how about this?



number layout (dial pad) strikes me as most annoying feature - one of those "socializing" example .
easy to fix

And perhaps the backlight should be provided by RGB LEDs, so that it can follow the color tone from the current Sailfish 'ambiance'

Now we are talking! It could follow the phone like you said, or total disco mode!

Here is the result of playing some time with gimp and starting from the design of a full QWERTY desktop layout (from Gnome3 layout manager), and trying to arrange it to something that can be embedded.



All caracters for the keys are shown here, as I started from gnome layout manager where the goal is to see all key functions.
In a final design, we should make the main key text bigger and translucent (for backlight), and secondary functions could be shown as smaller text, and could not be backligthed.

The directional pad should something as found on the E90 or N810, and in the middle is the "enter" key. This gives all the buttons we need for typing text and navigating (page up/down, home, end).

There is also both "Delete" and "backspace", as it is handy for typing text, and lot of software need the delete key to delete something (for exemple spreasheet editor usually have different function for both).

The "Compose Level 3" key is the "Fn" key. It is availlable on both sides, as are shift and control, to ease making shortcuts. There is also the "Alt", "Super" (a.k.a. the "Windows" key) and Escape keys.

From the 105 keys desktop keyboard, only the "insert", "print", "scroll lock", "pause", "Menu" (the key that give the drop down menu, like mouse right click), F1-F12 and numerical pad are not availlable.

Then I tried to style the layout to get the idea behind the backlighted keyboard of the M810 (keys outline on 2 sides) and also the key names.
I am not good at design, so I know these pictures are not really good looking, but it gives the idea (working from bitmaps and not vector file don't help either...)

Here with a blue backlight :


And then changing the backlight to orange to match the case color :


There is a lot of keys there, but as the phone is a bit bigger than an E7, it could fit. Some keys could also be made a bit smaller (line the bottom row height). I still haven't shown the media player buttons on the side, but imagine they are there !

What do you think (except that I should learn to use gimp )?
Would the keys not be too small ? In that case what keys should we throw out ?

Wow, this looks quite intimidating! I like that is fills the entire space, imagine this with all possible backlight colors!

The double-size backspace and big spacebar are nice too! Arrow keys needs some getting used to. They take in a lot of space, is this proportionate to how much you would use it? Arrow keys on N900 were definitely too small!

Yes, I tried to fit as much as possible, to avoid needing too many key combination to type things. This is the main problem I have with on screen keyboard : constantly switching from the letters layout, to numbers, to another set of special characters, to simply type a mail address. Here everything is there, with maybe a shift or function key to hold simultaneously. It also have easy access to symbols used for programming so that you can easily edit a bunch of qml directly on the phone .
For the fact that it uses all the space, we have to check if it is feasible (due to the camera lense and the slide mechanism), and ergonomic (keys on the side might not be that easy to reach, but as they are not the most used, It should be ok ?).

For the size, I don't really know... I started with nine buttons the same size as the others, and then tried to display them in the idea of the N810. I kept the size during the process, but made the "Enter" button a bit larger than the others.
This is only just a draft, and all this can be tuned a lot better, but it is not easy to see what is too large or too small when designing it on a computer screen. Monday (I have no printer at home...), I will try to print it real scale to see if it is ok.
If you have ideas about how to improve it in the meantime (move/remove/add keys, change size...), I can adjust it.

This keyboard has a layout which is perhaps the best 4-row keyboard that I've seen:
- correct number of keys for the language-localizing of most European languages
- well balanced compromise between the size of keys and the available space


But I would make some changes to it:

• Move the four arrow keys and the number keys (of the Fn layer") one step to the left.
  Reason: the frequently pressed arrow keys are in the lower right-hand corner, near the palm bottom, which is the most difficult area of the keyboard. By moving the arrow keys to the left their use can be made easier.
• Move the Enter key one step lower (to the Alt key of the photo).
  Reason: the two keys on the right-hand side of the L key are essential for the localizing for most European languages. By moving the Enter key away, the localizing can be made easier. For the localizing will be needed also 1 to 3 more keys, depending on the language. Those keys are found near the ArrowUp key by replacing some punctuation characters with the additional characters of each language.

