Testing alternative Layouts that require single-width space. INTL layout vs Big Space, and other key

I want to test more layouts (for example INTL-layout) which require space to be single-width?


  • Total voters
    42

I have blank keys for my alphabet-keys. While i think that is better, we cant do it because its the entry-curve is a bit bumpy.

For the number keys we cant do it, because we dont have a 13-wide row there. Nor do we have an F-row.
 
If you want symmetry, then you need this layout:


Q W E R T T R E W Q
 A S D F G F D S A
  Z X C V V C X Z
Just kidding of course.

But if symmetry (i.e. æstethics) is the strongest argument for having a so-called "centered" layout, then I think the benefits are far to small compared to the losses.

@Levi: of course I was not seriously proposing to get rid of Q, Z and X. It was just a way to say that P+1 and L+2 are important, since in nearly all languages, they're mapped to letters that occur an order of magnitude more often than Q, Z and X.

And there's an other thing to consider:

There are quite important characters on the buttons according to your layout: [] for example.

Ok, people might sacrifice the pound or yen on Pandora but not the [],

Did you think of that?

If you want these keys to be remap able you should place the most unimportant keys on them.

But on main position there should be the most important keys.

If you want a special layout I think printing a new keymap is the way to go.
Yes, I did think of that. In my proposal (http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/28d2a90318ea9c944f7883cc8a5f8dd1), the P+1 and L+2 keys are \ |, / ?, and Tab.

- Backslash and pipe are completely unused in natural language text, so you can just do without and require the user to toggle back to default layout to type those (that or map them to some Pyra+number).

- Slash and question mark are used in natural language text, but relatively rarely. They can be mapped to Pyra + their original location (so the label is still right, you just have to remember you have to hold down L2).

- Similarly, Tab can move to Pyra+Tab. You lose the primary Tab key, but it's still better than on the Pandora because you can still easily do multiple Tab presses while holding down L2.

If you also need P+2 (e.g. for Russian), things become more complicated, but most languages only use number row and/or P+1 and L+2.

Another reason why if you remove AltGr, you are running into problems.
I don't want to lose Shift and Ctrl on a shoulder button though (that's a step backwards from Pandora), and I want Pyra/Meta and Alt as shoulder buttons too.

I think the best approach is to have the shoulder buttons like in my proposal. If you need AltGr, you can map RightAlt to it, which is the Alt on the shoulder button (R2). You then lose the normal Alt shoulder button, but that's a fair price to pay imo. There's still START if you need normal Alt -- it's not comfortable, but on the Pandora it was all we had.

That way people who don't need AltGr, don't have to pay the price for it (losing shoulder button Ctrl is a pretty bad thing -- I do a lot of Ctrl-{C,X,Z,Q,V,B,I,dpad,Home,End,PgUp,PgDn,Enter,-} on my Pandora (those are just the ones I need for writing my WIP book, for coding I need even more Ctrl-shortcuts), and it would be very annoying if I had to do that without R1.
 
Tab is needed in natural language, so that means it is a P+1 L+1 layout, and that is of limited use.

How are you going to explain changing a language?   It should be, change the language and these 4 things change, change back to revert.

You arent duplicating tab on shoulders, so there is a need to explain that you should map that to the second shift. To which i ask myself, why is there a left shift? One of three in total...?

I moved | to the 'F12/shift' key  to better match US layout.   Only the germans have <>| on one button, the common denominator in europe is to have <> on the 105-key. Thanks to RygD for figuring things out.

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/b9a05ebc5765180f374fef9d8f36fb9f

Okay, the plastic inlay for one key is 3x7mm big.

What I don't want is hundreds of keyboard labels on one keyboard that 99% of the users won't understand.
It easily scares away new, interested customers.

I'd rather do additional layouts if demand is there (demand = at least 500 users who demand that one keyboard layout).

The maximum labels per key is 3: One master, one with shift, one with Meta.
This is how im seeing the designated space used on the keys, feel free to reuse to share ideas. The keyboard layout-editor didnt allow for this to be present in my layout.

                        1   2   3   4   5   6  7

              1    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |

              2    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |                  

              3    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    | 

                       1  2  3  4  5  6  7

              1    |⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|

              2    |⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|

              3    |⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|

                        1  2  3  4  5  6  7

              1    |⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|

              2    |⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|

              3    |⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|⚫|

                  Shift  Regular Meta

                                         AltGr

I know this is 4, but printing 3 or 2 on every letter just seems to add more chaos, its too overwhelming for me. Not sure if i would want to do without F-keys on the printed layout if it came to it.

