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?


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Rereading what I said, It can seem brash.  That wasn't my intention.  I merely meant I was thinking the same way, and thought it might help with certain marking along the top and sides of keyboard, but I thought the added cost was not worth it.  If shoulder buttons will have designated non-gaming functions by default it might be worth having them labeled.  The same for the face buttons, but I think that would mean labeling the case.  I don't know what would be considered too much or too little labeling.  At least some HP palmtops have tons of stuff labeled.

I stand by RTFM if you don't know how to input certain things, though.
There's complex and then there is complicated. Some things shouldn't require research to figure out if there's simpler ways to do them. Imagine if the on/off button was labeled with a flashy mushroom cloud or a lightning bolt instead of the word "Power". On the other hand, labeling what is traditionally unlabeled and for the most part an out of sight feature is excessive and likely impractical.
 
Imagine if the on/off button was labeled with a flashy mushroom cloud
:D

I don't know if you were agreeing with me or saying something else.  I was imagining that if the ABXY and shoulder buttons are more complicated than what the Pandora has it might help to label them, however even if there are no labels it should be in the manual.  Modifier keys are pretty important.
 
I updated the full keyboard propsal in  firstpost.

Without the speech-bubble, the flag will have to do. It is far from evident what it does though.   Use meta+flag to invoke language prompt again (if you are using a layout that uses all +4)

If someone could upload a picture and post the url  with that and something like http://codepoints.net/U+2A2E for meta and http://codepoints.net/U+2A2D for f-row that would be great.

Edit: it is always the fault of the keyboard design, never the user. We want to keep the manual as small as possible, and it really isn't our manual to begin with, it is and should be as much of the standard convention as possible.
 

codepoints.net/U+1F525 in the disco.
 
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I updated the full keyboard propsal in  firstpost.

Without the speechbubble, the flag will have to do. It is far from evident what it does though.   Use meta+flag to invoke language prompt again (if you are using a layout that uses all +4)
I like the deformed (possibly winking) smiley next to the enter key, and the knocked out looking face next to the flag.  Also, the two 3-eyed faces on their backs next to the smiley on the bottom row.  

Maybe I need sleep.
 
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Removed the three currency symbols, put a universal currency symbol on "X" instead (to be localized in software, or just kept as is).
 You cant have an Wild X there. Booth are absolutely needed as $ is vital for codes.
Of course there is $ at Shift+4. I was talking about euro, pound, yen.

I surely don't want a keyboard I can't understand when I'm looking at it but just see tons of o''s with dots...
If you don't understand diacritics, then you don't need them so you can safely just ignore them.

If you want to keep it simple, that's fine too, but then also don't put the Eszett and umlauted vowels on it, because a typical American will also not understand it.

(and it should not look like o's with dots, but like grey filled circles with dots)

I'm fine with a simple labeling without any meta-labels on the letter keys. You force everyone to spend some effort to remap it, and to remember the remapped keys, but that's OK since they will probably remap it to something that makes a lot of sense to them. Even by putting the F-key labels somewhere, you're making it look more intimidating and making a choice that could also be left to the user: are they on the number row or on the QWER row? Both make sense, and some people will e.g. want to remap meta+E to é, while others will want to remap 2 to é (and move the number 2 to meta+2). One could argue: why make the choice for them? Why put the F-key labels anywhere on the keymat? Just have the basic symbols needed to type English sentences on the labels, let the rest be chosen and remembered by the user.

At the other end of the spectrum in the trade-off between looking non-intimidating and being useful, there's my proposal, which works for all European languages without remapping, but looks intimidating because there are lots of meta-dots.

I think labels are useful to help remember where things are, and a default layout should work reasonably well for as many people as possible.

But one could also say (although I would disagree, but it's a valid position to take) that labels are useful to make the keyboard look nice and user-friendly, and a default layout should work well for English and maybe for German but any other language user just has to remap and remember, or hope their language is big enough for a custom keymat.

I'll try to come up with a middle ground layout to make a compromise between those two.
 
