Keyboard innovation is making them worse
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
One area where keyboard designers aren't innovating enough is the spacebar. The left 2/3 of the space bar is rarely used by most touch typists and hogs very accessible real estate. I like how Microsoft split the spacebar on their new keyboard [2] and replaced the left half with backspace, the most commonly typed (but normally most hard to reach) key.
I'm disappointed to see thinkpad/lenovo make these mistakes given their reputation for quality laptop keyboards. I personally use an x230 [3], which has a similar chiclet keyboard as the x1 carbon in the article without the transgressions.
[1] https://github.com/alols/xcape
[2] http://techland.time.com/2012/09/20/new-microsoft-keyboard-s...
[3] http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x230/
[1] http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=leopold,compact&p...
Take a look at tenkeyless keyboards, then. They don't have the numpad, but keep everything else the same as a full-size (104 key) keyboard. For example, the Realforce 87U is a tenkeyless keyboard with Topre keyswitches (same as the HHKB): http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=topre_keyboards,r...
Or if you want Cherry (rather than Topre) switches, the Filco Majestouch 2 Tenkeyless is a good option: http://www.diatec.co.jp/en/det.php?prod_c=765
Or if you want to save a bit more space by pushing the keys at the far right and on the top row up against the main section of the keyboard, there's the Noppoo Choc Mini: http://www.amazon.com/Noppoo-Mechanical-Gaming-Keyboard-Swit...
The Leopold looks like a worthy alternative to the HHKB, with a very similar vibe, especially as they allow you to swap Ctrl / CapsLock via a dip-switch (I wonder if they sell alternate keycaps with the labels swapped too). It seems to occupy a nice price middle-ground between the HHKB Lite (2) and the HHKB Pro, and has nicer switches than the HHKB Lite (to tell the truth, I don't mind the HHKB Lite's feel, but it's a little on the cheap-n-cheerful end)...
[The only significant difference in layout seems to be the "\" key.]
I was looking into this a few days and it doesn't look like Leopold doesn't sell extra single keycaps or sets. You can browse their site (Korean) to confirm http://leopold.co.kr/
I've read that they're rebranded Filco keyboards. The worst thing about the CM Storm is the key cap font, which is just really ugly. And because they're printed on, my wasd keys are fading after 2 years of use.
This is definitely not true. Filco build quality is unmatched in terms of Cherry switch keyboards, although Ducky is getting close these days. The CM Storm keyboards are of noticeably poorer build quality, although you do save some money in return.
Personally, I would get the Filco, since a keyboard isn't something you have to regularly replace. It's worth spending the money on the best keyboard you can get. Same goes for your desk, chair, headphones, and laptop bag. People were shocked at first when I dropped a lot of money on these things, but I'm still using them 5+ years later, where many others have had to buy new ones (especially bags and headphones).
That's why I just switched to using the mouse with my left hand, even though I am right handed.
If I have pain or numbness (either of which can last for days), just having my hands rotated to use a flat keyboard for a few minutes could be difficult.
Generally, though, if I get pain in my left hand/arm, it's from excessive typing; in my right, excessive back-and-forth to the pointing device (I use a trackball at home if I do any gaming, pad at work, just so it's not the same device all the time). I have never really been able to use a mouse.
I found a minor but noticeable benefit many years ago switching to the Kinesis Advantage. I've recently switched to the Truly Ergonomic keyboard; I've yet to decide if it's better or worse overall than the Kinesis.
https://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/index.php
I'd like to try each of them, but at about $300 each, it gets expensive fast. Have you used the foot pedals on the Kinesis? Are they useful in practice?
As for the pedals, I use them for shift/control, which avoids having to do multiple-key chords. These days I have almost no RSI problems, so I could probably get by without them, but it made a significant difference when it was worse.
As for cost: if you're a programmer, your hands are your life. Investing in proper tools (keyboards, adjustable keyboard trays, chairs) is worth much more than that, IMHO.
1. The TEK feels better in terms of physical key presses. Both use the same Cherry MX Brown switches, but because the Kinesis is a big hollow piece of flimsy plastic and the TEK a very solid brick, the overall effect is noticeably nicer to my fingers at least.
