The big Pyra keyboard poll

[_wb_]

Slightly changed the look of some things:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6b65c9ff5d4e145d7b4de55d5b368891

The action buttons now have the symbols more prominently than the letters. If it's done like that, I can live better with it: you get the letters for backwards compatibility with the Pandora, but the "main" label is the symbol so it is unique and different from the other keys.

<self praise>

In my not so humble opinion, this is a very functional layout. I have written about 20,000 lines of code and about 150 pages of my WIP novel on the Pandora keyboard. I use it for lots of different things, and I use it a lot. I live in Belgium, where the official languages are Dutch, French and German, and I also use English quite a lot. So I'm reasonably familiar with the needs of those languages, and I did some rather extensive Wikipedia research to find out what the needs of other languages are. I have been using GNU/Linux exclusively since 1998, so I'm also quite familiar with what you need for that. I code or have coded in C, C++, Java, Python, Bash, Perl, PHP, some of the flavors of BASIC, Pascal, Prolog, LISP, Haskell, Mercury, and some more exotic ones. I'm familiar with some popular data/text formats like HTML, XML, CSS, JSON, LaTeX, LilyPond, etc.

I'm not saying that I matter more than somebody else who has never used a Pandora keyboard and who is only familiar with, say, English. But perhaps my opinion on this particular matter -- the Pyra keyboard layout -- should carry somewhat more weight. Of course there are many more people in this community who are just as qualified as me, and whose opinion should also be given more weight, maybe more than mine.

Also, from an æsthetical point of view, I like how this looks. It's very symmetrical and structured. Numbers on a row, F-keys on the row below, all kinds of delimiters on the row below that. Plus and Minus in line with Up and Down and PgUp and PgDn. Delete in the bottom left, Backspace in the top right. Whitespace at the edges: Tab, Enter, Space.

This is not just functional. It's also beautiful.

</self praise>

(actually this is not really praising myself, since a lot of the ideas in this proposal were borrowed from others)

 

[Saber]

Are there any others who consider the correct/standard alignment between the letter and the number rows to be crucial?

I don't think it's hugely important, but maybe I'm biased because on the Pandora the number row is so far away from the rest that it's alignment is irrelevant.

Correct alignment of the letter rows w.r.t. the number row implies a centered layout. I personally have no problem with a centered layout since I don't need the extra P+2 and L+2 keys (for me, efficient compose / dead diacritics are a better approach), but I don't know if correct number row alignment is worth making it impossible to get Ü Ö Ä or whatever in their normal spots.

I don't think some of you have thought this through. You're so concerned with applying full size keyboard authenticity to the Pyra layout that you ignore some of the flaws you'll create in doing so.

Let's say we get a letters shifted to the left P+2 and L+2 layout for the Pyra which then lets people assign their native vowels and letters to the positions to the right of letters P and L as they are used to on their full size home computer keyboards. Did anyone bother to ask what happens to the keys they displaced? With a sparse number of spots for punctuation and modifiers, where will they go now that they have been unseated? What if these were essential keys like Delete, Enter, Tab, Brackets, or Space that were to the right of P and L? Where could you possibly reassign them to after the initial remapping? Not on the left side, at least not as dedicated keys, since you've already taken those up with the shifted over A-Z letters you wanted for the initial remaps of P+2 and L+2.  -_-

So, considering all of this, I'm no longer convinced that the layout should be left-aligned. I think centered is also fine.

 

[Saber]

Slightly changed the look of some things:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6b65c9ff5d4e145d7b4de55d5b368891

The action buttons now have the symbols more prominently than the letters. If it's done like that, I can live better with it: you get the letters for backwards compatibility with the Pandora, but the "main" label is the symbol so it is unique and different from the other keys.

<self praise>

In my not so humble opinion, this is a very functional layout. I have written about 20,000 lines of code and about 150 pages of my WIP novel on the Pandora keyboard. I use it for lots of different things, and I use it a lot. I live in Belgium, where the official languages are Dutch, French and German, and I also use English quite a lot. So I'm reasonably familiar with the needs of those languages, and I did some rather extensive Wikipedia research to find out what the needs of other languages are. I have been using GNU/Linux exclusively since 1998, so I'm also quite familiar with what you need for that. I code or have coded in C, C++, Java, Python, Bash, Perl, PHP, some of the flavors of BASIC, Pascal, Prolog, LISP, Haskell, Mercury, and some more exotic ones. I'm familiar with some popular data/text formats like HTML, XML, CSS, JSON, LaTeX, LilyPond, etc.

