Play along - create a PinePhone keyboard

[murak]

I did not think about speaker, but some sort of outlet or tunnel could be made in the part that snaps on the pinephone. 

Here is a keyboard layout mock-up similar to the picture provided by pine64. Use it to think about what keys and characters are important to you. 
In this design we have five func keys (ctrl, shift, fn, alt and alt gr) but maybe four is enough? I think alt gr can go away.


  pine_qwerty_layout_20200804.png (Size: 51.69 KB / Downloads: 492)

[Beattie]

Personally I think something like this is the most realistic design:

-either make a hole in the keyboard part for the camera or accept that you only can take pictures when the keyboard is out. 
-weight distribution COULD be a problem, but one would have to make a mockup to be sure. 

Lots of discussion has taken place in this thread already: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...6#pid54726

Keyboard layout is something that almost deserves its own thread. There are a lot of things to consider since only one layout will be made. I found this tool for playing with layouts: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com

I have little time right now but maybe someone can make a layout like the one in the blog post so that we have something to start working on?

I think something like that is what we'll end up with. The problem I see is the speaker being on the opposite corner of the phone to the camera, so it will always be covered in the arrangement shown. Adding an outlet to the side or bottom (or both) is possible - anyone here any good at acoustic models?

the space between the camera and speaker is 5inches (130mm) which should be big enough for a keyboard.

[x0r]

That's 108 keys. That's more than most full size desktop keyboards have. The target number of keys for a device the size of a Pinephone should probably be closer to 50.

But then, you're probably joking and I'm missing the joke.

You are joke not me. Look at old forum https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=7900& and UX50 sony. Old palmtop it have 54 keys (and one rotor, space, hole for rope, sound adjust etc.) and is smalest 2.5 times. No problem add metal 108 keys to pine phone too.
You just can't imagine that there are people using other alphabets :-) This is not racism, but rather a lack of imagination. These people must be very tired. Including me. ;(

I gave you an example of a real device that is comfortable and works. PinePhone sets standards, but these are hacker standards. Not corporate.

That's why people like these products so much. Because hackers do something they always wanted to have. Nobody designs terminal computers today. SSH ? nobody uses this.

I use, and many people need normal keyboard for working trought ssh.

<joke>And what do you suggest? 50 keys? But the computer only distinguishes between zero and one !</joke>

[CharlieGordon]

That's 108 keys. That's more than most full size desktop keyboards have. The target number of keys for a device the size of a Pinephone should probably be closer to 50.

But then, you're probably joking and I'm missing the joke.

You are joke not me. Look at old forum https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=7900& and UX50 sony. Old palmtop it have 54 keys (and one rotor, space, hole for rope, sound adjust etc.) and is smalest 2.5 times. No problem add metal 108 keys to pine phone too.
You just can't imagine that there are people using other alphabets :-) This is not racism, but rather a lack of imagination. These people must be very tired. Including me. ;(

I gave you an example of a real device that is comfortable and works. PinePhone sets standards, but these are hacker standards. Not corporate.

That's why people like these products so much. Because hackers do something they always wanted to have. Nobody designs terminal computers today. SSH ? nobody uses this.

I use, and many people need normal keyboard for working trought ssh.

<joke>And what do you suggest? 50 keys? But the computer only distinguishes between zero and one !</joke>

Sorry, I did not mean to offend you.

The UX-50 is narrower than the Pinephone, but deeper. We're talking about a slide-out keyboard here. If we have 85% of the useable area of the Clié we would be lucky. So 50 keys on a Pinephone slide-out seems quite reasonable when looking at 55 on the Clié.


What do you mean by other alphabets'? I've visited Greece and the Soviet Union back in the day.

Greeks by the way use standard US ASCII keyboards with added Greek letters on the key caps and switch between Latin and Greek modes. So I don't think the additional Greek letters would be even that popular in Greece.

When you say real device, do you mean you have used that layout at a size comparable to a Pinephone? I would be really interested to see that.

I like the design of the keyboard you propose, but Pine64 is going to produce one keyboard for the entire world and just from a purely economical point of view I highly doubt they will put their money on a Polish/Czech/Greek hybrid keyboard. Regarding ergonomics: I'm pretty sure I can type faster and more comfortable (even unusual characters) on a keyboard with 50 small keys and additional modifier keys than on one with 108 tiny keys.

Everyone will have to make some compromises, we'll be happy if we get some combining accents with Alt Gr combinations.