Ill colour and layout by hand once im sure there are no improvements to be made.

Any ideas about colours for the different sections?   If the keys alternate between black and white the regular imprint can be the opposite, while yellow isnt so good on white.

Edit: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/c9abae9abf52655bc63aec448187ce10  fixes the issue of having to print AltGR and Meta on one key, i was upset about the +1  +2 issue before, but i reccon if you can switch a layout you can use shift on shoulders.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
<edit>Though I personally would prefer it more like this layout.</edit>
Shift as Meta-Space (or Meta-anything) is a bad idea imo. How would it work? Would Meta-Space give you a sticky Shift? Then it would work, but then you better just make Left Shift sticky, eliminating the need for two keyboard shifts. If it gives you a normal Shift, then it becomes impossible to use it for Shift+Space, and also Shift+F-keys becomes impossible.

A dedicated Meta key in the main keyboard (like the Fn key on the Pandora) makes sense, but no more sense than a dedicated Ctrl or Alt key or an extra Shift key. If you write normal English text, you may need Ctrl-{C,V,X} (for copy/paste/cut) and Ctrl-{B,I} (for bold/italic) etc more frequently than the F-keys or the symbols behind Meta (the normal text symbols , . ; : ! ? ( ) are available without Meta).

Enter at L+2 instead of P+2 is not as good for remappers, because most layouts use P+1 and L+2.

Your idea to group the "unsafe" hardware toggles is a good one, but having brightness up/down behind Meta makes them a bit harder to use (although the problem is not as bad as on the Pandora, since we have Meta on a shoulder button so there is no need to press sticky Fn again for each brightness step).

What about this? http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/cf21e320cb39d58d48dd01c643debd68

To the right of POWER, there's BrDn and BrUp. Meta+BrDn toggles Bluetooth, Meta+Shift+BrDn toggles wifi, Meta+BrUp toggles 3G, and Meta+Shift+BrUp toggles HDMI.

Maybe keyboard backlight can be adjusted using Shift+BrDn/BrUp and software sound volume using Ctrl or something.

* * *

Actually, you made me think, and now I realize that there's a problem with making the Pyra button the Meta key -- it cannot be sticky and pop up a menu when pressed alone.

So it's better to make the Pyra button a Super key after all, like this:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/8c1270628f6711f09cb2672cb0d1b4fc

In my proposal, START, SELECT, and keyboard Shift and Meta are all sticky for convenience (otherwise combinations like Shift-WSXEDC and Meta-F10/F11 are impossible if you hold it like a handheld and for whatever reason don't use the shoulder buttons). Since Left Shift is sticky, there is no need for a Right Shift (but if you really want one, you can sacrifice Tab or Meta to it).

Keyboard Shift, START, SELECT, PYRA, and Meta map to Left Shift, Left Alt, Left Ctrl, Left Super, Left Meta. The shoulder buttons map to Right Shift (L1), Right Meta (L2), Right Ctrl (R1), Right Alt (R2) (or AltGr if you want). This ensures backwards compatibility with Pandora.

To the left of the POWER button, there's Compose and Menu, which map to Right Super and Menu key.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Tab is needed in natural language, so that means it is a P+1 L+1 layout, and that is of limited use.
Tab is (sometimes) needed in natural language, but it's not a big problem if you have to press Meta+Tab instead of having a primary Tab key.

I've typed 140 pages of my WIP novel on the Pandora and I don't think I ever needed Tab.
 
Tab is (sometimes) needed in natural language, but it's not a big problem if you have to press Meta+Tab instead of having a primary Tab key.

I've typed 140 pages of my WIP novel on the Pandora and I don't think I ever needed Tab.
Well many code on the pandora, and a tab key would be awesome for these on pyra :)
 
Meta+(tab) isnt that bad of an idea.  But i do think typing two letters per key to make it tidier makes things less chaotic. I like the different areas to be block-schematically different. Well divided into understandable chunks.

And i dont see two letters per key working/fitting in a 7x3 arrangement.  One big centre, with two smaller ones on the side make more sense to me.
 
Any ideas about colours for the different sections?   If the keys alternate between black and white the regular imprint can be the opposite, while yellow isnt so good on white.
As I mentioned to you before I don't like white keys, but if using them I think red green and blue are about as good as you are going to get.  If magenta or another color is bright enough and contrasts enough from the others used, is visible on the key caps, and is a color that can be used that might avoid confusion between green and blue on the same side since they are similar.  If darker keycaps are used, such as grey where you have white on your layout, yellow might be visible.  I know I told you that already, I just wanted to share it.