I'm not saying that I matter more than somebody else who has never used a Pandora keyboard and who is only familiar with, say, English. But perhaps my opinion on this particular matter -- the Pyra keyboard layout -- should carry somewhat more weight. Of course there are many more people in this community who are just as qualified as me, and whose opinion should also be given more weight, maybe more than mine.

Also, from an æsthetical point of view, I like how this looks. It's very symmetrical and structured. Numbers on a row, F-keys on the row below, all kinds of delimiters on the row below that. Plus and Minus in line with Up and Down and PgUp and PgDn. Delete in the bottom left, Backspace in the top right. Whitespace at the edges: Tab, Enter, Space.

This is not just functional. It's also beautiful.

</self praise>

(actually this is not really praising myself, since a lot of the ideas in this proposal were borrowed from others)

If how ED voted is any strong indication to go by, there won't be a Meta(you call it Pyra for some reason), on the shoulder buttons. You also need to find a better place for the "Pyra" modifier as above the keyboard dead center is not a good location for such a frequently used key even if you intend it to be useful for both thumbs. Maybe put it where you have quotes and double quotes and move all the "junkier" ones like currency symbol and Print to more the center. Symbols < and > could go on z and c and the quotes keys to k and l(after you've moved {[]} over two to the left). 

Why is the number row in your proposal completely empty with no Meta modifiers?

 

[_wb_]

If how ED voted is any strong indication to go by, there won't be a Meta(you call it Pyra for some reason), on the shoulder buttons. You also need to find a better place for the "Pyra" modifier as above the keyboard dead center is not a good location for such a frequently used key even if you intend it to be useful for both thumbs. Maybe put it where you have quotes and double quotes and move all the "junkier" ones like currency symbol and Print to more the center. Symbols < and > could go on z and c and the quotes keys to k and l(after you've moved {[]} over two to the left). 

By your reasoning, there will be only three shoulder buttons because ED only ticked 3 boxes . I think he just meant: Shift, Alt, Ctrl certainly have to be on shoulders, and I don't care about the fourth one. Many others do seem to care though, and they want Pyra/Meta there.

Dead center is not the most easily reachable place for the Pyra/Meta button, but that's intentional since you have the shoulder button already. The keyboard modifiers are only there for those cases when you can't use the shoulder buttons: when you're not holding it like a handheld, or perhaps in games or applications that for some reason need both the modifiers and the shoulder buttons.

Sacrificing a dedicated ' " key (and losing the easy to remember acute and umlaut dead diacritics) just to get a redundant Pyra/Meta modifier in an arguably slightly better location, that sounds like a bad trade-off to me.

 

[Saber]

If how ED voted is any strong indication to go by, there won't be a Meta(you call it Pyra for some reason), on the shoulder buttons. You also need to find a better place for the "Pyra" modifier as above the keyboard dead center is not a good location for such a frequently used key even if you intend it to be useful for both thumbs. Maybe put it where you have quotes and double quotes and move all the "junkier" ones like currency symbol and Print to more the center. Symbols < and > could go on z and c and the quotes keys to k and l(after you've moved {[]} over two to the left). 

By your reasoning, there will be only three shoulder buttons because ED only ticked 3 boxes . I think he just meant: Shift, Alt, Ctrl certainly have to be on shoulders, and I don't care about the fourth one. Many others do seem to care though, and they want Pyra/Meta there.

Dead center is not the most easily reachable place for the Pyra/Meta button, but that's intentional since you have the shoulder button already. The keyboard modifiers are only there for those cases when you can't use the shoulder buttons: when you're not holding it like a handheld, or perhaps in games or applications that for some reason need both the modifiers and the shoulder buttons.

Sacrificing a dedicated ' " key (and losing the easy to remember acute and umlaut dead diacritics) just to get a redundant Pyra/Meta modifier in an arguably slightly better location, that sounds like a bad trade-off to me.

No I agree the Meta key dead center above the keyboard is not very reachable.

I think ED though may have the Shoulder buttons assigned like I have them to make it easier to capitalize letters without there being two keyboard Shifts while maintaining legacy compatibility: 

L1 = Right Shift

L2 = Right Alt

R1 = Right Control

R2 = Left Shift

By the way, could you please put a link to my layout proposal(from the Unofficial Keyboard Thread) in the first post so people can examine all their options? 