There are innumerable other reasons which affect the layout design. I don't explain them here, but go straight to my suggestion of how the layout of the above photo could be changed and localized:

• Size and shape of keys: like in the photo
• 1st approximation fo the number of keys: like in the photo, but moved 1 key width to the left.
• Labels on the keys:

Esc Q W E R T Y U I O P Backspace
Tab A S D F G H J K L ; '
⌂⌂⌂ Z X C V B N M / ↑ = Enter
Alt Fn Sym , . Space - ← ↓ → Ctrl
In the above elementary text-format diagram the bottom row is misaligned from what it would be - see the photo: the ↑ key would be above the ↓ key. The "Shift arrow" is written in the diagram as ⌂⌂⌂, in order to align better the key columns. All the keys are supposed to have the same size, except the two keys wide Spacebar, like in the photo. The widths of the bottom-row keys can be adjusted later, if need be.
The Ctrl key is on the right-hand side, in order to make it easy to make the most common shortcuts: Ctrl + A, Z, X, C, V, B.
Those keys which in the above diagram have a red character are the 'language-localizable keys'; those keys where go the Ö Ä Ü ß keys of the German Qwertz keyboard, for example:
Esc Q W E R T Z U I O P Backspace
Tab A S D F G H J K L Ö Ä
⌂⌂⌂ Y X C V B N M Ü ↑ ß Enter
Alt Fn Sym , . Space - ← ↓ → Ctrl
On the Scandinavian Qwerty keyboard there are labels Æ Ø Å on the keys which have Ö Ä ß on the German Qwertz keyboard (for 6 languages, actually there are double or triple letter labels on two keys: ÖÆ ÄØ).
And for the Qwerty/Qwertz layout on the same keyboard, there are double labels also on the YZ and ZY keys. Now, please don't stick to details, good localizers surely know what labels there are. The full-size Qwerty keyboard is the most important reference, but some modifications need to be done to make it possible to use the same keyboard variant (keymat) for several languages. For example, with only a few minor modifications, a special 7-language keyboard can be made for Germany and Nordic countries (Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia), and perhaps a couple of more countries.

The number keypad area is highlighted here with bold blue numbers. They are written as the combinations of letter keys and the Fn key.
Esc Q W E R T 1 2 3 O P Backspace
Tab A S D F G 4 5 6 L ; '
⌂⌂⌂ Z X C V B 7 8 9 ↑ = Enter
Alt Fn Sym , . Space 0 ← ↓ → Ctrl
The 0 key is below the 8 key, like in the photo (but moved next to the Spacebar). This diagram only displays the principle were the number labels are; the other characters of the Fn + letter-key combinations are not marked in the above diagram. (those labels to be printed in the same color as the Fn key).
There is no CAPS LOCK key (press the ⌂ twice to turn on CAPS LOCK, like on virtual keyboards). But there is the Sym key, for the "multitapping" method to enter letter variants, and for an array of additional special characters and symbols (opened by pressing once the Sym key). If more space is wanted, perhaps the functions of the Sym and Alt key combined to use the same key.

Hi Egon,
That makes quite big keys seeing the size of the device (2 cm taller than the Jolla) and small number of keys, if we compare with other phones with keyboard. It is perhaps the reason you find it better ?

I find that French keyboard tends to not be good on small keyboards. I usually stick to english Qwerty which works better, as French is still readable when you throw out accents...

