Unofficial Keyboard Layouts

[EvilDragon]

Mostly, yes. The keyboard layout above wouldn't even work hardwarewise - there need to be some pegs in the case to fix and secure the PCB as well as some other components. We can't use the full space.

 It's hard to comment here without knowing what's been fixed in terms of case design, but from my perspective the only real difference between this and the prototype layout is the 6 additional keys on the top row (1,2,3,0,ins,del) could the pegs not be placed below these keys to the left and right of the gaming controls?

Except for the few keys I added there already (power button, etc.), no other keys can go on the top row, as the speakers are there.

For speakers with a good sound, you need a bit of space, and the lid would be way too thin here.

 

[_jr_]

The number of keys and their position is already fixed, according to ED. Keyboard layouts will be a pain if you use anything but english qwerty symbols.

I agree and would have liked a solution with more (slightly smaller) keys, but decisions have to be made and admittedly it is less risky to not deviate much from the (not perfect to me but usable for more or less everybody) Pandora dimensions. As long as there is a keyboard I'm not totally unhappy.

 

[Antartica]

I'm somewhat late to the party, but here is my contribution.

If, as mentioned in another post, this can be though of the "current idea for the keyboard", there is indeed a problem for mapping international layouts. Ideally you need at least one key to map the different dead keys (in my case, for Spanish, at least  ´ and friends are needed).

A simple way to "free" one key is to forgo one of the "shift" keys, as in the attached example. I also rearrange things a little so that the freed key is in a reasonable position to be used as dead key (cute ('), grave (`), umlaut/diaeresis (") , circumflex(^), etc depending on the status of Fn and shift).

Other special keys can be mapped on normal keys with Fn and/or shift (Fn+N=ñ; Fn+Shift+N=Ñ, and so on), so no problem on that front.

NOTE: for this to be workable, shift and Fn should be next to each other (ideally one on top of the other) so that you can press both simultaneously with the thumb.

Any opinions?

 

[_wb_]

Being a heavy Pandora keyboard user (coded 3 games and 3 applications on it, often write forum posts on it etc), I have some suggestions and ideas. Before I make any further concrete suggestions, I want to know what the final physical keyboard layout looks like.

If the layout is not yet final, then I would suggest to add 4 keys: one to the left of 1, one to the left of LSHIFT, one to the right of backspace, one to the right of RSHIFT.

If the layout is final, then it should be confirmed what the final layout is. There is no point in tweaking the labels of a layout that perhaps has meanwhile been changed.

 

[DAP]

I'm somewhat late to the party, but here is my contribution.

If, as mentioned in another post, this can be though of the "current idea for the keyboard", there is indeed a problem for mapping international layouts. Ideally you need at least one key to map the different dead keys (in my case, for Spanish, at least  ´ and friends are needed).

A simple way to "free" one key is to forgo one of the "shift" keys, as in the attached example. I also rearrange things a little so that the freed key is in a reasonable position to be used as dead key (cute ('), grave (`), umlaut/diaeresis (") , circumflex(^), etc depending on the status of Fn and shift).

Other special keys can be mapped on normal keys with Fn and/or shift (Fn+N=ñ; Fn+Shift+N=Ñ, and so on), so no problem on that front.

NOTE: for this to be workable, shift and Fn should be next to each other (ideally one on top of the other) so that you can press both simultaneously with the thumb.

Any opinions?

It would be impossible to implement a Dvorak keymap on that keyboard. There needs to be 2 keys to the right of the "L", and the space bar must be split in two.

 

[_wb_]

Current version of my proposal:
 

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/6ac1562c59c89ba7ba7c7fa7dd938701

My basic idea is to start from the Pandora layout, change it to become more like a standard QWERTY keyboard, and try to put the keys of a standard German keyboard in there too, somewhere.

I'm not sure if 3 shift buttons is a good idea (but ED wants to have one on both sides, and I really want to keep the L1 as shift too), also not sure about L2 being Fn (could make it hard to use the buttons for games).

 

[Caine]

not sure about L2 being Fn (could make it hard to use the buttons for games).

Impossible I think. As far as I know Fn keys don't usually have a keycode of their own. It's more like a hardware modifier instead of a software modifier key.

 

[EvilDragon]

We were planning to NOT use any Fn key, as that was a mess driver wise. Linux has Meta keys (and strg, alt, shift, etc) which should be enough for that.

