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Egon is offline Egon
2013-10-12 , 18:07
Posts: 65 | Thanked: 56 times | Joined on Oct 2013
#41
Originally Posted by dirkvl View Post
There is some speculation on JollaUsers that Jolla will develop a qwerty otherhalf. Perhaps this makes this discussion useless, perhaps they are following us closely.

I hope the latter!
It often comes to my mind that only the big brother follows us: it takes a few hours or days to get the latest contents of talk.maemo.org indexed by Google. But if I publish something at an ordinary site, it may take several weeks until I can google its contents. So, in that meaning we are extraordinary
Last edited by Egon; 2013-10-12 at 18:09.
 
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qwazix is offline qwazix
2013-10-12 , 18:20
Moderator | Posts: 2,622 | Thanked: 5,447 times | Joined on Jan 2010
#42
Minutes

https://www.google.gr/search?q=It%20...rs%20or%20days
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dirkvl is offline dirkvl
2013-10-17 , 12:39
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#43
Dome sweet dome? These domes might be a nice solution to quickly customize and build keyboards?
 

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stefanmohl is offline stefanmohl
2013-10-17 , 13:13
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#44
I agree with the overall dome-shape, as has been mentioned by others in this thread, but I would also like to add an important fact for fast typing: The "springyness" has to be soft to allow typing fast on small keys! It is nicer if there is a sense of click when one hits the bottom, but for fast typing it is actually more important that little force is required to depress the key into the contact state. Even the N900 keyboard would have been better if it were softer than it is.
 

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dirkvl is offline dirkvl
2013-10-18 , 11:06
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#45
Other thing I had some thoughts about:

Should the keyboard cover the total width of the phone? Like this one:\


Or would it be better to leave a substantial space on the sides?


It's a matter of size of the keys vs. distance your thumbs need to travel and have to bend to reach the outer en inner keys.

At the moment I think I'd rather have a keyboard that is not the total width!
 
stefanmohl is offline stefanmohl
2013-10-18 , 12:41
Posts: 172 | Thanked: 170 times | Joined on Jan 2010 @ Sweden
#46
With some usability studies, it must be possible to figure out the perfect size for a thumb-keyboard. If the phone is smaller than that, the keyboard should fill as much space as possible, otherwise it shouldn't.

Perhaps we can find some free-standing thumb keyboards that have been made without size constraints? The sizes of those will probably tell what the ideal size should be.

If there is space beside the keyboard, an analog joystick seems like a good choice for the space, i.e. an input device that the screen and keyboard can't fulfill by themselves.
 
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pichlo is offline pichlo
2013-10-18 , 12:57
Posts: 6,453 | Thanked: 20,983 times | Joined on Sep 2012 @ UK
#47
This might be irrelevant since that layout is probably impractical on the Jolla's OH, but the best QUERTY keyboard I have ever used was this one:



(I have never held the vertical QUERTY Blackberrys so cannot pass any judgment there but I am happy to believe they are similar.)

One could easily operate it with the thumb of the hand holding the phone while walking, and keeping the other hand free for e.g. holding the shopping bags etc.The N900 has a good keyboard but there is no way to manage the same feat: I have to stop and use both hands to use it.

I believe this is the inherent problem with all horizontal designs. The keyboard is too wide and the vertical distance too short to provide any kind of one-handed support, regardless of how much space you leave between the key and the edge. If anything, since a two-hand operation is required anyway, I would vote for using the whole space.
 

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Egon is offline Egon
2013-10-18 , 13:10
Posts: 65 | Thanked: 56 times | Joined on Oct 2013
#48
Originally Posted by dirkvl View Post
Other thing I had some thoughts about:

Should the keyboard cover the total width of the phone? Like this one:\
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_E-HBtGdxmL...prada-ii-1.jpg

Or would it be better to leave a substantial space on the sides?
http://cdn.ubergizmo.com/photos/2010...oid-qwerty.jpg

It's a matter of size of the keys vs. distance your thumbs need to travel and have to bend to reach the outer en inner keys.

