slightly modified keyboard layout including arrow keys.

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Thursday, September 8, 2011 11:28:36 Sune Vuorela wrote:
> Slightly smaller keys to make room for arrow keys

i don't think this should be necessary (see below)

> All this gave room for a small extra key in the zxcvbmn,.- row, so I added a
> right shift.

right shift is not a particularly good use of space which is at a premium on 
these keyboards imo...
 
> Comments, additions and such is welcome.

with the changes, which i think are leading in a good direction, there are a 
number of sub-optimal things:

* i now have multiple instances of [ and ]: below the shift key and when i 
press the "123" button. are [ and ] really needed on the default view? is 
having them in "123" enough? keep in mind that @, which is more often used by 
most people than [ or ], is there already as well

* multiple instances of < and >: next to the shift key, and two >s when i 
press shift. ditto with [ and ] above

* two ways to get at '\': it's on the initial layout and shows up in place of 
/ when "123" is pressed. more innexplicable is that 'b' becomes '/' when "123" 
is pressed. it probably makes sense to keep '/' on the main layout due to urls 
and paths, and have it switch to \ in "123" mode? that frees up two more keys, 
one the default layout and one in "123" mode

* same is true of single quote ('): it's on both the default and "123". oddly, 
double quote (") is only in "123".

so .. i think step 1 is to eliminate all this odd duplication and cluster like 
keys in the main layout area together. put less used punctuation and symbols 
all into "123", and i bet we get enough room for another key that would allow 
showing arrow keys (perhaps in a popup? rather than changing the whole 
keyboard?) and other modifiers such as ctrl/alt/esc/etc.

this would allow us to not take room away from the oft-used keys for arrows 
and modifiers.

thoughts?

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
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