Keyboard Project with a new layout

[arduiko]

Hello,

I have launch on indiegogo a keyboard with my own layout that I am working on since 2 years.

How do you find it ? 

https://www.indiegogo.com/project/preview/1f48bde1

[JustCallMeCrash]

Oh, nice!  I've been hoping someone would put out an ortholinear 100% board.
Can't say I like the tiny F-keys, though...

[arduiko]

Thanks

Else about the F1,F2,.. well it's already exist on every laptop keyboards and I personally have try both during intensive game sessions (MMO, FPS) and work, I definitely choose for the half-size Function Keys.

Because I never reach over the half-size of this key when I want to press one and I need to feel that I dominate it with my finger

Why don't you like this size ?

Else what do you think of the lowercase for the alphabetic keys ? I am not 100% sure of this change :/

[Blaise170]

Thanks

Else about the F1,F2,.. well it's already exist on every laptop keyboard and personally having try both during intensive game sessions and work, I definitely choose for the half-size Function Keys.

Because I never reach over the half-size of this key when I want to press one and I need to feel that I dominate it with my finger

Why don't you like this size ?

I'm a large person and with that comes large fingers, so half height keys can be frustrating to press.

[arduiko]

Ah I see,

So you will have difficult to reach Accent Keys also, right ?

After if you only speak English, you will not need that, but I added a feature accessible by pressing FN with the Accent Keys, by doing that, you send a signal to my software to open an executable file, like shortcut, program, movie, song, and so on.

[algernon]

This looks interesting, mainly because of so many different symbols, that are rarely found on the same OS-side layout... so I was wondering, how will the keyboard input them? Do you have a special driver? Or do you require a certain layout or helper program on the host side?

[arduiko]

Thank you

All of that are already done and it's a standard keyboard input, except for the Program Keys.

I made the keyboard layout driver, the chip firmware and the software needed for Program Keys.

But on Windows only (layout driver and software), else I will be glad to let people to make this keyboard available for Linux and Mac by giving them the ressources needed.

Else I am working on a video of the layout and I will upload it soon.

[arduiko]

Done,

Here's the video:

Hope you enjoy 👍

[JohanAR]

Sounds like a fun idea, but who's the target market for this? Most people are reluctant to learn the relatively common Dvorak and Colemak, how many will be interested in learning an even more obscure layout?

Unless you type in many different languages there will be keys that are never used. Is this really more efficient than using a regular keyboard and switching keymaps in software? Looks like åäö are written using dead keys, which would be extremely annoying if writing Swedish since they are just as important as the other vowels.

Is it USBHID compatible? Does it work in BIOS and can you install Windows with it, i.e. before you get a chance to install your driver? If it uses USBHID it ought to be fairly simple to get it working in Linux

[arduiko]

The target are all kind of keyboard users, the layout is optimized for:
- Typists (chat)
- Gamers
- Desktop/internet users
- Programmers
...

Well you know, I am a keyboard consumer like any other and I made this effort to learn a new layout, so all what people need is to be curious, only that.

Else I have put 1 month maximum to learn the layout, I needed 2 weeks personally to learn ZYERT layout and I am very happy of the result, I am more reactive to reach ctrl-Z and ctrl-Y than QWERTY or AZERTY.

And I will never come back to QWERTY or AZERTY just because of that enhancement.

As I said in the description, if you don't use accent keys, this accent bar is multi functions, it can be used as gaming (accent bar can be detected by video games, so 3 action bars in total) or program keys (you can run executable files by hold FN keys and a software to attach program) or just use the international keys to write in non-English languages.

You talked about Swedish that use both system, dead keys and accent letter directly printed.

And I personally found that it's mistake, dead key should be the only way to generate accent letter because it is much flexible than accent letter printed.

That's why French government want to rework the French Keyboard to be able to access to all accent letters used in French.

Else if you ask why I printed ăâêôđươ it's cause they are used by Vietnamese language that require them for add another diacritic mark on it (Tiếng Việt)

[arduiko]

Is it USBHID compatible? Does it work in BIOS and can you install Windows with it, i.e. before you get a chance to install your driver? If it uses USBHID it ought to be fairly simple to get it working in Linux

Yes of course, it's written in the description (USB 2.0 Full Speed)
Yes, it's work on BIOS, but you will have QWERTY US layout, not my layout, like an AZERTY FR keyboard on BIOS.
Yes you can install it on Windows (in the description), all the drivers and software are provided with the keyboard.

