This works, though I wonder if 8, 9, and 0 would bee a better choice for those keys instead of 1, 2 and 3. Reason being is that on most full-size (and even most laptop) keyboards, those three keys have usually been in the top-right area and thus using 8, 9, and 0 would seem to follow that better.Fixed how Print Screen(SysRq), Scroll Lock, and Pause Break are derived. For the casual user, they are available whenever needed, but as always can be remapped as a dedicated key in place of the Insert or Compose keys in my layout should they be needed more frequently.
Hi Grench, KeyB is the Backlight Toggle for the Keyboard keys. It works like this:
I think ED(and I agree with him) believes the top four keys are four hardware toggles. On my laptops, I have Display Brightness and Wifi as standard on my keyboards and I use them frequently throughout the day. It just makes things easier when functions like those are quick to access with a physical button without digging through a Taskbar or Menu.
Yeah, I tend to agree with you at how oddly reversed it is, but I was thinking of how a person would use the device. With Meta in this layout on the right side, you'd press it once, then move your right thumb just up to Right Shift(or use the Right Shift on the L1 Shoulder) then press the numbers 1, 2, or 3. I would've had Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break on 8, 9, 0 if I didn't have Caps Lock already on Left Keyboard Shift(which is a good place for CAPS when we have now three Shift keys).This works, though I wonder if 8, 9, and 0 would bee a better choice for those keys instead of 1, 2 and 3. Reason being is that on most full-size (and even most laptop) keyboards, those three keys have usually been in the top-right area and thus using 8, 9, and 0 would seem to follow that better.Fixed how Print Screen(SysRq), Scroll Lock, and Pause Break are derived. For the casual user, they are available whenever needed, but as always can be remapped as a dedicated key in place of the Insert or Compose keys in my layout should they be needed more frequently.
Yeah that's right about the "Sym" key. It's as you say, like the Fn key on the Pandora.
I like the way this is going.
Thank you for feedback and the heads up about the Scroll, Pause, Number Lock trio. Are Shift F8-10 combos used often enough for people to miss them? If so, I may add an Alt/Ctrl in there or just stick them back on Fn + action buttons YAX.I like the way this is going.
Comments:
I would prefer a dedicated Tab and I would probably change the order to N M , . SPACE (that makes more sense to me, and it also keeps the Dvorak people happy). Double-width space bar just wastes a key imo.
The dedicated dead diacritics are pretty cool.
Umlaut and acute as primary makes sense, as those are very important. Circumflex and grave as secondary (shift) also makes sense, they are also important. At the third level I would probably put cedilla/ogonek -- you can combine those into one diacritic since both are "curly thingie below" diacritics and there is no overlap between the cedilla letters (Ç Ş mostly) and the ogonek letters (ą ę į ų mostly) -- and caron (for č š ž ř ě).
Tilde and ring are basically mostly just used for ñ and å, so it doesn't really pay off to implement them as dead diacritics (if you need those letters in your language, you better make a dedicated direct ñ or å key). Or you could put those at Fn+Shift and have 4 dead diacritics per key.
I don't like how you have three shifts (two shoulder shifts and one keyboard shift) but only one Fn. It would be much better to have Fn also on a shoulder button.
(I) and (II) as labels for Insert and Delete does not make much sense to me.
The location of F11 and F12 feels forced.
I don't think we need keys for µ § ß °. You could remove those. It's nice if you can have no Fn-labels on the vowels (AEUIO) and perhaps also not on S (and C?). Most of the international letters are variants of those letters, so it makes sense to map them at Fn+(AEUIOS), but the actual label will be different for everyone. E.g. on Fn+A you could have à, å, ä, á, â, ã, ā, æ, or ą depending on your need/preference, on Fn+S you could have ß, ş, š, or ś, on Fn+O you could have ô, ö, ø, œ, ò, ó, õ, and so on.
Your placement of Scroll, Pause, NumLock does not work because it conflicts with Shift-F8/F9/F10.
Having a dedicated key for 3G feels like a waste, especially because 3G is optional so many units will not even have it.
Dedicated keys for BT/USB/Wifi could also turn out to be not really necessary -- e.g. I'm assuming/hoping that the USB ports on the Pyra will not need to be switched off manually to save battery life, so you can just keep them "on" all the time (the hardware and software will do the power saving magic automatically, I hope).
Same with BT and Wifi: hopefully the new hardware is power-efficient enough for most people to not have to care about toggling it. Of course we still need something to switch things off (airplane mode), but it should be something you do much more rarely than on the Pandora.
Getting rid of some of those hardware buttons would free up some room for a dedicated Esc key and a brightness key that does not depend on overloading the dpad (which is I guess the main thing that kept you from putting Fn at a shoulder button).
h34r:
I don't think ED has had a lot of time yet to think about labels, so I wouldn't consider every small remark he has made about it in the past as a final decision.
Why do you doubt that? According to this poll, less than 5% of the people want four hardware toggles.
I don't really like "placeholders". If most people are going to map different symbols to those keys than what the label says, then the label does more harm than good imo.
I agree that it's nice to have Shift on both halves. I have one at L1 and one on the right of the keyboard. You don't need three Shift keys though.
According to the same poll only 2.23% want an any key. What good are keyboards without any keys?
I think ED's remarks hold more weight than any one of our opinions. If he says something, which likely mirrors the direction the investors want to go, it probably is how things will end up being unless there is some grand forum upheaval over the decision. I don't care what the two smaller action buttons are called though as long as they are distinguishable from one another. I and II aren't horrible labels for them and they sort of compliment with Insert and Delete too.
Actually there are even 5 hardware toggles that have been mentioned so far: Bluetooth, Wifi, 3G, HDMI, and USB.
I still think the top row with the Power button and the four keys should be for hardware only functions. HDMI maybe as one of them in Pyra Wifi units only who wouldn't need a 3G key. There was a blurb before I believe that these four inputs and Power will have LED's built into them so when you press say Bluetooth, the button lights up in some fashion(small LED light embedded into the button itself or the entire key glows more than usual).