At the moment I think I'd rather have a keyboard that is not the total width!
To keep everyone happy, let's make a compromise solution:
Put the essential keys on a 10-column Qwerty keyboard (key columns 2 ...11). Fill the "marginal key columns" nr 1 and 12 with additional keys which are used less frequently. Among them can be Tabulator, Esc, Alt. Perhaps also the Sym key can be in the 1st or 12th key column (it would not be needed for English texts, because Sym would be used mainly with "multitapping" for "foreign" characters, such as the á à ä â ª å æ characters of the A key. But keys like Fn, Shift, Ctrl and Enter should be in the essential key area of key columns 2 ... 11. And no CAPS LOCK key, please (that key is too close to the Shift key on full-size keyboards). There would be less than 8 marginal keys on a 4-row keyboard, because part of the left-hand margin of a sliding keyboard would be needed for the 2nd hole, thru which you can shoot pictures with the sliding keyboard inserted. To get an idea of that special construction, please see what I wrote to http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...27#post1379527
Please note that I wrote this without knowing the exact distance of the camera lens from the top of Jolla phone.
Last edited by Egon; 2013-10-18 at 13:19. Reason: Shift, Ctrl, Enter mentioned ("... in the essential key area")
 
dirkvl is offline dirkvl
2013-10-18 , 13:26
Posts: 1,104 | Thanked: 5,652 times | Joined on Feb 2010 @ Holland
#49
Originally Posted by Egon View Post
To keep everyone happy, let's make a compromise solution:
Put the essential keys on a 10-column Qwerty keyboard (key columns 2 ...11). Fill the "marginal key columns" nr 1 and 12 with additional keys which are used less frequently. Among them can be Tabulator, Esc, Alt. Perhaps also the Sym key can be in the 1st or 12th key column (it would not be needed for English texts, because Sym would be used mainly with "multitapping" for "foreign" characters, such as the á à ä â ª å æ characters of the A key. But keys like Fn, Shift, Ctrl and Enter should be in the essential key area of key columns 2 ... 11. And no CAPS LOCK key, please (that key is too close to the Shift key on full-size keyboards). There would be less than 8 marginal keys on a 4-row keyboard, because part of the left-hand margin of a sliding keyboard would be needed for the 2nd hole, thru which you can shoot pictures with the sliding keyboard inserted. To get an idea of that special construction, please see what I wrote to http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...27#post1379527
Please note that I wrote this without knowing the exact distance of the camera lens from the top of Jolla phone.
Ehhhhhhh can you make a sketch?
 

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Egon is offline Egon
2013-10-18 , 14:01
Posts: 65 | Thanked: 56 times | Joined on Oct 2013
#50
Originally Posted by dirkvl View Post
Ehhhhhhh can you make a sketch?
No, not yet. First we should know the distance of the camera lens from the top of the Jolla phone. I have not followed actively which of the appearance pictures is the latest. But I've understood that the lens is now in the middle of the top (on the left side when you look at the sreen and turn the phone to landscape orientation). We should also know whether the keymat of the sliding keyboard (its visible part) makes 50% or 60% or more of the height of the phone in landscape orientation. Perhaps it is best not to draw any sketch yet, so please let your imagination fly and put forward your own layout.

But I can disguise something: the layout can be almost like this, but with the "marginal kets" partly where you now see indicator lights and partly on the 13th key column. And there would not be 13 key columns but 10 essential key columns and 2 or 4 marginal key columns.

On the biggest phones (those with 5" or bigger screens, or with a camera in the middle of the the phone), it may be best to build a split Qwerty keyboard, like I explain in the "Phone, keyboard and camera grip put together" thread, but then we're not talking about an OH, but an integrated phone + keyboard device, which would make camera grips obsolete. An omitted OH is often the best OH
Last edited by Egon; 2013-10-18 at 14:21.
 

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