For having a Linux support, I will let Linux developers do it because I don't know Linux and I will give resources needed to develop it.

Else I have set up a stream for my project ^^
https://www.twitch.tv/keproj

[arduiko]

A little note:
The number of keys moved between a QWERTY and an AZERTY is 6:
Q W A M Z ,?

Between a QWERTY and a ZYERT is 6:
Q W Y P Z ,<

Between an AZERTY and a ZYERT is 8:
A Z Y P Q M ,? ;.

[JohanAR]

You talked about Swedish that use both system, dead keys and accent letter directly printed.

And I personally found that it's mistake, dead key should be the only way to generate accent letter because it is much flexible than accent letter printed.

I think you underestimate how important ÅÄÖ are in the Swedish language, and only being able to write them using dead keys would be extremely tedious. Imagine writing English and having to press an extra key when you wanted to type U, I or O. IMHO it's more important that a keyboard is efficient than flexible

Yes of course, it's written in the description (USB 2.0 Full Speed)
Yes, it's work on BIOS, but you will have QWERTY US layout, not my layout, like an AZERTY FR keyboard on BIOS.
Yes you can install it on Windows (in the description), all the drivers and software are provided with the keyboard.

USBHID is just one of many protocols that you can use over USB, but if it's usable in BIOS then it supports USBHID. And the second question was if you could install Windows using your keyboard, i.e. before your driver is installed. If it works in BIOS it should also be able to do this

[davkol]

I think you underestimate how important ÅÄÖ are in the Swedish language, and only being able to write them using dead keys would be extremely tedious.

The respective monogram frequencies are 1.3–1.8 %, while the most common bigrams are 'en', 'de' and 'er', each with >2 %. Wouldn't it be more efficient to have dedicated keys for these bigrams then?

At some point you have to make the decision that there would be either too much tapping/chording, or reaching for too many keys.

[arduiko]

I think you underestimate how important ÅÄÖ are in the Swedish language, and only being able to write them using dead keys would be extremely tedious. Imagine writing English and having to press an extra key when you wanted to type U, I or O. IMHO it's more important that a keyboard is efficient than flexible

Ok, but sorry if this keyboard not fit for Swedish, you must understand that this keyboard support 44 languages and it's fair difficult to make all happy (except English people  ).

I found a balanced solution for everyone and it's this one.

USBHID is just one of many protocols that you can use over USB, but if it's usable in BIOS then it supports USBHID. And the second question was if you could install Windows using your keyboard, i.e. before your driver is installed. If it works in BIOS it should also be able to do this

Indeed, I never said the inverse and of course that my keyboard use USBHID and support BIOS, else I will not be able to sell it and it will be just a gadget otherwise.

I made all the experimentations and verifications possible, no worry, that's why I needed 2 years to build this keyboard ^^

Euh wait, Windows and Bios are not at all the same thing, to need to use my keyboard, you need to install my Keyboard Driver Layout and my Software (to use the Program Keys).

The Bios has its own system, it's independant of the OS, we cannot modify the Keyboard Driver Layout of Bios, that's why you will have a QWERTY layout (seem the standard layout for BIOS).

[Koren]

Not fond of the layout at all, but it's always interesting to have more ideas discussed... No doubt it'll meet some people requirements.

If you're interested into why I'm not fond of the layout, it's because
- as a programmer, moving symbols even farther seems unpractical (even more if you need two keys to use them), the worst being +
- numbers are only on right keypad?
- not fond of systematic use of dead keys (see below), even more when the most useful one to me isn't even directly available
- not a fan of smaller keys
- I still think caps lock is useful (though I have hard times properly making it work in my keyboard firmware)
(and not fond of flat, untented, single-block ortholinear layout)

So definitively not for me, I even prefer current AZERTY (which I don't like that much), let alone some improved layouts. Still, again, I respect the work, and the discussion is interesting.

