Thread: Ideal keyboard design and configuration
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Zeta is offline Zeta
2013-10-20 , 19:13
Posts: 339 | Thanked: 1,623 times | Joined on Oct 2013 @ France
#76
Originally Posted by Egon View Post
No, I don't know the size of the phone and keyboard in your photo. I mean how aethetically well balanced the layout of the keyboard is, there are all the four arrow keys, enough keys for language-localizing, etc. And it fits to a small size. Naturally I'd also appreciate an extra row of keys, but it may be difficult to build a 5-row keyboard for Jolla. If the keyboard slides out 70% or more of its total height, the remaining length of the rails may not be enough to make it durable enough (if you drop the phone + OH-keyboard, for example).
The phone is 68mm large, so 70% would give 47mm out, and 20mm for support. If it is enough to hold it (I don't know... anyone can mesure this on a n900, e7 or n950 ?), then we can have 1cm tall key on 4 rows, or about 8mm tall keys on 5 rows.
For the width, the phone is 131mm. If 5mm on each side is enough for the sliding mechanisms, we have 120mm remaining.
So for a 12x4 matrix, keys would be about square of 1cm.
For 14x5 (the heavy layout I proposed), it would make them a square of about 8 mm.
I don't know what are the acceptable mini and maxi limits for key size...

Originally Posted by Egon View Post
So, even though the French Azerty variant of the 4 x 12 HW keyboard would not be 100% perfect, it would match with the needs of most French people a lot better than the Qwerty/Qwertz variants of the same OH-keyboard.
After thinking a bit more of these problems, I now see that for myself I don't want a keyboard to only type text. What you propose is probably the way to go to provide a keyboard to fit SMS/Mail usage, for everyone.
What I want, is a developer keyboard that will allow me to do almost anything where I need to bring my laptop now (I work most of the day with embedded devices): take control of devices through SSH and use command line, and vi (so needs easy access to keys like Escape, :, |, >, <, &, ', ", `, $, ^, \, /, tab), take control though VNC of desktop application (so need to do almost any shortcut as possible... like CTRL or ALT+something) edit some code (needs symbols like [ ] ( ) { } # -> . _ " ' / \ : + - = * % | &), and finally naviguate more easily through text (so shortcuts like CTRL+Left/Right/Home to naviguate per words or to the top). Of course I also need to type text like for mails or sms, so the punctation is needed too (. , ; : ! ? ( ) " - ), some special characters (€, %, @) and numbers.
I can see now that we are not trying to solve the same problem. It may be that I am completely wrong and that this can be done with less keys using some combinations, and stay ergonomic.

If there are owners of n900 or n950 here that would share their feeling about that kind of usage, I would be really interested in their feedback !

Anyway the good point is this difference is only in the layouting (and key size obviously), but they still share everything else : the electronics, mechanical slide, backlight, ... can be the same.