 

[Rockthesmurf]

My top three desires at the moment from the poll are (in order of desire):

• Centred QWERTYUIOP
• The device should be usable without triggers for FN/CTRL/SHIFT purposes
• Buttons should be ABXY or something 'normal' not fancy symbols that the majority of world probably doesn't know the name of

I voted on all poll questions (forced to), however if the above were true I think I'd be pretty happy.

Also, it strikes me that as an Englishman, who doesn't write any other language, I don't really want any other language stuff on the keyboard, sure I want the device accessible to loads of people, but for my personal use, I'd rather not make any compromises to allow foreign letters to be easier to work with. I just raise this as I'm not sure whether you expect votes to be people voting for what they think is best for overall accessibility of the device, or just voting for what works best for them.

For what it is worth, I can't help but feel that accurate spelling whilst typing is on the way out, just mash the keyboard in roughly the right way and I expect the program receiving my input to fix up all the atrocious spelling, if I write 'naive', I'd expect the program to be able to change it to 'naïve'; I can't recall ever putting the accents into anything I write, ever (however they will appear all over my emails simply because the email editor will sort that stuff out for me).

Maybe a game needs to be written, typing of the dead, but using 'crazy' accents, maybe that'd inspire me to learn how to use all the crazy letters!

 

[_wb_]

By the way, could you please put a link to my layout proposal(from the Unofficial Keyboard Thread) in the first post so people can examine all their options? 

Added. I checked your thread at the time I wrote that post, but there was nothing there at that point.

Two shoulder buttons for Shift is a waste if you ask me. I have no difficulty to press any Pandora key with any Pandora shoulder button: capital A and capital L are both easy to do using L1. There is not much to be gained by having three Shifts.

Your proposals are very German-centric (it has explicit Ü Ö Ä ß symbols on the keymat), which is somewhat nice for Germans but quite useless for anyone else.

The Meta/Fn/Sym/Pyra/whatever labels look like an unorganized mess; at least I couldn't figure out the organizing principle behind it. When I'm trying to find a particular symbol, it could be nearly everywhere.

For what it is worth, I can't help but feel that accurate spelling whilst typing is on the way out, just mash the keyboard in roughly the right way and I expect the program receiving my input to fix up all the atrocious spelling, if I write 'naive', I'd expect the program to be able to change it to 'naïve'; I can't recall ever putting the accents into anything I write, ever (however they will appear all over my emails simply because the email editor will sort that stuff out for me).

Maybe a game needs to be written, typing of the dead, but using 'crazy' accents, maybe that'd inspire me to learn how to use all the crazy letters!

Sure, in English, accents and diacritics in general are not really necessary -- auto-correct will help you. In other languages they're more crucial. E.g. in French, the word "a" means "has", while the word "à" means "to" or "in". Both are very important words and auto-correction will not help much. It will help to turn a "soeur" into a "sœur", but not to add all your accents automatically. In Dutch, the word "een" means "a/an" (the indefinite article), while the word "één" means "one" (the number). The accents are only written if it would otherwise be ambiguous. Auto-correct does not help with that kind of stuff, at least not until it is intelligent enough to pass a Turing test.

But even if you don't need accents, my proposal is not bad for you. My proposal has dedicated keys for ` and ' (just like a standard US-QWERTY keyboard), which makes it easier to do the two most common accents (grave and acute) since they require only one shoulder button, but it also makes it easier to input quotes and apostrophes in English. Auto-correct is typically not able to correct its to it's or lets to let's, so it's probably a good thing tot have a dedicated key for apostrophe -- it is the most important punctuation symbol in English after period and comma (and hyphen, depending on the source).

Backtick/grave as a dedicated key is not important for English prose, but it is relatively important for programming. Most shells (e.g. bash), Perl, PHP, and Ruby use it for command substitution. For users of LaTeX (which includes basically anyone who writes scientific papers), backtick is used for quotes.

 

[Saber]

By the way, could you please put a link to my layout proposal(from the Unofficial Keyboard Thread) in the first post so people can examine all their options? 

Added. I checked your thread at the time I wrote that post, but there was nothing there at that point.

Two shoulder buttons for Shift is a waste if you ask me. I have no difficulty to press any Pandora key with any Pandora shoulder button: capital A and capital L are both easy to do using L1. There is not much to be gained by having three Shifts.

Your proposals are very German-centric (it has explicit Ü Ö Ä ß symbols on the keymat), which is somewhat nice for Germans but quite useless for anyone else.