The target are all kind of keyboard users, the layout is optimized for:
- Typists (chat)
- Gamers
- Desktop/internet users
- Programmers

Not totally sure you can "optimize" a keyboard for several kind of usages and several languages. It's a bit different than making all characters available... I don't even use the same layout depending on the task I do (programming or normal typing), and I like it that way.

I'm curious... are you actually a programmer? Did I miss a + somewhere or the only one is truly on the far right? Is this an oversight?

My opinion would be that a keyboard layout is heavily linked to a language, and "one fits all" is not the way to go. In fact, I don't even think a programmer or a typist have the same kind of requirements.

My dream would be a way to be able to properly fit third-party keyboard on laptops (ergodox-like layout on a laptop would be so far better than current offerings...)

And I personally found that it's mistake, dead key should be the only way to generate accent letter because it is much flexible than accent letter printed.

I'm not sure I totally agree, given the frequency of some accentuated letters. You were referring to french, where "é" for example is over 2%, more than nearly half of the letters... People won't want to use dead keys for that.

Though I admit I moved most accentuated letters (except é and è, and the latter may move) on a different layer myself, and made dead accents available in case I need a foreign character (while I still don't use it for normal french accent, I prefer a Alt-gr-like modifier to half a dozen dead keys, except for ^).

That's why French government want to rework the French Keyboard to be able to access to all accent letters used in French.

There's not a single chance that a french keyboard would see é, è, à and ç (and possibly ù) disappear from a layout, replaced by dead accents. In fact, they could ADD one, which is on bépo (ê)

The reason the french government is (was?) discussing this is
1) Buzz
2) ...
...
487) Actual issues:
- there's characters actually IMPOSSIBLE to type on a french AZERTY, such as É (shift-é gives 2, no dead acute even if there's a dead grave!) or œ/Œ (even if some keyboard layouts have it hidden somewhere)
- home row is used less that top row, which is ergonomically bad*

If they design one (though I can see Bépo winning this, and not selling in commercial products, so we get a statu-quo), you'll most probably see accentuated letters earning an actual key so that you can use shift on it.


*not that AZERTY isn't optimized, but it's optimized FOR MECHANICAL TYPEWRITERS, where the top row needs less force than "home" row (it's also optimized for rolls, not alternating hands, which is a matter of taste). Actually, just switching top and home rows may improve things at small cost.

The respective monogram frequencies are 1.3–1.8 %, while the most common bigrams are 'en', 'de' and 'er', each with >2 %. Wouldn't it be more efficient to have dedicated keys for these bigrams then?

That's something I thought about... and it's not that a great idea when you look into it, IMHO.

Let alone the fact that "é" in french for example is more common than most bigrams, (and that you should get rid of half a dozen normal characters before the accentuated characters if you go strict %), I see two issues:

- if you introduce bigrams, assume you press the wrong key and it happens to be a bigram, you need to press backspace twice. I'm not sure it's great to have a "I missed the key"-key that depend on the key you pressed (firmware solutions are worse)

- common bigrams use common letters, which are easy to reach, usually on the home row of an optimized layout. Often optimized for rolls or alternating hands too (depending on preferences). Dead accent are usually not that easily reached (here a small key two rows above) and need to be followed by a letter on a completely different place (typically home row).

Ok, but sorry if this keyboard not fit for Swedish, you must understand that this keyboard support 44 languages and it's fair difficult to make all happy (except English people  ).

You're under the risk to make noone unhappy, but noone happy either.

Unless you target international hotels (they have some fancy international keyboards sometimes), but that's a limited market.

The Bios has its own system, it's independant of the OS, we cannot modify the Keyboard Driver Layout of Bios, that's why you will have a QWERTY layout (seem the standard layout for BIOS).

Well, nothing prevents you from sending the "correct" keycodes, as long as the character is available in QWERTY layout, you can make it work in a QWERTY bios without requiring any driver.

[davkol]

- [AZERTY] home row is used less that top row, which is ergonomically bad*

*not that AZERTY isn't optimized, but it's optimized FOR MECHANICAL TYPEWRITERS, where the top row needs less force than "home" row (it's also optimized for rolls, not alternating hands, which is a matter of taste). Actually, just switching top and home rows may improve things at small cost.