I don't know if I was clear in PM, but you have F11 marked as F12. 

So it's better to make the Pyra button a Super key after all
I agree.
 
Tab is (sometimes) needed in natural language, but it's not a big problem if you have to press Meta+Tab instead of having a primary Tab key.


I've typed 140 pages of my WIP novel on the Pandora and I don't think I ever needed Tab.
Well many code on the pandora, and a tab key would be awesome for these on pyra :)
Sure, which is why my proposal has Tab as a dedicated primary key. It's just if you want to remap my Tab to e.g. Ä for a German keyboard layout, you'll have to move Tab behind Meta.

Meta+(tab) isnt that bad of an idea.  But i do think typing two letters per key to make it tidier makes things less chaotic. I like the different areas to be block-schematically different. Well divided into understandable chunks.

And i dont see two letters per key working/fitting in a 7x3 arrangement.  One big centre, with two smaller ones on the side make more sense to me.
Two labels per key fit fine in 7x3:

                     1  2  3  4  5  6  7

              1    |⚫|⚫|⚫|   |⚫|⚫|⚫|

              2    |⚫|⚫|⚫|   |⚫|⚫|⚫|

              3    |⚫|⚫|⚫|   |⚫|⚫|⚫|

                    Regular      Meta/Shift

Where the regular label is slightly larger than the other one, the Meta label is in red and the Shift label just in the normal color (white I guess), and vertically the regular label is centered, the Meta label is at the bottom and the Shift label is at the top.

Are the labels really 3 by 7 mm? That seems really rectangular.
 
Are the labels really 3 by 7 mm? That seems really rectangular.
Check the pic on ED's twitter of the keymat.  The caps will be pretty rectangular.

Edit: For reference.

Btsk0ORIYAAu8CS.jpg


Edit 2: If he had them send the left side keymat samples he would have nearly a full keymat, minus the inserts.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Added an International friendly version of my layout to the other keyboard thread(link in my sig).

http://i.imgur.com/RxUg7de.png

Summary here.
Looks German-centric to me.

Tab on one of those new action buttons is not a bad idea. Insert/Delete make a more natural pair, but maybe Insert does not need a dedicated key.

Three Alt keys is a bit much for me (usually keyboards have either Right Alt or AltGr, but not both), and no shoulder button for Sym/Meta is a pity. I think you make the same mistake as comradekingu here (only he sacrifices Ctrl and you sacrifice Sym/Meta).

(you cannot have Sym+dpad for brightness adjust if Sym is on a shoulder button, maybe that's why you did it like that)

* * *

Also, I don't want to restart an old discussion, but I really think A, B, X, Y, I, II are bad names/labels for action buttons given that we also have A, B, X, Y and I keys on the keyboard. I still think Π, Ω, Δ, Χ plus two more would be a better idea. Or something else. As long as we don't have multiple buttons with the same label. On the Pandora we get away with it because ABXY is subtly engraved while the keyboard keys are clearly labeled. But on the Pyra they will probably all be labeled in the same way, with backlit letters.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
My main use for Tab on most machines is tab completion in the shell (any decent code editor should do relatively automated indentation, and I mostly use vim's >> command to indent anyway). As is I get perhaps 20% failures where I intend to press tab and end up getting space - I'm not sure why this is. I rely on the sticky Fn and press Fn then space, so perhaps Fn is already toggled on at start, or perhaps I'm not pressing Fn correctly. It's better than it used to be - when I started typing on the Pandora I got a tab rather than a space perhaps only 50% of the time, but while it's more like 80% now it still occasionally frustrates.
 
Added an International friendly version of my layout to the other keyboard thread(link in my sig).

http://i.imgur.com/RxUg7de.png

Summary here.
Not you also.

Is simply doesn't make sense to build a keyboard based on the thought that people might want to remap keys.

Make one English layout and that as good as possible.

If you put important keys on the position that's intended to be remapped

-> People would loose these important keys (and have to map them elswhere)

If you put unimportant keys on the position that's intended to be remapped

-> You waste primary position keys for unimportant stuff.

Both is pretty bad in my opinion.

Free Fn keys would be much more useful.

It's not that you have to type a painful ling combination for Fn keys.

It's simply two buttons (like shift).

And don't tell me writing a capital letter on Pandora is that hard to type.

And why I want centered keys.:

Not because of esthetic reasons.

Here symmetry would mean a single key space bar (what I don't want).

It's because I wouldn't want to type with my left thumb most of the time.

I want both thumbs to be used about the same while typing.