2. The function keys are much better on the TEK.
3. The arrow keys and brackets are better positioned by miles on the TEK. You can remap the keys of course, but the Kinesis only has one column to the right of the 'P' key, it's nearly impossible to find a good place to put them, and I just left them where they are. Similarly, the tilde/backquote key is also on that horrible bottom row on the Kinesis. And those arrow keys...putting left and right on the left hand and up and down on the right hand is one of those things that probably seemed like a good idea on paper, but after maybe seven years using the keyboard, those arrows were every single bit as completely unusable as they were the first day I sat down with it.
4. In contrast, the thumb well ends up being a better place for things like the enter and backspace keys than a single column in the middle, so score one for the Kinesis there.
5. The 209 International TEK has plenty of modifier keys. You get control on each hand, meta on each hand, and a blank key on each hand you can choose how to map. Plus you get a menu key in the middle column, and the space bar is split, so you can remap whichever side you don't use for space for something else. On the Kinesis, the thumb wells only have two modifier keys per side, so if you want symmetric layouts, you're stuck without a command or control key on the Mac, or super/hyper/windows on Windows or Linux. You can remap Caps Lock for that purpose of course, but there's no place on the right hand to put an equivalent key. If you use Emacs on a Mac, you know how badly you need Control, Command, and Option keys, and not having that ability on my Kinesis was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to try the TEK.
6. Remapping keys on the TEK is ridiculously difficult. You have to do the remapping on their web site in a (fairly nice, actually) little Javascript GUI. That part works well enough, but then to apply the changes, you have to download and flash new a new firmware image, which can only be done in Windows. Not in a virtual machine, but with the keyboard plugged into the back of a real USB port on a real Windows computer. I don't own a Windows machine, so any time I want to try out a new remapping, I have to haul my keyboard to work and reboot my Linux box there into Windows. On the Kinesis, you remap on the fly by pressing keys right on the keyboard.
7. I've bought two of both models now, and both are sort of a mixed bag. I can't stress enough how cheaply the Kinesis is made. Every once in a while, I have to take apart the flimsy plastic case and glue the USB hub back down (and yes, it's just glued right to the plastic shell). The TEK is built like a brick, but one of the two has taken a full month of use so far, and it's still not completely "broken in". That's the term that Truly Ergonomic use to refer to the property of your keyboard registering the keys you press. Out of the box, about 15-20 keys either didn't work at all, or else pressing them once would insert anywhere from zero to five or six of whatever letter you pressed. They tell you that you might need to press each key a few hundred times to "break them in". In my case, maybe 25,000 times is more like it. If I didn't live in Iceland, I would have demanded a replacement, but since shipping is such an enormous hassle, I decided to see if it got better, and it mostly has. My first TEK worked perfectly, but this second one still has maybe a 2-3% error rate, either duplicating or ignoring keypresses. Which is way better than the 57% error rate I measured on the 'B' key during the first few days I had it (and several others were nearly as bad).
8. The Kinesis has a USB hub. It snaps away from the case and dangles loose inside the hollow shell occasionally, but you can take the thing apart with a handful of screws and glue it back down at least. The TEK doesn't have USB ports. Not a huge deal I know, but it means that I need a separate USB hub with the TEK, and with the Kinesis, I could do without one.
Summing everything together, #4 is a really big point in favor of the Kinesis. You can get used to either one, but you really have to reach to hit that middle column on the TEK, whereas the Kinesis puts all those keys right under your thumbs. The remapping solution for the TEK is frankly embarrassing, but once you settle on a layout, it's not something you need to do very often. In contrast, the TEK feels better and on the whole, has a layout that is better designed for programmers I think, with the brackets and some other non-special keys in more standard locations. And for me, the modifier key situation is at least as big of an advantage for the TEK as the thumb well is for the Kinesis.
I honestly can't say for sure yet which I prefer. I'm sticking with the TEK for now, and I think, if push comes to shove, that the modifier keys are going to be the clincher, but both are really good keyboards.
Definitely has a bit of a learning curve, though, for a few weeks I had trouble remembering which keys were where.
Was your keyboard sitting on the edge of the table closest to you or did you place it further away from you to have space on a table for your forearms?
