Unofficial Keyboard Layouts


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.  ;)  
 
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Sorry - probably asked before...

What is KeyB and would it be possible/good to swap it with Esc (Escape)?

Left game pad has up/down/left/right.

Right game pad should be page up / page down / home / end.

  Can the additional two buttons on the right game pad please be mapped to insert (upper) and delete (lower)?

I wasn't able to easily find insert on your layout.  Ctrl-ins, shift-ins and shift-del are combinations I use daily.

Thank you.
 
I notice a lot of keys are getting used for peripheral activation/deactivation.

HDMI, USB (by port), etc... These can/should be done at the OS level in software.  Doesn't need a physical switch.

3G/802.11/Bluetooth don't need individual hardware buttons.  IMHO there should be -one- button that simply states wireless on/off at a machine level with the rest of the controls for what is/isn't on/off done in software.  More or less an 'Airplane Mode' button, though that is becoming less important with time.

Just adding ideas as I come to them.  Of the 3 main contenders, so far I'm leaning towards this layout.
 
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.  ;)
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.
 
Sorry - probably asked before...

What is KeyB and would it be possible/good to swap it with Esc (Escape)?

Left game pad has up/down/left/right.

Right game pad should be page up / page down / home / end.

  Can the additional two buttons on the right game pad please be mapped to insert (upper) and delete (lower)?

I wasn't able to easily find insert on your layout.  Ctrl-ins, shift-ins and shift-del are combinations I use daily.

Thank you.
Hi Grench, KeyB is the Backlight Toggle for the Keyboard keys. It works like this:

Press it once for low light illumination, press again for next brightest, then next for highest illumination. The fourth press would then revert back to off(no backlighting). I have Escape in the keyboard area because I feel that the top upper keys to the left and right of the Power button are for hardware only functions, like Backlighting and Radios.

For the smaller action buttons, I and II, I do have them set to Insert(the top one) and Delete(the lower one). Should work well for daily use. :)

I notice a lot of keys are getting used for peripheral activation/deactivation.

HDMI, USB (by port), etc... These can/should be done at the OS level in software.  Doesn't need a physical switch.

3G/802.11/Bluetooth don't need individual hardware buttons.  IMHO there should be -one- button that simply states wireless on/off at a machine level with the rest of the controls for what is/isn't on/off done in software.  More or less an 'Airplane Mode' button, though that is becoming less important with time.

Just adding ideas as I come to them.  Of the 3 main contenders, so far I'm leaning towards this layout.
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.

Any ideas you have are encouraged. It really helps to have feedback in this.  :)

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.  ;)
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.
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).

Realistically, if those three keys are super important to someone, they should just do a remap. Maybe put Print Screen(aka SysRq) where Insert is on the (I) action button then move Insert to Meta + Backspace.
 
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Changes:

  1. Re-added HDMI to the hardware keys.
  2. Put keyboard backlighting again under Meta + Dpad Left(off) to Right(to highest illumination).
  3. Cleaned the summary up a bit.
 
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Changes:

  1. Renamed "Left Meta" to Meta2 and mentioned the possible name change from Meta to "Sym", which is short for symbol.
  2. Added a second uncentered layout with German letters as primary keys.
 
Added a third hybrid version of the layouts 1 and 2 with comma and period now on right side. :)
 
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Updated the first post with three new layouts. Version 1 and 2 are similar but with minor differences, and 3 has off-centered lettering with arranging per ED's choices in the new layout poll.
 
I'm curious on these more recent layouts. I see you're using both Super and Sym. I.e. 2 modifier keys.

I'm pretty sure I understand Sym as symbol to bring up the 3rd mapping with the international and other symbols on it.

What is it that 'Super' does again?

I like where you've gone with the layout. Very well thought out.
 
I'm curious on these more recent layouts. I see you're using both Super and Sym. I.e. 2 modifier keys.


I'm pretty sure I understand Sym as symbol to bring up the 3rd mapping with the international and other symbols on it.


What is it that 'Super' does again?


I like where you've gone with the layout. Very well thought out.
Yeah that's right about the "Sym" key. It's as you say, like the Fn key on the Pandora.

Super is just another name for the Windows or Logo key. It's the key you'd press to bring up the Start Menu on your home computer's display but it also has some addedhotkey combos if you press it along with another keyboard key. From what _wb_ said before concerning the earlier hardware, the Pandora key was the Context Menu key with a hack so it behaved like a Super/Windows/Logo key. 