That isn't _quite_ correct—the top row is used on QWERTY-based layouts because of typebar collisions—but whatever.

The respective monogram frequencies are 1.3–1.8 %, while the most common bigrams are 'en', 'de' and 'er', each with >2 %. Wouldn't it be more efficient to have dedicated keys for these bigrams then?

That's something I thought about... and it's not that a great idea when you look into it, IMHO.

It's a starting point, not the ultimate solution. Although, I've seen someone make a layout with common bigrams assigned to a couple of keys, but then again, a lot of strange ideas is floating around the forums.

Orthography has changed over time. Consider digraphs, such as English th ~ ð… or the Nordic alphabet extensions, compare Czech and Polish orthography)… or simply take a look at ASCII-only spelling of umlauted vowels (e.g., ö ~ oe).

So, you can use expansion or multi-tap composition based on this.

And if you embrace it, you're getting shorthand, i.e., stenography. The most efficient sort of "typing" methods.

[arduiko]

I'm curious... are you actually a programmer ?

If I wasn't, I could not have made this keyboard.

Well, nothing prevents you from sending the "correct" keycodes

Considering the standard of the keycodes, I can only get the ZYERT alphabetic disposition for a QWERTY layout driver and it's what I already did.

[Koren]

Now that I see it, I guess you moved the ß from H to make room for ħ, but why choose B if S is available?

(if someone can explain me the rational on ß being on H to begin with on QWERTZ keyboards, I'd really like to hear it, btw)

That isn't _quite_ correct—the top row is used on QWERTY-based layouts because of typebar collisions—but whatever.

Typebar collisions are mostly avoided by using rolls (possibly the most common bigram in english is er/re, for example) or separate hands. Switching top and middle row as a whole doesn't change that much (not totally correct, but well). Though indeed, since top row bars are a bit lighter, they come back to resting position a bit more quickly after strokes.

Still, top row account for more than 50% of keypresses on a QWERTY keyboard (it's even higher on an AZERTY one), twice as much as home row. So they choosed to make the top row the main one, not the current home row.

(On a loosely related matter, each time I think I partly learned typing on a mechanical writer, I feel so old :/)

And if you embrace it, you're getting shorthand, i.e., stenography. The most efficient sort of "typing" methods.

Problem with stenography is that you need to retype it later, since you mostly record sounds, or trust a computer to get the spelling correct, which isn't that reliable. Still, I'm amazed by people using fully chorded keyboard, I want to learn typing on such a keyboard one day.

If I wasn't, I could not have made this keyboard.

Well, I think you could technically tackle such a project without much programming involved, but in this case, I understood by reading your descriptions that you can code, indeed.

In case there was a doubt, I meant no "disrespect", it was a honest question. I rather wanted to know whether you are coding a lot (typically daily). I dealt with normal layouts for years while coding, and still do, but I'm more and more bothered to not have easy access to symbols. So on my own computer, I slowly put most symbols like {}()[] on direct access, and now on home row using a layer (typically Alt-Gr). I don't want my hand to move that much when coding. So moving those further away is not to my liking, but it's a matter of taste...

The real thing that surprised me was +... Did I miss one on the keyboard? Going 8 keys on the right from resting position to hit a normal-size key doesn't seem the easiest thing to do blindly. And it's a bit too useful in most programming languages to throw away, I would think.

Considering the standard of the keycodes, I can only get the ZYERT alphabetic disposition for a QWERTY layout driver and it's what I already did.

So when you press a Q on your keyboard, the bios understand it as a Q? Well, I think it's the behavior people would hope in BIOS (or Windows installation before being able to install the driver)

Dead accents or really special characters not working in BIOS is something people will expect...

[davkol]

That isn't _quite_ correct—the top row is used on QWERTY-based layouts because of typebar collisions—but whatever.

Typebar collisions are mostly avoided by using rolls (possibly the most common bigram in english is er/re, for example) or separate hands. Switching top and middle row as a whole doesn't change that much (not totally correct, but well). Though indeed, since top row bars are a bit lighter, they come back to resting position a bit more quickly after strokes.

Still, top row account for more than 50% of keypresses on a QWERTY keyboard (it's even higher on an AZERTY one), twice as much as home row. So they choosed to make the top row the main one, not the current home row.