 

[Caine]

We were planning to NOT use any Fn key, as that was a mess driver wise. Linux has Meta keys (and strg, alt, shift, etc) which should be enough for that.

strg?... Oh, you mean control.

I'm not sure if 3 shift buttons is a good idea (but ED wants to have one on both sides, and I really want to keep the L1 as shift too), also not sure about L2 being Fn (could make it hard to use the buttons for games).

Based on the absence of an Fn key, it makes most sense to introduce an AltGr instead (which is handled at the OS level, not the hardware).

So _wb_, I would suggest R1: Ctrl, R2: AltGr, L1: Shift, L2: Alt.

 

[slaeshjag]

I *really* hope you get an alt-gr key in there...

 

[levi]

_wb_ Where's backtick/grave? I use that a lot in my bash scripts.

 

[_wb_]

_wb_ Where's backtick/grave? I use that a lot in my bash scripts.

To the right of esc. It's a dedicated key.

How should we call the fourth modifier key? I prefer to call it "Meta".

 

[Neelix]

Uh...  I don't see how you can hope to have room for all the punctuation and symbols, without either adding a lot more keys or having a Fn key.  Try using Ctrl, Alt, Alt-gr or even meta for those and you are going to start conflicting with either already defined meanings or common keyboard shortcuts. 

Don't forget that the Pandora keyboard had almost every key overloaded with symbols via Fn.

I still think even with Fn you'll need more keys, especially given all the extra modifiers you want.   I also think the best way to get them is to add another column of keys.  (making each key very slightly narrower to fit it in)

- Neelix

 

[levi]

Oh, I hadn't spotted the hardware key modifiers. Not sure about overloading those keys, but I'll have to think about it a bit more.


I'm a little confused about not having a FN key to multiplex the available keys to get extra characters. It works fine on any Linux laptop I've used, but I don't know how it's coded. I'm looking forward to whatever ED comes up with.

 

[slaeshjag]

Uh...  I don't see how you can hope to have room for all the punctuation and symbols, without either adding a lot more keys or having a Fn key.  Try using Ctrl, Alt, Alt-gr or even meta for those and you are going to start conflicting with either already defined meanings or common keyboard shortcuts. 

Don't forget that the Pandora keyboard had almost every key overloaded with symbols via Fn.

I still think even with Fn you'll need more keys, especially given all the extra modifiers you want.   I also think the best way to get them is to add another column of keys.  (making each key very slightly narrower to fit it in)

- Neelix

Alt-gr is not used for keyboard shortcuts. Alt-gr is a dedicated third-level modifier. It's basically a software thing that kinda works like fn.

 

[Neelix]

Alt-gr is not used for keyboard shortcuts. Alt-gr is a dedicated third-level modifier. It's basically a software thing that kinda works like fn.

I know,  that's why I said "either already defined meanings or common keyboard shortcuts"  rather than just "common keyboard shortcuts"    Alt-gr is what I use to access the all the accented characters on my keyboard. 

- Neelix

 

[slaeshjag]

Yes.

Either way we'll end up with a clusterfuck of a keyboard. We didn't have alt-gr on the pandora, so overall it'll cancel out to the same situation there, sans some driver complications.

 

[EvilDragon]

Oh, I hadn't spotted the hardware key modifiers. Not sure about overloading those keys, but I'll have to think about it a bit more.


I'm a little confused about not having a FN key to multiplex the available keys to get extra characters. It works fine on any Linux laptop I've used, but I don't know how it's coded. I'm looking forward to whatever ED comes up with.

A normal laptop only uses Fn keys for multimedia or LCD on/off options, doesn't it?


The Fn key on the Pandora was a bit of a hack. If possible, we'd like to stick with normal keyboard keys.

 

[Neelix]

A normal laptop only uses Fn keys for multimedia or LCD on/off options, doesn't it?


The Fn key on the Pandora was a bit of a hack. If possible, we'd like to stick with normal keyboard keys.

A laptop has a lot more keys than the Pyra is going to have.

- Neelix

 

[Caine]

A normal laptop only uses Fn keys for multimedia or LCD on/off options, doesn't it?

Nope. For example it is quite common that numeric keypads are mapped onto the right half of the keyboard using Fn.