Thanks for the compliments on these pre-final layouts. I like some of your layout ideas too.  :)

[Difficult to type this while on my exercise bike]  :)   ;)
 
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Updated the first post layouts. 

Many, many changes. 
 
Saber's Keyboard Layouts(summary is below)

I. Version 1 

Qwerty to the left, and dead key diacritics(Acute, Grave, Ring, Umlaut, Circumflex, Tilde) at P+1 and L+1.

UG1Ijvf.png
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).
 
Saber's Keyboard Layouts(summary is below)

I. Version 1 

Qwerty to the left, and dead key diacritics(Acute, Grave, Ring, Umlaut, Circumflex, Tilde) at P+1 and L+1.

UG1Ijvf.png
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).
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 chose (I) and (II) for the small action button labels because it's what ED wanted once since he said they could be remapped as Start and Select(because he said the inner column Start and especially Select were harder to press in games). 

For F11 and F12, I don't see them as forced on where they are as they will be paired up together on their own anyways. I don't want them on Fn +Backspace or Enter though. That's even worse.  -_-

I doubt the four top buttons around Power will be for anything other than hardware toggles. Display and keyboard backlight toggles may go up there but I like where I have them at the moment at Fn + Dpad. We've both seen them done this way before and since it works well, why not do it that way I say.

The keys µ § ß ° are merely placeholders for remappers and except for eszett, are universally known(less foreign looking).

I would of liked a dedicated Tab key too but for now I settled with basic and painless Fn + a. In my summary, I did show how to add a primary Tab key by moving Insert to Fn + Backspace though. 

We'll agree to disagree about the Shifts on both halves of the device and Fn key on the shoulder but, as of today, there has been zero, zippo, nada input on the keyboard topic from upper management so you and I and others are left flying blind on what can and can't be done. Wild guesses are it for now. I was hoping to hear something more specific about all this but maybe the only input that's wanted sorry to say is the kind that empties from our bank accounts.

Maybe you haven't noticed but the questions and concerns that directly relate to popularity or disrupt project finances get full micromanaged attention, but anything else seems to be unread and unnoticed. I do get it's a business and all but I think the layout questions can be just as important as the "omg the OMAP5 is weaker than such and such" comments. A little less secrecy on the subject  just to keep us entertaining ourselves and around the forum couldn't hurt could it? :ph34r:    

It's disappointing and baffling why the layout topic is being ignored and pushed to a later "official" discussion when it's popular with many of us today. Sure people will disagree on how it should be done, but what real harm is it in working through the problems of where to place keys before time becomes too short?   :mellow:

Oh well, I don't mean this all to blossom into a negativity discussion here. There's enough of that around so forget it. We can talk about how downtrodden we are when the official layout announcement post is made next year.  :p
 
I chose (I) and (II) for the small action button labels because it's what ED wanted
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.

I doubt the four top buttons around Power will be for anything other than hardware toggles.
Why do you doubt that? According to this poll, less than 5% of the people want four hardware toggles.

The keys µ § ß ° are merely placeholders for remappers and except for eszett, are universally known(less foreign looking).
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.

We'll agree to disagree about the Shifts on both halves of the device
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.
 
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I doubt the four top buttons around Power will be for anything other than hardware toggles.
Why do you doubt that? According to this poll, less than 5% of the people want four hardware toggles. 
According to the same poll only 2.23% want an any key.  What good are keyboards without any keys?
 
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I chose (I) and (II) for the small action button labels because it's what ED wanted
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.

I doubt the four top buttons around Power will be for anything other than hardware toggles.
Why do you doubt that? According to this poll, less than 5% of the people want four hardware toggles.

The keys µ § ß ° are merely placeholders for remappers and except for eszett, are universally known(less foreign looking).
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.

We'll agree to disagree about the Shifts on both halves of the device
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.
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. 

Concerning the three Shifts, only one is on the keyboard part because where would I put it on the right side? I wanted a Fn key around there and the winning majority in the poll want a double size Spacebar. I worked within what constraints I was given for the Qwerty to the left layout. The third Shift at R2 is for users, like WizardStan, who said they want a Shift key on both halves. Do I need a Shift key on the right half of the device though? Hard to say until I buy another handheld like the Pyra. I won't know when that will be so I can't answer with any kind of conviction if it's necessary, but other people will come to know this. My opinion is Shift at L1 and Left Shift on the keyboard seem to be enough Shifts for a thumb board. 