The Meta/Fn/Sym/Pyra/whatever labels look like an unorganized mess; at least I couldn't figure out the organizing principle behind it. When I'm trying to find a particular symbol, it could be nearly everywhere.

Thanks for the add.    

I don't see two Shifts being an issue if they are both on the shoulder buttons. Shift modifiers shouldn't all be on the same side anyways.

My layout has the German umlauts on them because it's what ED wanted. They could be remapped with little effort to any other key someone may need. As for disorganization, I thought and think the same of yours and it's crippling dependence on the one Meta shoulder button, which without it, would crumble to the dust, but let me elaborate on mine first.

1. Tilde is at the upper left which is where it is on many a laptop. May be found somewhere else on yours.
2. The - + = _ are grouped together at the upper left as well. Minus and Plus should require little effort here for page zooms with Ctrl. This frees up the new action buttons for Insert and Delete. 
3. /  ' " \ | are about where they were on the Pandora which should make transitioning a breeze. Pressing Sym with them shouldn't be a problem.
4. Brackets aren't out of reach and follow the { [ ] } pattern on German keyboards. 
5. Speaking of German, umlauts all correspond to their non-glyph counterparts A, O, U and Eszett, Micro, and Section Sign are all at the far right should someone want to ignore or remap them.
6. There is a clever and memorable way to access dead critics on mine if you read the first post in the Unofficial Thread.
7. F-keys 1-10 correspond to numbers 1-0. You want to press F4, then find the number 4.
8. I have an Escape, Tab, Insert, Delete, Compose, SysRq, and a separate Print Screen key. All can be found without a map. 

Now, let's look at yours to be fair. These are my observations of what I don't care much for and they aren't meant as a personal jab. They should be taken in a lighthearted sort of way as to how I would do it differently. 

1. Nothing, nada for Meta/Sym values on the number row. It's a waste in my opinion how you've kept them vacant. 
2. Something about tilting your head sideways to locate dead key diacritics. Will a bottle of ibuprofen be in each Pyra retail box to quell the neck aches for non-English users?
3. Every hardware toggle, Wifi, Bluetooth, HDMI, 3G is on one lone button. It's my understanding that those four keys are for hardware keys, not Escape, Super, Menu and such, but for toggles used much less often than other keys. I have these type of keys on my laptop too and would miss them if I didn't. In a way, it's a bit of a cheat to put them where you did. It looks good and concise but they are meant for something else.
4. Pyra/Meta dead center is a poor position, as you've admitted, for the main modifier. When ED doesn't put a Meta on the shoulder, what will you do then?
5. Face buttons ABXY have some arrows or directionals(guessing here) and some oddball power icons on them. Should just go with Home, End, PageUp, PageDown. 
6. Screen brightness toggles for a meager three step Low, Medium, High cycling. Do you think people will be happy digging in a software GUI to change this when they want Low-Medium or Medium-High display illumination?
7. < and > also in the center where they normally aren't on any keyboard I've seen is a bit peculiar. Aren't these important for coding since they are frequently pressed? Why aren't they Shifted values for comma and period?
8. Delete/Insert at the left corner is an unusual placement for them and Shift playing second fiddle to it is an equally strange choice. 
9. No CAPS Lock.  -_-

Yada yada.

Forgot to mention, I tested my layout thoroughly with pages of various keyboard shortcuts from Unity, Libreoffice, Bash and others. It passed all of them in the comfort arena. 

 

[comradekingu]

Thats a false dichotomy wb, i never said we could have a full layout, i said that the supposedly "centered" layout was flawed in that regard.

Every single one of the ISO, JIT, and ANSI layouts are functional layouts with respect to eachother. You are actively ruining that by "centering". Which sounds to me like a very self-centered stance to take.

By limiting the scope to english only, it activly

discourages at least half the prospective buyers from purchasing a pyra. An effect that can be measured directly on the price or feasibility of the project for English people.

The vote before, and the one in this thread, (also EDs answers) suggests we actually align the layout to where it starts, to accommodate as many people as possible, which is a value in itself.

Spoiler

EDs votes:

1.Double width spacebar

2. Yes, all modifiers should also be somewhere on the keyboard.

3. No, no num lock mode.

4. Where should the F-keys be?  I don't care, as long as they're there.

5. Which of these modifiers should be available by default (without remapping)?

Shift, Alt, Ctrl. Fn/Meta/Pyra but not AltGr or Super were voted for.