I'm using much less expensive "Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 v1.0" for many years and it works good for me.
I use a Kinesis split keyboard now, and it's pretty good, but ESC / F1 are in the wrong place and I had to remap them.
(MS has been serially fucking up the Natural keyboards for nearly a decade now. The 4000 series started the decline, and I can't use the damned things at all now).
A recent poll I posted on HN suggests that I'm in the minority on this one, but I actually don't remap caps lock myself. And I like to think I'm a pretty capable writer, touch typing with a decent WPM.
Consider the following bit of assembly:
.set MBOOT_PAGE_ALIGN, 1<<0
.set MBOOT_MEM_INFO, 1<<1
.set MBOOT_HEADER_MAGIC, 0x1BADB002
.set MBOOT_HEADER_FLAGS, MBOOT_PAGE_ALIGN | MBOOT_MEM_INFO
.set MBOOT_CHECKSUM, -(MBOOT_HEADER_MAGIC + MBOOT_HEADER_FLAGS)
I'm sure there are plenty of programmers who just use the shift key if they were to write code similar to the above, but I simply prefer the caps lock key myself. Habit, perhaps.
That is (↓ meaning shift down and ↑ shift up):
↓mboot-page-align↑
<Caps>mboot↓-↑page↓-↑align<Caps>This results in, if optimized instead of tripping over my own fingers the entire time: ↓mboot↑↓-p↑↓age↑↓-↑↓align↑
My old iBook capslock key broke in half I hit it so often. I think my pinkies might break in half if I hit the shift keys at that rate!
In Emacs I would end up typing '↑mb↓ M-/ M-/ M-/' (where Meta is the Option key on my keyboard). Because of the way Emacs completes, I might also do '↑mb↓ M-/ M-BS M-BS ↑P↓ M-/'. Either way that's easier to me that typing it out with caps lock or holding the shift key. The only time I can't complete is when I'm defining something for the first time and I'll get over it in that case since it's very rare.
Yes, but you'd agree it's no panacea, surely. - The main code editors I use all have slightly different completion mechanisms. Using a consistent non-IDE editor, while certainly possible, I find much more clunky than making do. I do use the completion of my primary IDE significantly however. - C++ completion is wonky in general due to the poor language grammar - I don't find defining things particularly rare. Every variable (local, member, or otherwise), every function, every class, every macro... - My muscle memory isn't built around the preprocessor, but around much more multi-context languages (such as C++) where entry as terse as yours will generally break regularly.
My mental state is brittle. Mis-completing identifiers breaks my flow and concentration, whereas typing is almost completely subconcious at this point having practiced it so regularly everywhere from this forum to my first clashes with 16-bit DOS programming. This means I could be seen as wasteful from a pure keystroke perspective on just about every front.
Even in the simple act of googling, I start entering my next, more refined search query while still scanning the results of my previous query. Dynamic search results broke this workflow (prompting me to disable Javascript) as my new text would cause the links I tried to click on to disappear because of the additional text entry, causing the results to refresh. I didn't even realize I was doing it until that change.
My use of completion is similar: Type until I scan the refined identifier to select as an early-bail. The closest I get to your completion style is some blind initial 3-5 character tokens + explicit use of completion keywords in some fairly limited contexts where I have a sufficiently low (1-4%?) failure rate. This translates to C-style free functions in C or C++, and C# members of things (classnames generally get typed out and then Ctrl+.ed for "using ...;" statement generation.) My macro names as a rule are too heavily namespace prefixed to blind-complete in that fashion, with the exception of some locally scoped 1-letter #define s which are #undef ed later in the same scope which need no completion.
While I've experimented with acronym-style completion methods rather than start-of-word-only, I find acronyming to require too much conscious thought, and disambiguation gives me outright struggle. If I'm in a context where the completion simply won't work (say that I haven't imported it yet like I thought I did), I have to go back and retype the entire thing.
You sound like you're using and IDE of some sort. I find their completion to be extremely useful when I can't remember exactly what function I want to call, but less useful when I know it and just want to get it typed out.