The concept of a "home" row didn't exist until quite a bit later.

Typebar collisions were avoided by separation in the typebasket, see QWERTY and the search for optimality (Kay 2013). Adjacent symbols went by columns (QAZ, SX, DC,…) and adjacent _keys_ (E, R,…) were separated by number-row-keys' typebars.

And if you embrace it, you're getting shorthand, i.e., stenography. The most efficient sort of "typing" methods.

Problem with stenography is that you need to retype it later, since you mostly record sounds, or trust a computer to get the spelling correct, which isn't that reliable.

That's automated using a dictionary, see, e.g., Plover.

[arduiko]

In case there was a doubt, I meant no "disrespect", it was a honest question. I rather wanted to know whether you are coding a lot (typically daily). I dealt with normal layouts for years while coding, and still do, but I'm more and more bothered to not have easy access to symbols. So on my own computer, I slowly put most symbols like {}()[] on direct access, and now on home row using a layer (typically Alt-Gr). I don't want my hand to move that much when coding. So moving those further away is not to my liking, but it's a matter of taste...

Does it matter in which language I coding ?
No, because almost all languages have the same use of character symbols.

( ) [ ] ; : // + - / * . , < > & ! | " ' % # $ _ and so on.

Else what's the point of point the bad aspect of this keyboard ?

Do you realize that QWERTY and AZERTY have their own default but people don't care about and continue to use it.

My keyboard transformed the default of QWERTY and AZERTY in quality but there is a price to paid, a few quality of classic keyboard turned in default, it's what I thought but it's worth it.

Because the benefits are more than defaults for me and even if a system have default, it's not prevent to people to use it.

The real thing that surprised me was +... Did I miss one on the keyboard? Going 8 keys on the right from resting position to hit a normal-size key doesn't seem the easiest thing to do blindly. And it's a bit too useful in most programming languages to throw away, I would think.

The above anwser respond to this problem, but I will tell you a secret, as a programmer I never used the + of the keys above the alphabetic keys, nor the -

For me all the math operations are the job of the keypad and all typing is on the alphabetic pad, it's a rule that I set up since I learn progamming.

As the coding standard as all programmers have each of them.

Also what is the home row and top row you are talking about ?

[Blaise170]

For anyone here who wants some entertainment, check out this thread started by OP: https://deskthority.net/product-news-f44/keyboard-project-with-a-new-layout-t18934.html

[davkol]

Is there a cached version with full comments by OP for those of us that missed the party?

[Blaise170]

Unfortunately no - but the last two pages are quite the show. Some people quoted OP so those are still available from before.

[hoggy]

You might have noticed that a few posts have gone...



Please play nicely.

[Koren]

The concept of a "home" row didn't exist until quite a bit later.

I know, it's just an handy way to refer to the rows on a keyboard. It seems easier to me than say "the rows that starts with "ASDF..."

see QWERTY and the search for optimality (Kay 2013).

Will look into this one, I think I haven't read it yet. The layout adjustment at this time weren't scientific, though, I think, and the result of a lot of trial and error, and reports from telegraphists (or so I heard?)

That's automated using a dictionary, see, e.g., Plover.

I can't talk for all languages, obviously, it doesn't work that well at least for french, there's still a good chunk of proof reading and editing to be done afterwards (probably related to the fact that spell checkers are still awfully bad today). And it needs a dictionnary, so it will fails on names, many technical terms, code, etc (or if you change language or borrow foreign terms). Punctuation is often harsh, too. Stenography and chorded keyboard are great, especially for speed, but it's not a remplacement for normal keyboards, many people that use chorded keyboard edit the result on normal ones...

Does it matter in which language I coding ?
No, because almost all languages have the same use of character symbols.

The frequency of symbols change a lot from one language to another, though.

For example, talking about +, languages that have foreach structures (or for that works on iterables) have less need of it (as long as you're not doing arithmetics) than traditional C++ that basically need it for all foor-loops.

If you're using C, you'll want {} easily reachable. If you're using ML variants, I don't even remember if there's a single use of them.

Do you realize that QWERTY and AZERTY have their own default but people don't care about and continue to use it.