Why do you need 108 keys to use SSH? I don't understand that part at all.

Again, sorry if the joke remark offended you.

We cool?

[x0r]

You are joke not me. Look at old forum https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=7900& and UX50 sony. Old palmtop it have 54 keys (and one rotor, space, hole for rope, sound adjust etc.) and is smalest 2.5 times. No problem add metal 108 keys to pine phone too.
You just can't imagine that there are people using other alphabets :-) This is not racism, but rather a lack of imagination. These people must be very tired. Including me. ;(

I gave you an example of a real device that is comfortable and works. PinePhone sets standards, but these are hacker standards. Not corporate.

That's why people like these products so much. Because hackers do something they always wanted to have. Nobody designs terminal computers today. SSH ? nobody uses this.

I use, and many people need normal keyboard for working trought ssh.

<joke>And what do you suggest? 50 keys? But the computer only distinguishes between zero and one !</joke>

The UX-50 is narrower than the Pinephone, but deeper. We're talking about a slide-out keyboard here. If we have 85% of the useable area of the Clié we would be lucky. So 50 keys on a Pinephone slide-out seems quite reasonable when looking at 55 on the Clié.

The UX50 has a smaller surface area when folded than the entire pinephone. So something doesn't match your dimensions. Why not buy a ruler and check it out? One of us can't count.

What do you mean by other alphabets'? I've visited Greece and the Soviet Union back in the day.

Greeks by the way use standard US ASCII keyboards with added Greek letters on the key caps and switch between Latin and Greek modes. So I don't think the additional Greek letters would be even that popular in Greece.

I'm from Poland and have 32 char. The French https://www.omniglot.com/writing/french.htm have more characters, and the Spanish even have question marks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_keyboard , korean

Whatever you want, you're citing a keyboard that doesn't exist. You say they're all the same. Compare what keys are missing on a keyboard to a tablet, what keys are missing on other manufacturers' keyboards. It's just hard to talk when you can't see that most keyboards have different numbers of keys.

Let's make an external or internal keyboard, but one that's comfortable. For everyone not only for you.

When you say real device, do you mean you have used that layout at a size comparable to a Pinephone? I would be really interested to see that.

I like the design of the keyboard you propose, but Pine64 is going to produce one keyboard for the entire world and just from a purely economical point of view I highly doubt they will put their money on a Polish/Czech/Greek hybrid keyboard. Regarding ergonomics: I'm pretty sure I can type faster and more comfortable (even unusual characters) on a keyboard with 50 small keys and additional modifier keys than on one with 108 tiny keys.

Everyone will have to make some compromises, we'll be happy if we get some combining accents with Alt Gr combinations.

Why do you need 108 keys to use SSH? I don't understand that part at all.

And how many keys do you need to operate ssh?
I showed the smallest set of characters. National characters + punctuation marks + special characters.
The function keys (and much at the top) can extend on the opposite side. There are a lot of ideas.

https://ibb.co/XLTjmYB

Compromises should not affect the keys you use most often. I write about letters.

Many countries have more characters than in English. Luke encouraged to give different ideas. To be open. Today no keyboard is hacker-friendly. If we're going to do something new, let's do it properly. That way you don't have to change it in 20 years.

The layout may be arbitrary, but the number of keys would be fixed. The amount of information. (Functional lights up like a capslock mark etc.)

P.S. Sorry. my english are ugly and i dont know how cleary is my transmision, but today. No exist one standard of keyboard. Every keyboard are not good for programmers, hackers, geek. Meybe in 21 century is time to change this. In Pine Phone, in PineBook, in Tablet or in separate keyboard project.

[CharlieGordon]

> The UX50 has a smaller surface area when folded than the entire pinephone.

That's correct, but the Clié is a clam shell design. We're talking about a slide-out keyboard. If you look at a Nokia N900, the keyboard doesn't even use half the depth of the device. So the usable area for a Pinephone slide-out keyboard is almost certainly smaller than that of a Clié.

Even if we assume that we have some mechanical genius in this forum that will design a slide-out that can use the entire area of the Pinephone as keyboard you would have 72 Clié sized keys, not 108.

> I'm from Poland and have 32 char.

So we're still talking about the Latin alphabet. I'm from Germany and we have a 30 letter alphabet.

> You say they're all the same.

I never said that.

> And how many keys do you need to operate ssh?

i'm pretty sure I could get away with 40, maybe even less. There are lots of factors involved.