I've been looking at the purposed layout, and I have to say that I really don't like either the full or the almost full proposals as they currently are. I don't think that modifier keys like meta and altgr should be on the shoulder buttons or any other gaming button. If this happens, games won't both be able to use any of the characters accessed by the modifier keys and the modifier keys themselves as input. The top row of buttons for toggling various things are not very useful (other than the power button). All of them could just as well be done in software, like the Pandora. If the top row of keys are reassigned to something more useful, I see no reason we would need to shorten the spacebar to fit another key.

However, I have an idea of how to fit a lot non-english keys on the keyboard while closely adhering to the pandora's original layout. If we stick in another modifier key like AltGr but with a different color (for example, yellow), we could stick on the diacritic (things like umlauts or accent marks) in that color to the appropriate letter. For example, for a German layout the U key on the keyboard would have a white U on it, but with a yellow umlaut above it (so that it can be read as either u or ü), and pressing the other modifier key before pressing U would yield ü instead.
 
Update:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/e0bda24f02c7ba340bd60d524f0582c8


Changed positions of Tab, Shift, Enter.


Reduced number of Meta labels per key: now only one with some exceptions for rare variants/alternatives of diacritics: circumflex and inverted breve, hacek and breve, cedilla and comma, umlaut and hungarian double acute, and grave and ring (both of which are typically used on "a" so makes sense to put them there).


Removed dedicated umlauted vowels, the Germans can use the two-thumb combo, remap [ ] ;, or get a custom QWERTZ keymap. Kept the Eszett (ß) though.


Removed the three currency symbols, put a universal currency symbol on "X" instead (to be localized in software, or just kept as is).


Removed Æ and Œ since for most people they are rare enough so the easy-to-remember Compose-A-E and Compose-O-E combos are good enough for them, and the relevant Scandinavians will probably want to remap a dedicated key to Æ (e.g. the ";" or "]" key).
Took another jab at my own layout(full write-up in that other keyboard thread in my sig):

http://i.imgur.com/56lZhsa.png

Quite fond of the Compose key option and although it's letters are not off centered like some of the layouts here, it gets the job done without sacrificing much of anything. :)

What _wb_ did with his keyboard is exactly what I don't want.

The letters should be centered.

The old oner was so much better.

For me Saber's layout is the way to go now.

Even if I'd prefer the old wider space key.

Do we really need a comp key?

But overall, this looks really good.

:) .
 
@Askarus: I see your point about centered letters, but that implies you can't have P+2 and L+2, which is essential for many remappers (e.g. if you want to put the Ü Ö Ä of a German keyboard in their standard location). I don't think an offset of one key is a big problem for ergonomy, so the only real disadvantage of having centered letters is that Tab can be at its normal location (left of Q).

Here is my latest, quite new proposal. I like it a lot:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/9b4da3a33d15eaef3ddbc74e58393a78

Features:

- Simplicity: only two labels per key, for all keys.

- Great for coding / command line stuff: dedicated primary Tab key, / key and | key (!)

- Left and right shift key, so three shift keys in total if you include the shoulder button.

- The two keys to the left of POWER are two user-definable "menu" keys. The ones to the right of POWER set brightness, and the Meta versions of that top row are the hardware toggles (no primary toggles to avoid accidental presses).

- For remappers P+2 and L+2 are readily available (e.g. to put Ü Ö Ä ß there, or Æ Å etc): if you move F11 and F12 elsewhere, you can just remap their primary functions to what you want, and put the original P+2 and L+2 functions behind Meta (you probably want to put Enter at right shift though)

- Compose key is at Meta-RShift; at first I thought a dedicated compose key would be better, but then I realized that most compose commands are for diacritics with ` ' " (or maybe - and ~), which means you can just hold down L2 for the first two thumb presses, e.g. L2+(RShift F) U to get ü.
 
Wb: with a full keyboard, you can safely avoid any non-standard way of typing diactrics.  While i do appreciate the 2-label effort, it just gets so much worse when it means the rest of the keyboard has to be filled with non-standard punctuation. We dont have to do that now, as was done on the pandora, because this time there are enough keys.  Hacking in stuff at such a basic level makes it look like there are far fewer keys than is actually the case.

