If we put ISO in the base kit, I expect physical ISO. Return, accented return, pipe, tilda, at, left split shift. So 6 caps at the bare minimum. Anything short of this isn’t acceptable IMO.
I'm gonna have to mark my disagreement here. But first, let's make sure we're talking about the same thing.
If I understood correctly, "pipe, tilda, at" above refer to the keys R4
\|, R3
#~ and R3
'@. If so...
1) Mod-colored ISO Enter must absolutely be present. Accent-colored ISO Enter keys should also be present, in the same quantity as the accented ANSI Enter keys
(same goes for numpad Enter, SUE Enter for ortho kits, etc.). But if the need is too pressing, keep just one ISO Enter key, which needs to be the mod-colored one.
In the case of GMK 9009 R3, the accented ISO Enter keys absolutely had to be present, because it's the accents what "make" the set — I'm glad the runners saw it this way too and corrected that omission.2) As alphas go, you seem to have fallen into the "Atlantis ISO" error. R4 \| is common to UK ISO and US ISO, while R3
'@ and R3
#~ are only for UK ISO (taking the place of R3
'" and R3
\|, which are only for US ISO). The choice has to go one way or the other, but not fall into the "middle of the pond", which is the worst option of all.
I still favor making the base kits
US ISO compatible, meaning the bare minimum of
four keys
(plus whichever accented Enter keys the designer decides to include, as long as that number is not -1 ) ).
If we put ISO in it’s own kit, I expect the above, and UK-ISO in the event there isn’t a separate NorDeUk being run.
If all ISO support goes to a separate kit, then I think that
UK+US ISO should be the no-brainer option (exactly one more key than simply UK ISO). But that's assuming the designer hasn't added an 1.25U Shift key to the base kit to support 40% keyboards, in which case ISO support (US ISO, specifically —
three keys at this point) must totally, completely, inarguably be included in the base kit as well.
I'm not naming names here, but a particular popular recent GB did that: the base kit had no support for ISO, but did have a 1.25U Shift key, for 40% support; ISO was half-assedly done in a separate kit, where several glaring errors were easily found. The devil is in the details, they say... and there was a lot of "devil" in that keycap set.