Wit Tab on the left and space on the right it might come close to that depending on what you do.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
OK, let's investigate.
Here is a list of letter frequencies including punctuation: http://mdickens.me/typing/letter_frequency.html

From most common to most rare, this is the order (in English, overall):

SPC e t a o i n s r h l d c u m f g p y w ENT b , . v k - " _ ' x ) ( ; 0 j 1 q = 2 : z / * ! ? $ 3 5 > { } 4 9 [ ] 8 6 7 \ + | & < % @ # ^ ` ~

Note: this does not include keys like Shift, Tab and Backspace. I couldn't find a list that includes everything.

Let's say that in my proposal, the following keys are on the left:

1 2 3 4 5   Q W E R T   A S D F G   Z X C V

and the following keys are on the right:

7 8 9 0   I O P \ ENT   J K L / Tab  M , .  SPC

(the other keys are in the middle)

In a 'centered' layout, the following keys are on the left:

1 2 3 4 5   Q W E R   A S D F  , . Z X C

and the following are on the right:

7 8 9 0   U I O P ENT   H J K L  N M SPC

In my proposal we have (for the 26 most important keys):

SPC e t a o i n s r h l d c u m f g p y w ENT b , . v k

R L L L R R M L L M R L L M R L M R M L R M R R L R

10 times Left, 10 times Right, 6 times Middle

In the 'centered' layout we have:

R L M L R R R L L R R L L R R L M R M L R M L L M R

10 times Left, 11 times Right, 5 times Middle

Not a huge difference. Of course this is just a quick estimate, feel free to improve this analysis.

I think the right thumb pretty much gets enough action in my layout proposal, with Backspace, Enter, Tab, Space, and most punctuation. It's unlikely that you'll be able to do much with just your left thumb.

I think there might be a risk of putting too many important keys to the right. If you would put , and . in their normal spot in the 'centered' layout, it would perhaps be too biased to the right.
 
If you dont divide into percentage points for the frequency of characters used, it doesn't work out quite like its supposed to.

I dont know if QWERTY is left or right biased, but I do know it sucks. And those statistics are from 10-key, with non-comparable button placement of the rest.

Distance travelled is the most important metric when you only have two thumbs to work with. Balancing out QWERTY is barking up the wrong tree, in many ways.

If we consider weight distribution to be ideal, you are still slowed down by wasting time.

Is simply doesn't make sense to build a keyboard based on the thought that people might want to remap keys.

Make one English layout and that as good as possible.
If people here means people in a more broad sense than just english people, then you are 100% wrong, half the time. An english layout looks like this:US and UK layouts A reduced english layout will never be an english layout. Furthermore, adding 2 shifts, a non-standard compose key, and a long spacebar, is the same as wasting 3 keys on what will never be a good two-thumb keyboard for anyone.

Inputting a shift on a pandora is hard, because shift is on the wrong side with respect to enter. Also on a pandora comma and dot is on the wrong side with respect to enter.

You dont have 9 other fingers, you have 1 other thumb, and that thumb is on the others side of the keyboard, shifting focus from one side to the other diverts attention.

If this type of slalom typing was effective, you could put the most used vocals on each side, with Q Z X W on the home row without efficiency going down.

What is effective is using shift on shoulders, then you are free to start a new sentence anywhere, instead of just on the other side of shift, or the button next to it.

Unnecessary movement costs time.

To explain it simply, every time you want to input a big S on the keyboard of the pandora, you have to bright your right thumb all the way over from the right side.

Why do i know this? Because your right thumb has just been on the other side of the keyboard to input enter.

The combo to start a new sentence is always  dot  enter shift. And why do i know you have to use your thumb?  Because your left thumb is occupied holding shift, and that means only one way other than using your

nose, which is the right thumb has to come all the way over. If the left thumb could magically snake its way over A to do it, it would be equivalent to the logic behind a 10-finger board.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
That's why ED wanted two shifts on the keyboard, although personally since I don't find my Pandora's keyboard at all conducive to effective finger typing, I always type handheld using my thumbs, where by forefinger can reach the left trigger, which is the most effective way of getting shift - capital S is just left trigger S (with left thumb). No reaching, no change of grip.


I guess ED's planning for the Pyra to be more accomodating to typing with it flat on a desk where you can't reach the triggers, and typing with the fingers, which is why he wanted left and right shift. Although then you have more than one finger and can chord left shift and S without too much trouble with your left hand. On most keyboards I use left shift exclusively using my thumb, although I don't know how the size of the Pyra will affect that usage.
 
Back
Top