I use Emacs so I don't even have the nice semantic completion that IDEs offer (Emacs has some of that with its "cedet", but I can never figure out how to get it to work properly). But Emacs's completion heuristics are good enough for almost everything I do. When you hit the complete key in Emacs (M-/) it first looks backwards through the file you're in looking for the word. Then it looks forward. Then it looks in the other files you have open.
That looking backwards first thing is the key to why it works so well. And that's because most of the time you're referencing variable or macros that are nearby in your code, and almost always just up a few lines. It makes it correct a very high percentage of the time, so much so that I rarely completely type a variable name twice.
Alternatively, Sublime Text supports multi-select. Ctrl-F, mboot[^\s]*\b and alt-enter to select all matches. Then use the command palette to convert to uppercase. Or ~ if you are using Vintage. But this isn't as good as autocomplete.
Anyway I have remapped caps and I miss it occasionally when typing constants. Usually I just hold down Shift, or use ~.
As others have pointed out, once you hit a couple of underscores you're not gaining much with the caps lock (if anything), and your editor should be helping you out, here.
At the same time, I'm really not a fan of all caps and underscores, so I probably don't even use constants as much as I should.
I am left handed and I use almost exclusively the left 2/3 of the space bar as it's easier to press it with my left thumb. Maybe I just taught myself the wrong way but I am competent at typing and this Microsoft's keyboard would be just unusable for me. I wonder how it goes for other left-handed people.
But it also would be useless for gamers, as the left hand is over WSAD and the right hand having the mouse. Space is mapped to jump in many games (some of which you cannot remap), and you gotta jump sometimes.
This is so true for me that there is a thumb-sized mark on my spacebar where the finish on the plastic is worn because I always press the key at the exact same place.
I am left handed
This is, of course, true for a lot of people. I think the solution is to do what the microsoft keyboard did, but provide a hardware switch to toggle which side is space.
Watching myself showed I'm using right hand's thumb almost always (like most people according to that article).
Compaq called them Erase-Ease. I have one and it says 1997 on the back.
To account for left/right preference, you can use a key combination (something like ctrl-alt-shift-escape) to cycle between space-space, backspace-space, space-backspace configurations!
Edit: more links: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/NMB+introduces+Erase-Ease+back...
And a comical example of someone stumbling upon the configuration key combo: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.sys.pc-clone.com...
However, the soft function key row is crazy. It completely breaks touch-typing; if I wanted that, I'd use a tablet. Likewise, putting Delete to the right of backspace makes backspace a smaller target to hit, and it's a very frequently used key. Moving the `~ key is the kind of thing done by folks who think "Oh, nobody ever uses that", and who don't understand that keys used by 5% of typists are still critically important. (Both for people who need to type "jalapeño" and people who need to type ~/Downloads/foo .)
More importantly, there's no tradeoff here: this makes it worse for the loyal ThinkPad users, but doesn't actually make it proportionally better for others. And even if it did, that kind of consumer-targeted optimization is for consumer laptops like IdeaPad, not business laptops like ThinkPad.
Here's my custom config: https://github.com/joebadmo/dotfiles/blob/master/keyremap4ma...
Edit: I got this to work using KeyRemap4MacBook, if anyone's interested, use this snippet in private.xml:
<item>
<name>Double-Shift to Caps Lock</name>
<appendix>Double-tap ⇧ to Caps Lock</appendix>
<identifier>double_tap_shift_to_caps_lock</identifier>
<autogen>
--DoublePressModifier--
KeyCode::SHIFT_L,
KeyCode::SHIFT_L,
KeyCode::CAPSLOCK
</autogen>
</item>Also, I tend to fiddle with keys, tapping shift nervously. Having this result in capslock would drive me nuts. It would be a deal-breaker if this functionality were in the keyboard firmware and not configurable.
What's more of a concern to me, as someone who was hoping to buy the Haswell X1 as a Linux box, is the function-key row. Lenovo generally has a reputation for laptops that support Linux reasonably well out of the box, but if that function-key row requires extra driver support (i.e., if the BIOS doesn't set it up to emulate a standard keyboard), things could get awkward...
Please leave CapsLock alone.
It will toggle between US and Swedish layout when both shift keys are pressed together (basically the only time I use rshift), as well as toggle the caps led on when the Swedish layout is activated. I have caps lock bound to ESC, for more convenient for vim usage.