Orz: Games can capture all xinput if they want and make their own decisions if they so please. On the other hand (heh) having altGR and other things on shoulders make a lot of sense. Moreso than not being able to type € in a game, actually the opposite is true by default, but lets say it isnt. Is it a typing game that needs shoulder buttons, im not seeing the issue fully. Not being able to alt+tab out of a game is an issue.  But i would rather duplicate them on start select and pyrabutton as wb does, rather than have to take typing keys to do it.  Because even if you do so you run out before you can fit it all in. Because this is 64, and not 105.

The top row of toggles is very useful, because its a functionally easy way to do it, and it saves battery. Reason to shorten the spacebar to space is because it isn't centered in the middle of the keyboard, so bar is just to be recognisable, you could say the same about enter. It provides an extra key.  Getting 105 down to 64 cant be done while not making any compromises, also the visual nature of having an unsymmetrical key is debatable. But compared to other options, space not being a bar is an easy choice, and a logical one.

A german ü belongs on ü for germans, and not on the visual keyboardlayout of for example english people. My layout fixes that, same reason what i said to wb is true: A full keyboard means full input for international users, and standard input for English and american ones.  We aren't trying to only almost fix german for germans, we have to take into account everyone else too.

Askarus: No, "we" dont need a compose key, again because if there is a full keyboard, the people that need a compose-key, have a compose key. In the standard spot for them, rather than in a nonstandard spot for everyone.  I dont know if you mean centering the key print on the key. But if you mean sabers layout is centered, then you are misguided. It is only centered on a 64 key board, which is the arbitration to a 105-key that we are trying to get away from. With respect to a full keyboard, it is all off-center by one key, and it puts a full keyboard not only on enter, but outside of the layout.

Everyone:  Shifting (heh) motorical attention from right (enter)   to left ( , and .) for _every sentence_ is failing at keyboard basics. You are adding grave insult to injury when you cant even comma and space on the same side.

Having shift on the left at all, is either a waste of a key, or slightly the same thing. Because enter is to the right, and shift begins with the left. On a 10-finger keyboard you can shift with left and start typing half the letters with the same hand. On a 2 thumb keyboard, it works if the first letter is A.  Therefore, since this is a mobile keyboard:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/75806621ed1163cfbe82bf1ffed3b668

shift upwards to capitalize does make sense if you think about it.  Similarly the most oft-used combo is now a triangle, that helps the heatmap. (breakdown of frequency things are used/ and (unnecessary) movement)

it is a semi 3+ layout, but not a hard limit, so its semi-4+  Enter and shift could be swapped to make it a +3 only but hacks required +4.  But then again you would need shift on shoulders with 4

Or make tab shift, but then you are failing at making an effective keyboard.        "comma-space"       "dot-enter-shift"    These are the combos you do _all_ the time.  (An alternative is auto-capitalizing after a sentence, to that i say no,nononon no-no-no no, but it sounds like it works. Software we use isnt made that way, and there are times where one doesnt want that)
 
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@Askarus: I see your point about centered letters, but that implies you can't have P+2 and L+2, which is essential for many remappers (e.g. if you want to put the Ü Ö Ä of a German keyboard in their standard location).
 
This is important, not only for German.
 
Update:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/e0bda24f02c7ba340bd60d524f0582c8


Changed positions of Tab, Shift, Enter.


Reduced number of Meta labels per key: now only one with some exceptions for rare variants/alternatives of diacritics: circumflex and inverted breve, hacek and breve, cedilla and comma, umlaut and hungarian double acute, and grave and ring (both of which are typically used on "a" so makes sense to put them there).


Removed dedicated umlauted vowels, the Germans can use the two-thumb combo, remap [ ] ;, or get a custom QWERTZ keymap. Kept the Eszett (ß) though.


Removed the three currency symbols, put a universal currency symbol on "X" instead (to be localized in software, or just kept as is).