Some people don't mind being able to remap over "useless" symbols like µ § ß ° for their own purpose. The Yen, a placeholder on the Pandora, won the award for most replaceable.  :)

The landslide results against the four hardware toggles I think, as I said before, are more likely to do with people wanting a dedicated Escape key rather than their affinity for Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, and HDMI all on one button. How does one fit four hieroglyphics on a single keycap when ED already said we can have only put on three per key? 

The last thing I don't know for sure is how well pressing both shoulder button pairs L1 and L2 or R1 and R2 really is. ED said it's easy to press both but others have said it could be tricky as they are now in the prototype. Fingers come in different sizes so it's up to the early reviews to say for sure if they are any good with PS1 emulation. The redesign may alleviate any worries about them. 
 
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The landslide results against the four hardware toggles I think, as I said before, are more likely to do with people wanting a dedicated Escape key rather than their affinity for Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, and HDMI all on one button. How does one fit four hieroglyphics on a single keycap when ED already said we can have only put on three per key?
Actually there are even 5 hardware toggles that have been mentioned so far: Bluetooth, Wifi, 3G, HDMI, and USB.

It's a bit hard to decide now which ones will actually be useful -- if you only gain 1mW by switching something off that could also be on all the time by default, we don't need a button for it.

Maybe it's better to give the button a generic name, and use it as a kind of modifier. E.g. call it "Hardware" and then make it so that Hardware+B toggles Bluetooth, Hardware+W toggles Wifi, and so on. For 3G we could use Hardware+3 or Hardware+M or Hardware+D (for Mobile Data). Who knows what other stuff we will want to toggle. Maybe we'll want a good old Turbo button (to toggle between low-power mode and high-performance mode)? Make it Hardware+T then. Maybe a button to toggle the GPS? Hardware+G. And so on.

Of course we could make it configurable what happens if you simply tap the "Hardware" button without using it as a modifier with a letter: it could then toggle the thing you want to toggle most often (which could be 3G for some people, and HDMI or Turbo or whatever for others). And also Shift+Hardware tap and Meta+Hardware tap and Ctrl+Hardware tap and Alt+Hardware tap and all combinations of those could of course be assigned actions.
 
The landslide results against the four hardware toggles I think, as I said before, are more likely to do with people wanting a dedicated Escape key rather than their affinity for Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, and HDMI all on one button. How does one fit four hieroglyphics on a single keycap when ED already said we can have only put on three per key?
Actually there are even 5 hardware toggles that have been mentioned so far: Bluetooth, Wifi, 3G, HDMI, and USB.

It's a bit hard to decide now which ones will actually be useful -- if you only gain 1mW by switching something off that could also be on all the time by default, we don't need a button for it.

Maybe it's better to give the button a generic name, and use it as a kind of modifier. E.g. call it "Hardware" and then make it so that Hardware+B toggles Bluetooth, Hardware+W toggles Wifi, and so on. For 3G we could use Hardware+3 or Hardware+M or Hardware+D (for Mobile Data). Who knows what other stuff we will want to toggle. Maybe we'll want a good old Turbo button (to toggle between low-power mode and high-performance mode)? Make it Hardware+T then. Maybe a button to toggle the GPS? Hardware+G. And so on.

Of course we could make it configurable what happens if you simply tap the "Hardware" button without using it as a modifier with a letter: it could then toggle the thing you want to toggle most often (which could be 3G for some people, and HDMI or Turbo or whatever for others). And also Shift+Hardware tap and Meta+Hardware tap and Ctrl+Hardware tap and Alt+Hardware tap and all combinations of those could of course be assigned actions.
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). 

I don't like having only one or two of them for hardware toggles. Pressing a modifier like Shift/Fn/Ctrl with a single hardware key to get Bluetooth or 3G or USB-On seems clunky, like placing often used Start and Select farther away from a person's thumbs than they should be to reach on a gaming handheld. Apparently, no one presses the Start or Select button with emulators and homebrew anymore these days. 

It's doubtful we'll also see Fn + Dpad used for screen brightness and keyboard backlighting. The indications point to one hardware key for each of them, which I'm not too fond of. Pressing one hardware key to brighten the display doesn't seem wrong mind you, but holding Shift or Ctrl with it says "don't take us seriously, we're amateurs and couldn't come up with anything else resembling intuitiveness".   -_-       
 
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