Unofficial Keyboard Layouts

[comradekingu]

I agree, your post is horrible. Media keys are important because they control media playback, which people do nowadays. Arrow keys are on the dpad.

Edit: Seeing symbols and not being able to input them, without modifiers you dont see, is a usability error. Moreso than having space enter and ,  . not in plain sight, which ive also dropped.

Suggestions for what to put on the shoulders very welcome. Mediakeys is my preference.

 

[God Ginrai]

I agree, your post is horrible. Media keys are important because they control media playback, which people do nowadays. Arrow keys are on the dpad.

No, Standalone media keys are not needed. They are a waste of space. All Media players tie these functions to normal keys already.

-God Ginrai

 

[comradekingu]

This is rev 2 of valves controller for steambox http://www.sweclockers.com/image/red/2014/03/17/Steam2.jpg?t=original&k=29497bed  The two most integral keys are media keys.  On android you have physical keys for media control, and certainly there isnt buttons for anything but the most minimal tasks.

X86_play or what the buttonevent is called, isnt standard. Nor is player implementation, sadly.  On a regular keyboard, which i suppose is as normal as it gets, the combo is often superkey+ Fkeys

"KeymapNotify event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x0," is what i got here.

Every mediaplayer has its own control paradgimn, often requiring focuswindow to work.

TL;DR 

• Mediabuttons, are needed as devices nowadays are increasingly media-consumption devices.
• Dedicated keys, because thats more user friendly, which lowers the bar on adoption. 
• Placement, on the outside because then you have access to them also when the lid is closed.

 

[God Ginrai]

This is rev 2 of valves controller for steambox http://www.sweclockers.com/image/red/2014/03/17/Steam2.jpg?t=original&k=29497bed  The two most integral keys are media keys.

 Valves Steam controller is also poorly designed enough to use 4 separate buttons instead of a dpad for digital movement.

You use that in any game, and I am willing to bet to you that those will not control your music. Even if those signal as media buttons, (which I'm not sure they do) in any game, gaming being the main purpose for that controller, they will work as start/select buttons. That's what they truly are. The DualShock controller has a Start button shaped like a play button, so that you can use it as a play button when in the media player. The Sega Saturn controllers even had marks to show you which buttons would perform the media functions when in the media player. However, for none of these, are the media players their sole purpose.

Also, Valve isn't trying to fit a keyboard into their device, so they don't need to worry about more important keys.

X86_play or what the buttonevent is called, isnt standard. Nor is player implementation, sadly.  On a regular keyboard, which i suppose is as normal as it gets, the combo is often superkey+ Fkeys

What is this? Most media players will use space to play/pause.

-God Ginrai

 

[comradekingu]

As i mentioned, space to pause requires focuswindow. Dedicated mediakeys allow unfeathered mediacontrol.

That android foregoes a keyboard but still implements mediakeys is my point.  

I dont know what devices, keyboard or not, that dont have mediakeys as an integral part nowadays. Either taking over/marked as primary over F-keys or dedicated.

Steamcontroller         Rev 2

Android phones         Dedicated skip / volume up down

Android tablets          Dedicated on what used to be the F-row, dont know if they have F-keys anymore , like TF201

Chromebooks           Same as above

Iphones                    Dedicated skip/volume up down,

Macbooks                Marked on keyboard keyboards also

IBM Thinkpads         X/T/R -60

Mech keyboards      Steelseries G6v2

I think the trend is very clear, or so its been this way across the board for 8 years now.

Edit: How is a dualshock or sega controller going to be relevant anything but singlethread apps?

 

[God Ginrai]

I don't know what Android Phones you are talking about. I can't even think of any with dedicated skip buttons. Also, volume buttons are not "media buttons". They are a way for speaker-embedded devices to control the audio when they do not have a volume wheel/slider.

I will admit there is a trend of laptops including media options for the Fn combos, but that's about it.

Also, as I mentioned before, you have no proof that those 2 buttons on the Steam controller are dedicated media buttons.

-God Ginrai

 

[comradekingu]

You hold to skip on android when lockscreened, hold volup to skip next, and vice versa, works very well. The difference between something that works very well, and what people know about, is often 100%. Which is why having 4 mediabuttons that are all marked, is nicer.

That isnt a trend, its a industry wide shift. The trend is dropping FN combos in favour of dedicated mediabuttons on what used to be the F row.  https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1047364?hl=en

On rev 2 steamcontroller the buttons are called "stop" and "play", dont know what that is if it isnt mediabuttons. Rev 1 had gestures, but also a dedicated push to talk button, thats a mediabutton.