Removed Æ and Œ since for most people they are rare enough so the easy-to-remember Compose-A-E and Compose-O-E combos are good enough for them, and the relevant Scandinavians will probably want to remap a dedicated key to Æ (e.g. the ";" or "]" key).
Took another jab at my own layout(full write-up in that other keyboard thread in my sig):

http://i.imgur.com/56lZhsa.png

Quite fond of the Compose key option and although it's letters are not off centered like some of the layouts here, it gets the job done without sacrificing much of anything. :)

What _wb_ did with his keyboard is exactly what I don't want.

The letters should be centered.

The old oner was so much better.

For me Saber's layout is the way to go now.

Even if I'd prefer the old wider space key.

Do we really need a comp key?

But overall, this looks really good.

:) .
Thanks. :wub:

I'd lean either way on the one or two key length Spacebar. The palpable advantage is a rare opportunity to add an extra key which seems the popular route, but I'd be okay if Compose was a dedicated key or not(I'm German but I could live with both decisions).
 
You shouldn't have the game buttons change functionality with altgr/sym. That's my only criticism.
Not sure if you're directing it at my layout or the others, but if there was a Sym/Meta/Alt layer on the action buttons XYAB what negative impact would it bring in or out of a game that I'm missing? If it turns out to be a detriment, we could relegate(hide) Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break to:

Sym then Shift + number 1 for Print Screen

Sym then Shift + number 2 for Scroll Lock

Sym then Shift + number 3 for Pause/Break

.
 
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Assuming sym and altgr will have the same effect, broken games that use the keyboard interface to register gamebutton presses, would not be able to register BXY buttons while alt gr is pressed.
 
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Assuming sym and altgr will have the same effect, broken games that use the keyboard interface to register gamebutton presses, would not be able to register BXY buttons while alt gr is pressed.
Oh I see now what you meant but I'd assume Sym would be the software equivalent of a Fn type key, which is entirely different from Alt/AltGr.
 
ED has stated there will be no fn key. Only a software modifier like alt gr.
True.

To err on the side of caution I moved Print Screen and the rest in my layout.
 
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Wb: with a full keyboard, you can safely avoid any non-standard way of typing diactrics.  While i do appreciate the 2-label effort, it just gets so much worse when it means the rest of the keyboard has to be filled with non-standard punctuation. We dont have to do that now, as was done on the pandora, because this time there are enough keys.  Hacking in stuff at such a basic level makes it look like there are far fewer keys than is actually the case.
Alas we don't have a completely full keyboard, just two more keys than on the Pandora (or three more with a single-width space).
Punctuation in the meta keys is unavoidable, but we can choose which meta keys. Your proposal uses meta + space 9 0 , . and lacks Esc, tilde, backtick, underscore, plus, minus, and equals, while I use the ASD row and have all standard ASCII punctuation symbols.

You really cannot just omit Esc ~ ` _ + - = to make it look better.
 
Escape is meta+backspace. Delete is altGR+backspace

AltGR+abxyup is plus

AltGR+abxydown is minus or dash if you will. (this is horrible, but there just isnt 4 keys to the right of M, i suppose - and + is more important than ' and ''     ' is very common in english for conjugations)

shift+AltGR+abxydown is underscore

AltGr+0 is  equals, this should be shift, but it conflicts with US layout, and we lack the buttons to the right of 0

I suppose if you select english layout you get backtick, what is backtick used for?

Tilde i dont know why is needed pandora didnt have it either.

The thing is, the numbers row is pretty much complete, and it differs between layouts, most prominently US and UK which is largely the same, and german.  

shift+2 is " in german  shift+5 is %  shift+7 is / and then its shift+8 (      shift+9 is )  shift 0 is =          So none of that makes any sense, except for they have a dedicated compose, and thus, dont need ^ on 6.

To make it easier for everyone i think forcing US layout here makes sense.
 
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I suppose if you select english layout you get backtick, what is backtick used for?Tilde i dont know why is needed pandora didnt have it either.
Backtick as mentioned before, is used in several programming languages.Tilde is used in text and math and is bound to shift+4 on the Pandora.
 
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