* 4:3 high-res matte screen (like Chromebook Pixel or some old IBMs)
* Good mechanical keyboard which includes insert, delete, begin, and end
* Robust case with serviceable Linux-friendly components
* Trackpoint
I'd really pay a high premium for a well-executed laptop with these features, and many people I know would do as well.
Only Lenovo is doing trackpoint seriously these days. Hardly anyone is paying any attention to Linux. I'm no expert, but I've never even heard of a laptop with a good mechanical keyboard.
It's not just Lenovo, it's the whole market which decided people want junk like 1mm thick retina tablets with soldered ram and permanent batteries. Lenovo and everyone on the block is selling high-resolution crap though, so I'm sure you'll get that any time.
Actually, even they are not: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXa0XzNvuZU
Quite feature-complete for its time -- ab WiFi (5GHz and 2.4GHz), gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, FireWire, modem, serial port, SD card reader, two battery bays (about 5 hours of watching movies FTW), even IrDA (ha!).
The six keys were offset to the right and up, but nonetheless quite comfy. The touchpad, while somewhat small-ish, but otherwise excellent. Easy access to all extension ports. As for robustness, it survived at least five dismantling & rebuilds by the untrained owner ;-), including display upgrade from 1400 to 1600.
That might explain some of the keyboard choices. Caps lock, function keys, and the insert key might have important uses for developers. But if you're creating business documents, caps lock is unnecessary, insert confuses you when all your text starts getting over-written, and the function keys don't really do anything.
At least, that's how it used to be. Lenovo seems intent on messing up IBM's engineering so they can market to the "I want to show off shiny stuff at Starbucks" crowd.
After reading this article, I went back to take a closer look at the X1 keyboard, and actually gasped. No hardware Fn keys? Home/end replacing Caps (which I remap to ctrl)? Backspace/del next to each other? What were they thinking??
I'm so glad I didn't do an impulse buy on the X1, because my mind doesn't think to inspect the keyboard so closely. I would have returned it 10 seconds after opening the box. I'm going to have to look very closely now at the keyboards of new laptops I'm thinking of buying.
Actually, they're nearly useless if you use software/OS capable of Emacs-style keyboard navigation and develop a habit of using C-a/C-e shortcuts. (Especially with CapsLock rebound as Control.)
We are more flexible than our machines, and though it might take a day or two to figure out home` and `end`, a laptop is a tool that one uses for years.
I don't think he even tried the keyboards he's talking about, let alone give himself some time to get used to them.
I don't go read Vi's man page and then complain how it's too hard and unusual.
At work we have have folks that order and try out several different keyboards before settling on one that meets their needs. When a programmer makes 80K, a few extra hundred dollars at the extreme to make them efficient and happy is noise in the budget. Even our interns get their choice.
I attempt to play piano. Any clever redesigns of that 88 key layout are not going to work.
For instance, I have always though that cmd+X/C/V vs. ctrl+X/C/V would drive anyone nuts if they used them enough, and realistically most of the common Mac/Windows editors commands have exactly that one difference of ctrl vs. cmd, which is essentially pinky vs. thumb (at least for me) for the modifier key. It turns out that it is extremely rare for me to accidentally use the wrong one even though I usually use the same software in both environments, because my brain picks up on visual cues from the OS and the tactile differences between my keyboards.
Of course, coming from this mix of environments, I think they could have taken the cue from the MacBook and just kept the backspace key and removed the delete key (even though Apple wants to call it the delete key...), rather than bastardizing the key with that weird split key.
The laptop keyboard was pretty normal, but Fn and Ctrl are switched. When my other keyboard was a classic keyboard this was a huge problem, I couldn't get used to Ctrl not being an outside key. That problem went away once I switched to the TEK, I think because the layout was different enough that I developed different touch typing skills. The Dox is even more different, and it's easier to switch between laptop, Dox, and classic keyboards.
Switching to emacs may have some productivity gains for you that make re-training useful. There is no added benefit for me to learn to type again.
I don't bang with gas pliers or grip with a Torx screwdriver. Tools are rigid. My brain and body flexible. But if I was switching machines all day I would bring my Microsoft natural ergonomic 4000 with me.