6. Which of these modifiers should be available on the shoulder buttons?

Shift, Alt, Ctrl but not AltGr, Fn/Meta/Pyra, or Super.

7. How should the QWERTYUIOP row be aligned?

Left, so there are keys available on P+2 and L+2 for international layouts

8. Which of these keys should be available as dedicated, primary keys?

Delete, Context Menu key(I believe he means the Pyra key), were selected but not Tab, Insert, Dash/Minus, Plus, Square brackets, < >, Escape, Backtick, Tilde, Apostrope, Slash, Question mark, Brightness toggle, keyboard backlight toggle or hardware toggles.

9. What should the function of the action buttons be?

Home/End/PgUp/PgDn for the main ones, +/- for the two smaller ones

10. What should the labels of the action buttons be? (check everything that is acceptable to you)?

A B X Y in the Pandora order (A B Y X) plus two more

 

[Kiga]

The vote before, and the one in this thread, (also EDs answers) suggests we actually align the layout to where it starts, to accommodate as many people as possible, which is a value in itself.

Spoiler

EDs votes:

1.Double width spacebar

2. Yes, all modifiers should also be somewhere on the keyboard.

3. No, no num lock mode.

4. Where should the F-keys be?  I don't care, as long as they're there.

5. Which of these modifiers should be available by default (without remapping)?

Shift, Alt, Ctrl. Fn/Meta/Pyra but not AltGr or Super were voted for.

6. Which of these modifiers should be available on the shoulder buttons?

Shift, Alt, Ctrl but not AltGr, Fn/Meta/Pyra, or Super.

7. How should the QWERTYUIOP row be aligned?

Left, so there are keys available on P+2 and L+2 for international layouts

8. Which of these keys should be available as dedicated, primary keys?

Delete, Context Menu key(I believe he means the Pyra key), were selected but not Tab, Insert, Dash/Minus, Plus, Square brackets, < >, Escape, Backtick, Tilde, Apostrope, Slash, Question mark, Brightness toggle, keyboard backlight toggle or hardware toggles.

9. What should the function of the action buttons be?

Home/End/PgUp/PgDn for the main ones, +/- for the two smaller ones

10. What should the labels of the action buttons be? (check everything that is acceptable to you)?

A B X Y in the Pandora order (A B Y X) plus two more

No Tab? Tab is very useful for a handeld to be able to complete a form quickly, it's one of the most useful key IMO.

Finally I think it should be a single-width space button and having space as a shoulder button, for those who want to reach it more easily. It would be easier to tape since it's the key you need to reach the most easily without moving your hands to much (thumbs in this case), that's the reason why there is a long space key.

People who need to reach the space button more easily could remap a shoulder button as space even if it isn't by default, so I vote for single-width.

 

[rygD]

Only 6 people have voted for the any key.  At this rate we will be screwed when using certain software.

I voted for the Any key because voting for something was required and I honestly don't think any key *needs* to be dedicated, I treated it as a default "none of the above" choice. As long keys are reasonably chorded typing them should be sufficiently simple either way, picking which ones "should" felt wrong as I can think of reasons why all of them should and should not have dedicated keys.

Hey, it works.  I agree with all and none to some extent, as well.  I would love to show off my Pyra if it had a key labeled "Any", just to show the key and laugh.

 

[_wb_]

Why is the number row in your proposal completely empty with no Meta modifiers?

If you want to ask me questions, then please don't do it by editing them in into an earlier post I already replied to. It's very easy for me to miss the question if you do that.

To answer the question:

- Because that row already has two symbols per key, so to keep the label font big enough, it's good to avoid adding a third symbol.

- Because some standard international layouts (e.g. French, Czech and most other eastern european) use the number row for extra accented letters or diacritics. Not putting a Meta/Pyra/Sym/Fn symbol on that row gives those people the option to remap without having to cascade-move lots of other keys: they can simply put their new keys at Meta+[number row], or at primary number row while moving the original numbers and symbols behind Meta.

Other responses to your questions:

2. The head tilt thing I propose is not unique to my proposal, it is also in an existing US-International layout that comradekingu brought to our attention. Note that it is only really needed for macron and hungarumlaut; two rather rare diacritics. For grave, acute, umlaut, cedilla, circumflex, tilde, dot, ring and stroke you can keep your head straight .

3. You can claim that four dedicated hardware toggles are "meant to be" there, but it looks like only a small minority agrees with you (currently 3 out of 59, which includes you).