> Let's make an external or internal keyboard, but one that's comfortable. For everyone not only for you.

If you want an external keyboard like this, more power to you, but that's not what we're talking about in this thread. If you want to make a clam shell design like the Clié, great, I would actually prefer that over a slide-out keyboard, but again, this is not what this thread is about.

As I understand it, this thread isn't even about keyboard layouts at all, but about the mechanical design of a slide out mechanism. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not attacking you, your country, your language, your alphabet or your race (us poor Europeans, always getting discriminated), when I say that 108 keys are not a practical design for a tiny slide-out keyboard.

[Beattie]

> The UX50 has a smaller surface area when folded than the entire pinephone.

That's correct, but the Clié is a clam shell design. We're talking about a slide-out keyboard. If you look at a Nokia N900, the keyboard doesn't even use half the depth of the device. So the usable area for a Pinephone slide-out keyboard is almost certainly smaller than that of a Clié.

Even if we assume that we have some mechanical genius in this forum that will design a slide-out that can use the entire area of the Pinephone as keyboard you would have 72 Clié sized keys, not 108.

> I'm from Poland and have 32 char.

So we're still talking about the Latin alphabet. I'm from Germany and we have a 30 letter alphabet.

> You say they're all the same.

I never said that.

> And how many keys do you need to operate ssh?

i'm pretty sure I could get away with 40, maybe even less. There are lots of factors involved.

> Let's make an external or internal keyboard, but one that's comfortable. For everyone not only for you.

If you want an external keyboard like this, more power to you, but that's not what we're talking about in this thread. If you want to make a clam shell design like the Clié, great, I would actually prefer that over a slide-out keyboard, but again, this is not what this thread is about.

As I understand it, this thread isn't even about keyboard layouts at all, but about the mechanical design of a slide out mechanism. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not attacking you, your country, your language, your alphabet or your race (us poor Europeans, always getting discriminated), when I say that 108 keys are not a practical design for a tiny slide-out keyboard.

I'm unclear about what Pine64 is looking for except that this is a slide-out keyboard. To quote from comments on the blog post 

The Psion-type keyboard is still planned, but it’s heavily delayed. It would be a 100% custom design, which is difficult to design and get into production with current world travel restrictions

There are plans for a clam-shell style keyboard which would result in a UMPC like pinephone and might be a better fit to the larger keyboard some seem to want.

[wazd]

Hey guys.
I'm Andrey, the designer behind The Other Half Keyboard for Jolla Phone back in the days we've created together with Dirk van Leersum and Kimmo Lindholm.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/27500387...Smartphone




I've invested quite a lot of time in the search for a perfect pro-user layout so if you would like to use it or play along - feel free to contact me. There are a bunch of different layouts ready, including Russian, Finnish, Hindu and so on. Also I'm still in touch with the manufacturer of the key plate so I guess it would be possible to make a batch (even though I think it will require some adjustments to the silicone base since it wont be fit to the domes you'd use).

Cheers!

[Peter Gamma]

To develop a robust and reliable mini keyboard is difficult.. I suggest to use this one I discussed here:

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...t=keyboard

[DrYak]

An idea to reduce the required number of key that can get inspiration from HP/Palm webOS devices, and Palm's PalmOS device:

Arrow key can be replaced by a modifier key + swipes (any where on the screen):
- on webOS, orange + swipes will move the cursor in the direction swiped (no matter where is the cursor related to where you swipe)
- shift + swipe will select and move the cursor in the direction swipe
- (Sailfish has something vaguely similar where swiping in an edit widget, will zoom the whole screen and the cursor follows the finger, but at such zoom-levels it's easier to move it precisely letter-by-letter. But this requires support by the widget toolkit it self and is hard to do on android apps)

It's bad for using arrows in games, but its much easier to precisely move the cursor on small touchscreen that don't have a stylus

special letter modifier:
whereas android usually requires a long-press to open up a list of alternative accented letters (long press A to get to à or å)
- Palm Pre have a special modifier key to get to that.
- Palm OS used a key on the keyboard (Alt) to replace the entire alphabetic regions with accented letters (e.g.: the whole "áàâä" series mapped to Alt+qwer..) which is also the onscreen software keyboard disposition for accented letters
- And good old Unix has compose key: [compose] + [-] + [e] = "ē"

But the first and third are still cumbersome for language that require using special letters a lot. The second is much more usable, it just requires constant chording.