 

[Natsu]

Way too many stuff on those buttons. Media labels, just no. I agree with Ginrai.

 

[comradekingu]

You have to explain what you mean, otherwise please have regard for the thread topic. Tried anyway   http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/75c1dba0bb2e239f857d961223cbbe76  rev 17

Now only 2 things on all typewriter buttons. Moved <> to the area they belong.

Edit: The argument that a standard IBM keyboard doesnt have media keys isnt relevant. Because it was a layout that didnt take into account the mouse, and especially not modern use. The trend there as elsewhere is smaller, see 60% keyboards.

Meanwhile, a standalone 105key board isnt meant for handheld use, nor mobility. Its not meant for 2thumb typing at all.

_Everything_ in this space has media buttons nowadays. Feel free to prove me wrong.  On a modern design you need buttons for Brightness up and down, power for all radios, powerbutton,  Back and forwards in browser, scroll up and down, zoom, play pause, skip next, and alt+tab, possibly also workspace switching.

Functionbuttons suck for all the reasons, luckily they are going the way of the super-key.

Wonder how much longer we have to suffer with Caps Lock....?

 

[God Ginrai]

You hold to skip on android when lockscreened, hold volup to skip next, and vice versa, works very well. The difference between something that works very well, and what people know about, is often 100%. Which is why having 4 mediabuttons that are all marked, is nicer.

 That is not a standard feature. That is a feature that many android music players have started adding, not something default to android. See this topic: http://forums.androidcentral.com/general-help-how/259677-1-how-skip-songs-using-volume-buttons-2-how-create-android-directory-shortcut-my-pc.html

That isnt a trend, its a industry wide shift. The trend is dropping FN combos in favour of dedicated mediabuttons on what used to be the F row.  https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1047364?hl=en

 No it isn't. I've only seen 3 companies out of at least 12 companies that actively produce laptops do this.

On rev 2 steamcontroller the buttons are called "stop" and "play", dont know what that is if it isnt mediabuttons. Rev 1 had gestures, but also a dedicated push to talk button, thats a mediabutton.

And? They chose to call them stop and play because they wanted to be different from the other game companies. You know, the Start and Select buttons on the GP2X had Play and Stop symbols on them, but were Start and Select buttons:

-God Ginrai

 

[levi]

I'm not against labelling the shoulders secondarily as play/pause etc. personally - I think it'd be extra user friendly that way, but in my experience few media players actually use the Pandora buttons as media control buttons for whatever reasons. Until I understand why that is, and why that wouldn't be the case on Pyra (and so why devs would use those buttons to control playback) I'm afraid I'm also against labelling those buttons for media control.


And even if we do label them as such secondarily, I still think keyboard modifiers are the right primary choice for shoulders, as the Pandora has proved. Shift, Ctrl, Fn/AltGr/Sym, and one other.

 

[comradekingu]

How has the pandora proved that is the best use? Implementing buttons twice and not marking them is not exactly user friendly.

I favour skip and play pause. It comes down to putting something there that ideally can be not intergral to the rest, but still be relevant.

Games will often capture all input, so its not like global play is going to ruin their intended use.

 

[levi]

Well, I can only speak personally, but I find them very handy when typing handheld on my Pandora. I think my typing rate would be much slower if I had to chord face buttons for every uppercase character.


I agree the lack of labelling doesn't make it very user friendly, but likewise the buttons on my DSLR aren't very well labelled, but just because there's a learning curve to a system doesn't stop it being powerful and easy to use once you've learned a few tricks.

 

[God Ginrai]

How has the pandora proved that is the best use?

Because the shoulder buttons are the easiest buttons to hold at the same time as you press any other button or key? That seems to be the thing that's most important in deciding where a modifier goes.

-God Ginrai

 

[DAP]

If you really want to split the space bar, something like this might be a good idea:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/28760fc438efed4cf13417dda5c1fb95

so we get a dedicated slash key out of it, which together with the dedicated tab key will make shell life much nicer.

I'm not sure if I like the idea of space being a key like any other though. Yes, it has advantages for remappers. But a big friendly space bar is also nice.

as long as the "sticky altGR" key is re-mappable, that is just enough to make Dvorak possible. A few punctuation keys would have to move, but I can live with that.