4. My layout proposal has Meta/Pyra/Fn/Sym/whateveritiscalled as a shoulder button. If it's not, then it's a different proposal. One that sucks.

5. The word "PageDown" is a bit large to put on a game button, especially if it's in addition to the actual label ("X"). I think icons are better. I don't really care which ones, but the ones I picked are standard ones and they emphasize the symmetry (unlike the diagonal icons for Home and End).

6. The values and number of brightness steps should be configurable. Also, holding the button while using the dpad could give finer grained control.

7. In many standard keyboards, Shift + , . produce ; : and < > are somewhere else. I think that makes more sense, putting the punctuation symbols together. For coding, < and > are obviously used for comparison, but also don't forget input/output redirection, where they fit in with pipe |, and HTML/XML tags <blah>like this</blah>, where they are used as delimiters and fit in with slash /.  I consider them mostly as angled brackets <>, where they fit in with the square brackets [ ] and the curly brackets { }. I associate them with tuples, square brackets with lists/sequences, and curly brackets with sets.

8. Fair point. It's a safe distance from Enter though

9. Caps Lock could easily be added. I don't feel the need though. Especially since you can easily just hold down the shoulder button.

@comradekingu: I'm not sure if not having P+2 and L+2 available really ruins the layout more for non-English speakers than having a misaligned number row w.r.t. the letter rows. Askarus is German, slaeshjag is Swedish, those are two countries that use a P+1 L+2 layout, yet they still prefer a centered layout. There's also a big list of people who don't care (which includes me, though I still need to change my vote I guess).

It's not really fair to call my proposal self-centered or English-focused. I would rather say that it allows many people to just use the default layout and get reasonable efficiency, with the correct labels, while your layout is based on the premise that people don't mind a little mismatch between the labels and what the keys actually do.

 

[comradekingu]

Wb: What exactly is wrong with using ctrl+alt for dead keys?  As per US international layout standard.

To me that seems more logical, because AltGr is used for third level modifier in other parts of the world.  It also makes my meta hacks-only  which has been the goal.

The point is the large majority who does care, for good reason.

How askarus and slaesjag factors into that, i dont know if they even voted, but to me it sounded like slaesjag thought having swappable international layouts was something he had to relinquish anyway.

Cutting into the layout to fix it and being able to order things around in software without help is probably ok enough, but in no way does that represent the majority of customers.  Which leads my thinking back to how making sure not to exclude anyone for reasons they are very concerned about, is a good idea.

I consider being able to input language for roughly half the customer base is a greater concern than being able to input passwords easily for some.

Here is a vote that hasnt got inconclusive options, laid out in the order matters are settled. If someone wants dualspace, show me a layout that has a centered space. With the arrangement give, dualspace was already traded away.

Im confident P+2 and L+2 doesnt ruin typing english for english people. Because that is what an US or UK_english keyboard is, it more closely resembles what US/UK computer users have been using since day 1.

The closest thing ive seen to an argument against this was that it unevenly weighs the typing input. That may or may not be the case, more importantly, if you have all the punctuation on the side that space is, that makes it more effective for _everyone_

On the pandora the space key was probaly thougth to be a visual concern. I havent seen or didt see anyone having raised the issue that having , . not on the other side or the keyboard from space was a bad idea.

In any event, inputting international languages on a pandora is impossible doe to the arrangement, a functional layout would is not possible as the QWERTY row is fixed, and it would require shoulders for basic input.

 

[Grench]

You are gripping at straws and misinterpreting things people say, and vote for.  Here is a vote that hasnt got inconclusive options, laid out in the order matters are settled.

It's loaded with opinion and assumptions in an effort to 'win'.  We don't have to loose keys for international options (for example).

 

[comradekingu]

Its only the international users that lose keys when _they_ switch layouts. They lose keys that are on the default layout.

I went with giving the default layout the coding symbols, which the international users have to do without. I cant tell you exactly what the rationale for wbs choices are, only the consequences, that isnt biased.

Feel free to show me a layout where you don't lose something when switching to international layout. Wb nor me are able to produce one.

If i was concerned with winning anything, why would i use my free time to produce keyboard-layouts? Much less help WB produce keyboard layouts, and use his ideas...

My assumption is that shipping 4 blank keys is out of the question.

Another option would be to lose dot comma enter and shift, and instead have those on shoulders. You then have ctrl+alt+meta on colum-row, but no altGr.