Anyway, as we are talking of this, here is the "AZERTY" layout we have on french keyboards (green for the basic set, orange for the french specific set):


Differences with QWERTY are :
- A <-> Q
- Z <-> W
- M <-> ";"
- special characters are spread out everywhere
- frequently used accented letter are shared with numbers (é, è, ç, à). The HUGE difference is that numbers are reached using the shift key, whereas in english, number are directly reachable and shift key is for special characters!
- there is also the "ù"
- for other less common accents (like ê, ï, ...), we have to first type the "^" or with shift "¨" key, then the letter...

It doesn't really fits well on small keyboard (looks like german or scandinavian fits better), so I generally prefer to stay on QWERTY on small devices, even if I use AZERTY on my computers.

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).
Yes, the French Azerty layout is quite a challenge. And there are enough challenges also with the localizing of other European languages. So, let's analyze them. To get an idea of what will be needed and what kind of compromises could be made with them, please activate the Español, French, French (Canada), Italiano, Magyar, Polski, Português and Română to N9 phone. Then edit text with MeeTxtEdit or Notes application, and change the keyboard layout by sliding your finger on the keyboard, starting from the left or right edge of the screen. You will notice that with 2 ... 4 "localizable" keys it is possible to use another variant of the 4 x 12 keyboard for several languages. The "localizable" keys are the same which have red labels in the layout picture of my previous comment. Depending on the activated keyboard-driver variant, they can work as sticky accent keys (like the accent keys of the Spanish, Italian, Hungarian and Polish keyboards of N9, and like the accent keys of full-size HW keyboards), or as a letter (such as Ñ for Spanish, Ç for Portuguese, Catalan etc, as well as Ł Ę Ą for Polish, ...). But the text entry on the new kind of multilingual keyboard does not match completely with the ease of choosing more letter variants on virtual keyboards (done by tapping and holding your key on a key and sliding onto the wanted character). But thanks to the use of four "localizable" keys, also those letter variants can be entered with sticky accent keys, for most languages. For example, for Portuguese texts, just like they can be written with the Portuguese full-size Qwerty keyboard.

Because on the relatively small outbowing keys it is difficult to add more than 2 or 3 backlighted labels, the labels on the "localizable" keys won't match with the letters of all the languages of a multilingual keyboard variant. But because there are not more than 2 ... 4 "localizable" keys, they can be memorized easily, because all the other labels (also those of the Fn layer) match with what you get with each key. For example, even if there were printed ÇÑ on a key, it does prevent Polish people to use it for their Ł letter. Or, if a key has the ^Ę label, Hungarian people can use it as the sticky ˝ key for their ű and ő letters. In this way the number of country or language specific kayboard variants (i.e. the number of keymats) can be reduced, just like can be done with the 7 or more languages of Northern Europe.

Although for France can be made double labels on the QA, WZ, AQ, and ZW keys, a separate Azerty keymat might be more useful for France (then also the new kind of key coding on the right-thumb side of the N and L keys would not become too complicated). Another reason is that the text entry is very different also in other respects. For example, part of the "French" letters are typed with sticky accent keys and part are written with their individual keys on full-sized Azerty keyboards. 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. Also a "South European & Latin American" Azerty/Qwerty/Qwertz keyboard (one with QA, WZ, AQ, ZWY and YZ keys) might be preferred by French people, instead of the English Qwerty keyboard.

On the N900, the enter, delete and shift keys (and all other function keys) are all the same size as the standard keys. Only space is larger; exactly two standard keys wide (and to the side).

I was a little concerned the first time I saw this, but my experience is that it makes no difference at all. Having an enter key the same size as my 'a' key works just perfectly, and just like I rarely hit the wrong key when trying to type 'a', I rarely hit the wrong key when trying to type 'enter'.

So I am wondering, is there really a real reason for a larger backspace, enter, delete, shift, ctrl and so on? Or is that perhaps just a myth? Have other N900-users experienced problems with hitting the right key when they try to hit, for example, enter? Maybe a larger number of keys (duplicted ctrl and shift) or a tighter keyboard (less reach for distant keys) is more valuable than larger keys?