What's the best keyboard layout possible ?

[Kochise]

Hi, french dud here, AZERTY style with coders unfriendly mapped keys, I always wondered why there are so many different layouts out there, especially considering the same latin alphabet (not taking into account cyrillic and kanji and stuff).

 

I just watched the 'Chassepot C1000 Review' :

 

 

In 2017 I participated to a survey about evolution of the french keyboard layout, well, just a light refresh, nothing as ground breaking like the BEPO that is to french people what the DVORAK is to english people. But that reminded me my old attempts to the effort :

 

CFILORUX : http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/a64eae70f4f459e1325f92014f825195

AEIMQUX : http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/c2ca5f0f7dc0f5527d60b11fadf26018

 

Both are based on standard ISO layout because, well, french dude here, ISO is EU, ANSI is US. But it's not really difficult to make the conversion around the Return key.

 

I tried to present my ideas and discuss them here :

 

https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17889

https://imgur.com/gallery/mfwwa

 

While I received a rather cold welcome, I'm still convinced that the idea of an alphabetical ordered keyboard should get a go. Mostly because many people unfamiliar with computer and/or typing might get it easier (kids, old, non techies) but also that simplify having a common layout instead than too many.

 

The main goals are as follow :

 

1- alphabetical ordered (separated in two sets, one for each hand)

2- coder friendly (opening/closing parenthesis/brackets should be close)

3- visually hintful (accents and dead keys and symbols looking alike)

 

I'm planning to convert my old K95 with a caps change and see what it gives IRL, but I'm pretty confident that with a suitable companion software that autocorrect mistyped words and/or add missing accents like you can find on smartphones, typing with this shouldn't be that bad.

 

Anyway, that's my own inner thinking about this issue. I'm not saying that those two keyboard layouts are perfect, but I'm looking into discussing more about what could be improved to make them perfect universal layouts that could suit everybody without spending years to learn a specific layout.

 

I'm ready, let's start the flames...

 

 

[Gegger]

I have to swap between keyboard layouts too much, and I go like wtf am I typing 

 

iirc there’s a programmer Dvorak and a Coleman layout

 

coleman is ok for me, just no one knows it is these days

[b emoji]

My fav layout so far is the Tsangan layout, but layouts are very subjective and what works for you doesn't work for everyone else. 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

It's not like they just randomly placed keys somewhere, a lot of research went into that stuff.  Be sure to pay attention to Taran's comments on Dvorak and how often people use certain rows of the keyboard. 

 

 

The layout is also influenced by the language.  What works in English does not necessarily work in other languages.  Words can be formed differently, meaning that keys may need to be placed elsewhere in order to improve the flow.  Hence azerty, qwertz etc. 
 

Then there's the language-specific characters. For the French that would be é, è, ç and à for example.  Those characters are used so often in French that they completely inverted the numerical row on azerty compared to qwerty keyboards, just to not have to use the "shift" key that often. 

 

 

 

On my phone I switch between Belgian azerty and the regular qwerty layout on a regular basis, depending on which language I type in.  On the PC I'm using Belgian azerty, mainly because everyone else in my region is using that and using different layouts on the same PC is just too cumbersome. 

Personally I'd love to switch to qwerty full time because 95% of my typing is done in English, but I need to use azerty at work and whenever I need to work on friends' PCs, so I'm basically stuck on azerty. 

[Kochise]

Yeah, I placed all accents on "AltGr" pink and yellow keys. That needs to press two keys for each accent character, or use the companion application that would do it for you.

 

I understand that all languages have specificity, yet I can write english on an AZERTY keyboard, so it's not like an alphabetical ordered layout would prevent you from doing so either.

[Bramimond]

I'd already be very happy if Capslock could be replaced with two keys that have "[" / "]" ( and  "{" / "}" together with shift). On my layout I can get those only by using the "Alt Gr" as a modifier key for the numbers 7,8,9 and 0.

[Kochise]

Eeek, what layout ?