 

[Natsu]

Pretty much all God Ginrai said. Then give them a software guide. Otherwise, the buttons will be nothing, but labels. lol

 

[_wb_]

Of your layout _wb_, I'm still not keen on putting buttons on the hardware keys. Although which way round at the labels on those? I have been reading it as Esc is shift Wifi, and tilde is shift 3G (and god knows how you get to backtick), but perhaps that's wrong. Is it meant that the second hardware button is backtick normally, or shift tilde, or AltGr 3G? I think I have less of an issue with it that way round.

Esc and backtick are the primary keys (located in the upper left area, just like on standard US QWERTY keyboards). Shift+backtick is tilde, just like on a standard US keyboard. Wifi and 3G are the AltGr functions of those keys.The reason why I put ESC up there is to avoid it accidentally being pressed, while still giving it a dedicated key. The hardware toggles are all AltGr functions to avoid accidentally switching off wifi etc. Only brightness is a primary key, because it is something you may want to press several times in a row (which is not easy to do with one finger).

Or indeed, are they meant to be there at all? I've just spotted tilde and backtick on the keyboard section.

In the keyboard section, on the Shift+AltGr functions of the ASDF row, there are dead key diacritics. This is not the same as regular tilde and backtick. E.g. a regular tilde just produces ~. The dead key diacritic version of tilde does nothing at first, but it waits for the next keypress: e.g. [dead key tilde] N produces ñ, [dead key backtick] E produces è. Many non-US QWERTY keyboards have such dead key diacritics (e.g. German keyboards have dead-key versions for ^ ' `, Belgian and Portuguese keyboards have dead-key versions for ^ ' ` ~ ", etc.).

However, what's the deal with the + and - gaming buttons? The other gaming buttons have their real keybindings at the bottom and their gaming interpretation center. Are those buttons default + and -, or default Insert/Delete?

They are default Insert/Delete just like the others are default PgUp/PgDn/Home/End.

And ED did want left and right shift buttons, so I assume he's intending to design it to be touch-typable moreso than the Pandora.

In my layout the Compose key could be mapped to right shift (maybe even by default and be labeled as such). I personally think it makes more sense / is more useful to have a dedicated compose key than to have three shift keys.

 

[_wb_]

Modifier keys and shoulder buttons are a perfect match. Without shoulder buttons for SHIFT and CTRL, the Pandora keyboard is much less effective. Besides the dpad arrows and action button Home/End/PgUp/PgDn (which both are better than their normal keyboard counterparts, also in non-gaming contexts), the shoulder button modifiers are the only aspect of the Pandora keyboard that is actually better than how it is on normal keyboards. Being able to hold SHIFT and/or CTRL without any thumb travel and without losing one thumb is great.

On the Pandora, I remap all shortcuts involving ALT to ones using only CTRL and/or SHIFT exactly for this reason.

 

[Kiga]

Space as shoulder key would be very convenient.

 

[Askarus]

Space bar should be as big as the Pandora space bar I think.

Yes, I think so too. But maybe we should make a poll about that?

Anyway, here's a double-width space version: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/ebd8ba25bb037527d9b08abe2e3aff86

I know your Version with old space bar.

It's good.

Saber's version as well.

I think if we'll get the advantages out of both layouts then it's fine.

Can you tell me some of the things you like about Saber's version that are lacking in my proposal? I would be interested in making a hybrid proposal but I don't know where to start...

_wb_, your one is the one I still prefer for the button layout.

Now with Saber's new version It's really hard to tell which one's better.

_wb_:

Advantage:

1: ESC not hidden but an extra button

2: I can find so much more I can't find on Saber's layout

3: More standard Keyboard (€ for Example)

Disadvantage:

1: Slash is hard to reach

2: AltGr must not be on a Shoulder button as it's not recognized by Games.

3: Only one Shift Key on the Keyboard. 2 Are useless for me but ED wants them.

Saber:

Advantage:

1: It's more simple, not too much but still everything I need is there

2: More system behind it I think üöä߀ in one place

3: 3 Shift Keys

Disadvantage:

1: Don't know, looks nice but _wb_ somehow has more inside. Might be too much, but after you get used to it it might be better

2: Don't know if Super Key is recognized by Games. If not it also may not be on a Shoulder button.

It's hard to make a hybrid version for me.

Both are different in their own way.

_wb_'s Layout has much more functionality inside I think (I prefer that).

Saber's Layout has not that much inside but is simpler and cleaner.