EDIT: other major quibble - backspace needs to be the right most key without any nearby power / other buttons. When I violently hit backspace to delete code that I know is wrong I dont want embarassments like hitting delete instead or powering off my machine.
It looks like the current options are:
11" and 13" non-retina MacBook Air
13" non-retina MacBook Pro
13" and 15" retina MacBook Pro
I wish Apple made a matte retina macbook - made discontinuing the old 15'' will put some pressure on them doing so.
The X201 and other earlier keyboards are damn perfect. Full size 7 row, including the propery 6-key pgup-dn/del-ins/home-end. Has break and sysrq. I'd pay a $$$ to put this keyboard on a W540 or T540.
Other things like removing LEDs for power charging, but adding them for mute and fn lock (or removal of screen hinges) show that the last of decent IBM engineering is gone, replaced by some idiot managers intent on locking slick instead of satisfying their high end customers.
It wouldn't surprise me if on the next gen, another laptop line surpasses ThinkPad. Lenovo inherited ThinkPad with such a huge lead on everyone else, it's taken them a while to totally screw it up. It's only because other OEMs suck so much more that ThinkPads are still in the lead.
Once you learn how to use them they're so much quicker than the numbers row if you have to do any number crunching.
I can see if you are a worker who enters accounting information all day or have data entry with your job for extended periods of time how it would be invaluable but for what is regularly done on a computer I don't find myself needing it much anymore.
If I did need it I would probably buy a number pad to hook up to the computer (there actually looks like a huge selection for usb number pads for under $30).
Some of us still need to do significant amounts of, you know, typing, which is one reason we are on a laptop and not a tablet or whatever.
If you're going to stick a keyboard on your device, make it comfortable and ergonomic.
/grump
Dell isn't perfect. They have horrible QC and design issues on their lower-end products, and the Precision machines aren't cheap. But they're solid and well-built with a ton of features, good battery life, good keyboards, decent pointing devices.
If they put in a 3:2, high-density display, 7-row keyboard, Topre short-throw switches, and a nipple mouse that's less recessed, and market it like mad, it would be the perfect machine, one I would pay for and a lot of professionals, too.
Also it seems that for each producer, half of the laptops have FN and the other half have CTRL in the corner which just adds confusion when you're using someone else's machine.
Can someone persuade me to the superiority of FN-in-the corner?
Great machine, right? I hate it. I hate it because they put the Fn key in the lower, left and moved the Ctrl key. Now I have to think every time I need to hit the Ctrl key!
If only you could swap the keycaps too.
a hardware hack would be cool :) letting the fn key electrically do the same thing as the ctrl key and for the rare use of fn use the capslock-key for it :)
ps: I said 95% because there was a few times where the underlying handle/cushion came with the cap and fell apart. It's possible to fit them again but is a bit challenging because of the tininess. So if you try, be warned.
http://blog.lenovo.com/design/fn-versus-ctrl-let-the-games-b...
It only takes a few days to get used to a new keyboard, and it seems like, for people who aren't used to rebinding keys, this could be a huge improvement. Caps lock is like the penny, not all that useful in the modern world.
Did you actually read the article?
1. The caps lock is being replaced by two smaller keys, which breaks muscle memory. 2. No function keys.
These two things are a deal breaker for me as well, I use function keys all the time for coding and while I don't care much for the Caps Lock key, I do remap it to "Control" all the time, something I can't even do with this keyboard.
It will, definitely. And after a few days of use, you'll have built up a new muscle memory.
Not as long as this keyboard is the only one in existence with this layout and you have to switch to different layouts all the time.
Maybe you are lucky to only ever type on one keyboard for years at a time, but I use at least three different keyboards every day (personal laptop, work laptop, work desktop).
Among laptops, I think Peter Bright is right: path dependence dictates that the more standardized a keyboard is, the better. I actually prefer the old-school Thinkpad keys to the newer Apple chiclet keys, but that difference is pretty small.
The Lenovos have just been getting worse keyboards with every generation. I don't think the people they're going after care about the changes, but I've actively been looking for a new laptop vendor since they started fiddling about with the layouts.
IIRC, the advantage is actually the keyboard for which cherry brown switches where created.