Yes, obviously. People still use staggered keyboard, too. You won't suddenly make people see the light suddenly.

If you like the layout you design, well go for it. And make it available for others, that's great, some will probably enjoy it. I've found plently of interesting ideas about layouts on forums (last one that made me think hard is put the number pad on a layer on the left hand to make numbers+mouse easier, an oversight to me).

My opinion is not that your work isn't interesting... It's just that by trying to fit too many goals, it makes things I often use harder to reach, so I think I even prefer AZERTY.

The above anwser respond to this problem, but I will tell you a secret, as a programmer I never used the + of the keys above the alphabetic keys, nor the -

For me all the math operations are the job of the keypad and all typing is on the alphabetic pad, it's a rule that I set up since I learn progamming.

Interesting... That account for a lot of right hand motion, and sometime tricky ones. To each his own, I guess... I'd be curious to hear other people opinions on this specific point...

Also what is the home row and top row you are talking about ?

Just a way to refer to the keyboard rows (home row being ASDFG... on a QWERTY keyboard, the row that typist schools* suggest as the one where your fingers rest/come back). Sorry for the shortcut.


*I'm not an advocate of strict typing rules (especially the one-key = one-finger rule, and the most common association: to me, X is middle finger, C is forefinger, for symmetry reasons, not the most common rule, but still one that some authors suggest)... But I still share the idea that reducing hand motion helps.

[arduiko]

I don't know what is ML but I know assembler, C, C#, HTML and a little C++, Java and all other disliked languages

And all those languages have the same basic keyword and symbol or almost.

Else you don't like that I focus on all the keyboard users for made this layout.

But it's a keyboard and a keyboard need to answer to all its users, else it will not be a keyboard.

[davkol]

You might have noticed that a few posts have gone...

Please play nicely.

OP is promoting their crowdfunding campaign here.

The post by Blaise170 contained useful information about OP likely vandalizing the Deskthority forum. That's useful information to potential campaign backers, because it raises some red flags—I'm afraid a moderator removing such information would be complicit in such a case.

[arduiko]

Again off-topic #lol

[davkol]

I don't know what is ML but I know assembler, C, C#, HTML and a little C++, Java and all other disliked languages

So, an SGML-based markup and a bunch of C-like programming languages. Assembler technically isn't a language, while there are many different kinds of assembly.

Now, code in Python, various Lisps or, for example, Haskell (including syntactic sugar) may look quite different.

[arduiko]

In summary all programming languages that the majority don't use.

And I will never satisfate the minority keyboard users and I already acted like this for languages, I denied some language support of my layout for all language spoken by less 1 millions (with some exceptions) of people: African languages and some America tributes languages.

It's a decision I made since the creation of this keyboard and I not regret it.

[davkol]

Again off-topic #lol

No, that's absolutely on-topic, because the only reason why you've joined the forums and created these posts is to advertise your commercial activities.

Your first post here (besides one that reads only "2delete"):

I have launch on indiegogo a keyboard with my own layout that I am working on since 2 years.
…
(link)

I don't see how it's justifiable to censor discussion about the vendor in a thread about that vendor's product. Imagine deleting posts about Razer (say, RMA process) in a thread about the BlackWidow.

In summary all programming languages that the majority don't use.

And I will never satisfate the minority keyboard users and I already acted like this for languages, I denied some language support of my layout for all language spoken by less 1 millions (with some exceptions) of people: African languages and some America tributes languages.

It's a decision I made since the creation of this keyboard and I not regret it.

Yeah, and that's the problem with "too universal" products. One size doesn't fit all.

The target are all kind of keyboard users, the layout is optimized for:
- Typists (chat)
- Gamers
- Desktop/internet users
- Programmers
...

Hmm, what's the optimization then?

[arduiko]

It's a keyboard and a keyboard need to answer to all its users, else it's not a keyboard.

[arduiko]

Also is it true that you all hate flexible goal ?

I don't understand because it's Indiegogo itself that say it's better to have a flexible goal instead a fixed goal, so I just chosen the default goal option.

[hoggy]

Looking back, I made a mistake by deleting the posts earlier.  I just wanted the offensive material removed.  Davkol posted it as it would be useful material for campaign backers.  I was too hasty. 

Sorry.