Its possible, just not at all good, or in tune with any of the votes.

Feel free to give other examples of why you think the poll is illogical or biased in the respective thread. Or why the explanations fail.

 

[_wb_]

One more compromise layout:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/929c60e90f64bdaf2c8061d3e22acc1c

Should have a majority given the current poll results (59 votes in):

• Single width space bar: 22/59 want this, 10/59 don't care, so 32/59 are OK with it (it is impossible to get more than 34/59 on this one)
• It works without shoulder buttons, so everybody is OK with that
• It does not have num lock, 40/59 want that
• The F-keys are on the QWERTY row, 14/59 want that, 25/59 don't care and 2/59 really don't care, so I guess 41/59 are OK with it
• Shift (55), Alt (53), Ctrl (55), Pyra (51) and Super (26) are available by default, AltGr (18) only if you use e.g. RightAlt or Ctrl+Alt for that
• On the shoulder buttons we have Shift (52), Alt (41), Ctrl (50), and Pyra (27). We don't have AltGr (16) and Super (8).
• The QWERTY row is left-aligned, 25/59 want that, 17/59 don't care so 42/59 are OK with this
• Dedicated keys: Tab (43), Delete (37), Insert (9), Dash (14), Esc (38), Backtick (5), Apostrophe (14), Menu more or less (13), Brightness (10), Hardware (10) are all there. The ones missing (as primary keys) are Plus (9), [ ] (8), < > (13; note these aren't even primary keys on most normal keyboards, at least not both of them!), Slash (18), Backslash (10), a second Brightness button (7), extra Hardware buttons (4+3+3), and the "Any" key (6). Note that Plus and Insert both get 9 votes. Replacing Backtick with something with more votes (e.g. Slash) would perhaps be better (but not if your language uses à è ò ù like French or Italian).
• Action buttons are Home/End/PgUp/PgDn for the main ones, Ins/Del for the two smaller ones, 26/59 want that, 15/59 don't care, so 41/59 are OK with it.
  
• The action button labels are ABXY with symbols, 39/59 want ABXY, 11/59 want only the symbols, so I guess a majority is OK with this

* * *

Here is a proposal that tries to be even better, in particular for shell users:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/017f8654c195c650f0920a4ad204f52d

It has a dedicated slash key (with Shift+Slash = Backslash), and grave/tilde (` ~) is moved to Pyra+A/S. I propose that you can decide in software whether you want grave and tilde as dead keys by default or as direct keys. E.g. if Pyra+A is dead grave, then à is easy to produce: Pyra+A A. To get a backtick symbol, you would then have to do Pyra+A [sPACE], or Pyra+Shift+A. If Pyra+A is a direct backtick, then to get e.g. è, you have to do Shift+Pyra+A E.

It also has a seemingly redundant + and - at Pyra+C/B. Those could be the numeric +/-, while the one at position P+1 is the normal one. These keys are useful for those who want to remap the keys at position P+1 and L+2 without losing anything. E.g. Germans may want to put Ü at P+1, Ö at L+1 and Ä at L+2. In my proposal, the L+2 keys never were problematic for remappers because you can just make the original symbols Pyra-symbols (the keys have no Pyra-modified use by default, except for diacritics but the point of remapping P+1 and L+2 is that you then don't need diacritics anymore). The P+1 key was problematic though, since it's already used for F11. The problem is solved by having numeric +/- available.

* * *

Finally, here is one more proposal:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/29a0fbbd71de80edad45cff39bb90104

In this one, the F-keys are on the number row (which seems to be slightly more popular than on the QWERTY row), which also solves the +- remapping problem.

An important advantage of this, is that it does not have any Pyra-symbols on the vowels. That is a good thing because those are the ones that most international layouts need variants of, so you could map them in whatever way is most useful for you:

- Pyra+A could be e.g. À, Á, Æ, Å

- Pyra+E could be e.g. €, É, È, Ë

- Pyra+O could be e.g. Ö, Ø, Œ, Ô, Ó

- Pyra+U could be e.g. Ü, Ù, Ű, Û

- Pyra+I could be e.g. Ï, Í

- Pyra+T could be Þ

- Pyra+S could be e.g. ß, §, Ş

- Pyra+D could be Ð, Ḑ

- Pyra+Y could be ¥, ý, ẏ

Not printing any Pyra label on those keys is the most sensible thing to do; the default mapping could depend on your locale.