Topre graph: http://cdn.overclock.net/7/77/77b5b81e_47c8a19470bee5776d40b...
Cherry Brown: http://peterhallam.com.au/wp-content/uploads/cherry-mx-brown...
What laptop manufacturers should be doing is following Apple's lead and standardizing heavily across their entire line and keeping that reasonably in line with national keyboard standards.
Leave the layout innovation to external keyboard manufacturers where there is an opportunity to make drastic changes and sell them based on the strength of that innovation alone. Later the best of the innovations can trickle their way back into laptops.
I feel that a lot of people copy apple because it's designs and hardware are great, but they copy things that aren't really that good at all, such as removing Home and End keys. I like to call this cargo-cult design, people blindly change things to the apple way for no clear reason. I'm looking at you gnome 3.
Here are my personal preferences. I don't really care about caps-lock, but I do use it occasionally. I'm more likely to go back and use a keyboard shortcut to change a whole word to upper-case when doing sql programming.
I personally want the 6 delete-insert-home-end-pgup-pgdn buttons separate in a way that mirrors the desktop pc keyboard. I quite liked this layout from microsoft keyboards of about 8 years ago which has gone out of fashion:
Home End
Ins Pgup
Del Pgdn
I want a laptop keyboard that is sufficiently close to the desktop keyboard that I don't have to adjust as much as I currently do. My T410 isn't too bad in that respect, except for the arrow keys as mentioned above.
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc35/wg1/docs/madison/SC35N795%... seems related. It does not mention "home".
ISO9995 has been responsible for a lot of nonsense from a programmer's point of view — for instance mandating Control in the lower left rather than beside A. Similarly its sister ISO9241, despite nominally being concerned with ergonomics, helped drive some of the best key switches off the market.
Massdrop (http://massdrop.com) runs pretty frequent periodic group buys for the kit, and assembley really isn't that hard - don't be scared off by the need for some surface mount soldering.
What used to require weird combinations like Control-Shift, or worse Shift-Alt (windows default which triggers window's menu half the time) now takes only a quick flick of my left little finger. Typing even the most technical texts with English words in every sentence has been easy and effortless ever since. And now Lenovo is taking this away from me by removing the Caps lock key from what otherwise looks like an absolutely perfect laptop. This is such a shame.
This was the first thing I noticed when the laptop arrived, so I pointed out to him that the PrtScn button is between AltGr and the right ctrl key. We both shook our heads at that.
Nice try at keyboard innovation, Lenovo.
Supposedly this is something the guys at Xerox Parc were excited about and it's based on the much older idea of a chorded keyboard.
i'm a passionate programmer and im currently typing on a lenovo x121 keyboard and i have to say its one of the best laptop keyboard i've ever used. the only annoying thing is the "nearly useless" "Fn" key left of the left control key. i'm an emacs user and i can not understand why to place such a rarely used key at the place of such an often used key like the left control key!
but i learned to deal with it.
@lenovo: the x121 keyboard is good, but please put that useless fn key somewhere else! like replace the right control key with it! (who is using the right control key?)
all this is about the german x121 keyboard layout.
Before you ask, I'm typing this from my MacBook. Yes, it's painful. The sharp edges on the notebooks don't help either.
I have been disabled by RSI for several years, and now I'm recovered, I won't use anything but these mac keyboards. They are much healthier for your hands - it's that very 'tactile travel' that does much of the damage.
http://jeff.ecchi.ca/blog/2008/09/19/apple-aluminium-keyboar...
Rather than urging him to conform his body to the uncomfortable keyboard, how about recommending a keyboard designed to be comfortable to him?
[citation needed]
Linked post is quite weak on evidence and is mostly filled with "I think so"-s.
I think this is very hard to research because it need a long time and people often change habits in that time.
that said, I hate apple keyboards. If there was a macbook air with a thinkpad keyboard (including trackpoint), replaceable accu and better linux support i'd pay 3k€ for that.
Laptop keyboards are pretty much universally terrible, but my MBP is probably the least. That said, my daily worker is a variable-weight Topre 103UB and it's been pretty good despite missing an extra windows key to remap.
Take some sand paper to the sharp edges. Don't be afraid. You own the machine!
