was worth every penny I paid for it. Sent from my Z665C using Tapatalk

How fast can you type on your Pandora, DrHAX? Do you find punctuation could be better?

fast enough for me write the way I normally do. Its just FN functions are annoying. I hope with the pyra one of the shoulder buttons is mapped as FN in the is or have them be bindable in the os. If the FN key was by the P it'd be alot easier for me to use.

Sent from my Z665C using Tapatalk

 

[Georgius]

Greetings from Czech Republic. I am a HP 200 LX user as well as N900 user and Pyra project would be of interest for me if it has better keyboard. First, on HP 200 LX I am able to type about 350 bpm (words are not really comparable) including diacritics. I am not able to do this on N900 for two reasons: quite bad keyboard response and few keys (see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Qwertz_cz.svg ). I would happily sacrifice the gaming controls if I had 5-row (or even 6-row with Esc-F12 ) keyboard. Czech uses lot of "strange" characters - czech equivalent for "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" (all US-characters) is "Příliš žluťoučký kůň úpěl ďábelské kódy". There are three possible ways how to type this:

a. "smart guess" - uses Android and mac, bit annoying - you type kun and it is automatically changed to kůň. There are obviously words with several alternatives (eg. "pece" can be really pece (owen) or péče (care) )

b. dead key system - ˇ+c = č. The problem is that you need enough dead keys (2 for Cz only, 3 for combination with german umlaut) and that this decreases typing speed

c. enough keys - you have top row with ěščřžýáíé keys + two dead keys for the rest, on the right from p you have "ú" and on the right from l there is ů.

Solution c is the best. I do not insist on swappable keyboard, I would be happy with built-in one, but with enough letters. Ideal state would be standard 101-key keyboard (can be without the number pad ;-) ).

 

[ZetaNeta]

I like to edit configs till my face goes green, my eyes pop out, my fingers evolve to have a HID interface and my beard catches fire.
Keyboard is my brain-computer interface, and it should have no bottlenecks.

 

[hmc]

Also for me, the keyboard is essential and in my opinion it should be optimized as good as possible.

When I first saw the Pandora, I thought I would prefer one without gaming controls, because the gaming controls make the device look so much like a gaming device But I wanted to use the Pandora for work.

However, in the meantime I changed my mind about that: The gaming controls are excellent controllers for the cursor (DPad, ABXY buttons) and the mouse pointer (nubs). And, as _wb_ said, they make more sense than the corresponding keys on laptop keyboards. On each new laptop I try to use, I first have to look for the position of those arrow / home / end / pgup/pgdn keys and have difficulties  remembering their position. On the Pandora, it's almost intuitive. Very easy to learn and memorize, at least.

For my taste, the gaming controls could be smaller and make more room for larger keys. But the Pandora _is_ a gaming device mainly, so I realize that I don't have a realistic chance with such a suggestion. ;-)

Daniel

 

[mrpalmtop]

Why not make the nubs a little smaller and have an extra row of keys? Seems like a good idea to me, Daniel.

 

[levi]

Hmm, the Pyra prototype's already got an extra row of keys versus the Pandora (kind of - Pandora's 3 row plus numbers awkwardly over the nubs - Pyra's looking like 4 row including numbers plus some extra keys above the nubs for hardware switches). Add even more keys and you end up having to shrink the keys, and IMO the keys are pretty small as is.


Granted, languages like Czech are tricky. At the moment it looks like the most popular solution for diacritics is a compose key (like the Pandora, but possibly a dedicated key this time round), which hopefully is fine for 90% of the people who need the odd accented character, but less than ideal if 75% of the characters you want to type have diacritics. I guess you can always redefine the keymap (though exactly how you do that I don't know at this time), or plug in the appropriate USB keyboard for when you want to type in your native tongue.


Edit: It's interesting reading this thread advocating shrinking the gaming controls with the other thread with people looking for more space for extra gaming buttons in an adjacent tab.

 

[ZetaNeta]

/me used still tries to make the best keyboard layout for a PS3 joystick.
 

 

[xiongxioi]

I will just lose it at some point. The less movable parts the better.