(Maybe C and N should also be freed up for ç and ñ)

 

[comradekingu]

Wb: I like the compromise layout the best so far, coming along nicely. Because the QWERTY row is clean, looks confident with those big letters. Printing F-keys on 12345 is a nice and sensible approach to not having altGR mods there.

Why so many people in favor of wasting a key to get a double-width space?

Does it have any advantage? You still can hit it with only one thumb (unlike the space bar of a full-size keyboard).

It makes more sense (but still very little) to add a second space on the other side of the keyboard, if you ask me.

 I don't think its entirely rational either, but for me it feels wrong to have a small space button...maybe its because its used as resting position, or its just that it allows for a bit of sloppiness, or maybe its just convention -_-

I think a big off-center space is _irrational_  we have discussed the reasons, and as more people realize this, i think it will open their eyes to how the convention of familiarity preference is subordinate to something that functions better.
In that knowledge, i think you also have an easier time discarding double space, whereas before it would be an insecurity. Double space is a false security.

I was of the exact same opinion about swipe-combos for punctuation, it didnt even occur to me that it could be done or was needed. And it looked wonky at first. Now its the opposite for me, pecking-punctuation looks wonky.

Slalom-typing was understood to be bad by many, im hoping everyone can come to the full realization about the upsides and downsides of everything before they make up their minds.

 

[_wb_]

Freed it up a bit, by eliminating ¤ (no longer really needed because you can do Pyra+E for €, Pyra+Y for ¥, Pyra+P for ₤) and by moving PrintScreen to Pyra+Esc.

Now C and N are also freed from Pyra-values.

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/a38ce19f78a9a45bca6e3ae7296b4ae6

The French can have e.g. à è ù ç œ on Pyra+AEUCO, the Germans can have ü ö ä ß on Pyra+UOAS, and so on. A nice alternative to P+1 L+2 remapping.

 

[comradekingu]

Why not ctrl+ 2 4 9 0, those letters are where french people expect à è ù ç

There are no nice alternatives to real layouts. P+1 L+2 isnt remapping, its standard input.

Germans have a compose-key on P+2 too.

Every single layout has something on P+2 and L+2 including US/UK/AUS, for non US/UK/AUS it is crucial.

Moving it somewhere else is not a popular move.

 

[_wb_]

Why not ctrl+ 2 4 9 0, those letters are where french people expect à è ù ç


There are no nice alternatives to real layouts. P+1 L+2 isnt remapping, its standard input.


Germans have a compose-key on P+2 too.


Every single layout has something on P+2 and L+2 including US/UK/AUS, for non US/UK/AUS it is crucial.


Moving it somewhere else is not a popular move.

French people also 'expect' AZERTY with the number row aligned to the letter rows, e.g. é between A and Z. Some people will want to have something that approaches standard AZERTY even if that implies that the labels are seriously wrong. Others can live with QWERTY as long as their most important letters can still be inputted efficiently (one or two thumb presses).

There is no standard input on a non-standard keyboard. There is no way to have standard layouts on a 46-key keyboard.

Germans have + * on P+2 (and ~ with AltGr). Normal keyboards don't have a dedicated compose key. So I don't know what you're talking about.

Sure, every single layout has something on P+2. Some also have something on P+3, many have something on L+3, they all have something on 0+1 and 0+2, they all have something on M+1, M+2, M+3, and they also all have something on 1-1, Q-1, A-1, Z-1 and sometimes Z-2 or M+4 . Also they all have a full extra row below ZXC (for LCtrl LSuper LAlt Space RAlt(Gr) RSuper Menu RCtrl) and a full extra row above 123 (for Esc and the F-keys). What exactly is your point?

My point is that P+2 can be safely used for Enter because even assuming people are going tot remap stuff to approach their specific language layout (you seem to assume everyone is going to do that, while I think many non-English speakers will still prefer to stick to the default), then P+2 is rarely used for actual language-specific letters. The German, Italian and Spanish layouts use P+2 for + *, French uses it for $ £, Scandinavian for " ^, Dutch for * |, Icelandic for ` ?, Polish for ( ), Brazil for [ {, Portuguese for ' `. All of those symbols are already available elsewhere and I doubt anyone considers it crucial to have them at position P+2. But even if you really want to do that, you can still put Enter in the bottom right (instead of Shift). I see no reason to put Enter over there by default just to please the Estonians and the Turks (I think those are the only ones who do use P+2 for regular typing).