To each their own, I guess. I can't use long-travel keyboards anymore since it's too fatiguing for me.
So every time someone gets one of these laptops, they need to google how to type the pound sign. How is that good design?
On North American English MBPs, the # is shift-3, just like every other keyboard here.
It might be useful sometimes, but is it useful enough to justify a key on everybody's keyboard, all the time? No.
But the ability to quickly close a document in Visual Studio or a browser tab by simply double tapping caps lock instead of stretching for Ctrl-F4 is invaluable.
> It's been almost 30 years since a colleague suggested to me that all the keyboard designers in the world - except one, any one - should be shot.
They're building for the other 99.9% of the population that doesn't need caps lock, insert, bars and back-ticks ever. People who don't use function keys regularly and who, quite frankly, find "standard" keyboards incredibly awkward.
Couple this with the fact that laptops have always lacked the real-estate for a full keyboard and I have to disagree with the author. This is certainly a positive evolution, just maybe not for programmers.
> The benefits of the Dvorak layout aren't well proven (if they exist at all), but some people find the layout more comfortable to use.
The benefits are obvious and well established. Only irrational fools and extreme believers in the so called "efficient market" would believe otherwise. It just have a learning curve, which most people don't want to suffer. Some people find Dvorak more comfortable? Come on, nearly everyone who has tried it for over a month would reckon it's more comfortable.
> Good keyboards are standard keyboards.
No. This is a good keyboard: http://ergodox.org/ This is an okay keyboard: http://typematrix.com/ (I have tried that one myself, and got used to its layout in a couple hours. And I touch type too.) If we switch to such layouts overnight, people would complain for a few months, then forget about it. I even suspect that after the fact, most would mock the silliness of keeping the staggered design even though the keyboards were no longer mechanical.
> Good keyboards are […] keyboards that […] let me switch effortlessly to other systems.
Oh, you're the rare breed who use several systems regularly? I suggest you buy a keyboard you like, and plug it to those various systems. Unless you're an even rarer bread who cannot even even plug external keyboards to his computers for security reasons.
Rare? I don't know anyone who doesn't.
In a typical day, I use a MBP, an IBM Model M, a Unicomp EnduraPro (modern equivalent to the Model M, only slightly inferior), and one or two random keyboards. Oh, and my phone.
Even my elementary-school-age son will use two or three keyboards in a day: one on a laptop, one on the desktop in the living room, and a virtual one on his tablet.
I write custom software for a living. I use 2 desktop computers: one at home, one at work. I plug my typematrix to both. When I'm on vacation, I may use my laptop, to which I pug my typematrix as well. Some of my co-workers (10%) also use a laptop at work, because they have to move around. Others (1%) are sysadmins, and often have to go to the server room. Both could buy a keyboard, and plug it to the computers they use. The sysadmins would have to pay for an additional keyboard that stays on the server room.
By the way, I use a completely non-standar keyboard layout. Like Dvorak, only optimized for French (Bépo). Since I only rarely use systems that I don't control, this is okay. 90% of my co-workers are in the same situation.
What do you work on that requires you to use several different keyboards you don't choose on a daily basis? To me that doesn't sound rare. That sounds alien.
Lots of people have a personal laptop, a personal desktop, and a work laptop or desktop. My wife has her own preferences in keyboards; so do my kids.
Ah, that sucks. If I did that often, I'd likely bring my own keyboard, and a software utility to temporarily change the layout from Qwerty to Bépo. It's a drag, but not as much as suffering Qwerty.
> Lots of people have a personal laptop, a personal desktop, and a work laptop or desktop.
I have too. It's just that since I control the keyboard I use on my desktop, so it doesn't really count. As for my laptop, I just put my Typematrix on top of the original keyboard (or on my lap). Ideally, though, I would have liked to have standard keyboard slots in laptops, so I can insert my favourite keyboard instead of the default one. It doesn't have to be ergonomic. Just a little more sensible: http://loup-vaillant.fr/articles/better-keyboards
> My wife has her own preferences in keyboards; so do my kids.
Looks that it strengthen one of my points: good keyboards aren't standard. They're adapted to their users. Hence my point about laptop keyboards. It would be sooo cool if users could change them.