Goodbye Spacebar: Google wants keyboard without spacebar | Hacker News Reader

Goodbye Spacebar: Google wants keyboard without spacebar

postcrawl.com

21 pointsvivek1143934 comments

> but this surely paves the way for complete virtual keyboard where all the physical keys will be replaced by virtual keys.

Like the laser keyboard: http://www.laserkeyboard.com/ ?

Or every tablet/phone in existance? Personally, I don't find typing on a flat surface to be a very pleasant experience. As a touch typist, I depend on a certain amount of feedback to my fingers to identify when a key has been actuated, and I'm not always looking at my screen when I'm typing something out.

With this device, how could I know the spacebar registered properly, and didn't accidentally send my cursor into another location due to an errant swipe of my thumb as it rests on the spacebar?

Looks uncomfortable and unhealthy. The wrists rest on the table and you hold your hands up.

> Personally, I don't find typing on a flat surface to be a very pleasant experience. As a touch typist, I depend on a certain amount of feedback to my fingers to identify when a key has been actuated, and I'm not always looking at my screen when I'm typing something out. With this device, how could I know the spacebar registered properly, and didn't accidentally send my cursor into another location due to an errant swipe of my thumb as it rests on the spacebar?

Well, you kind of answered yourself there

> Like [...] every tablet/phone in existance ?

Haptic feedback solve that particular issue. From what I understand some haptic technology like the one planned to use on steam console's controller also handle the "I need to feel where the keys are without looking", although I personally never experienced any of it first hand.

I agree with you that I still prefer an actual keyboard and space key on a laptop though

> Haptic feedback solve that particular issue.

It really doesn't. I could type faster on a Blackberry keyboard than I can write by hand, or type on an Android or iOS device even with text prediction on the latter.

Ironically, as they started to lose market share in ~2009, Blackberry tried to pioneer the use of haptic feedback on flat-screen phone keyboards, using a vibration to simulate "clicking"[0] the screen[1]. It was a disaster.

I use flat keyboards on my phone and tablet out of necessity - for phones, there's really no alternative these days. But the typing experience on even the best phone/tablet is light years behind the experience of typing on a physical keyboard.

[0] This is different from the way that Android and iOS devices vibrate when you press a key

[1] Not to be confused with the earlier model which actually had you "click" the screen.

I agree, but then I genuinely believe you are mistaken in what makes you faster: it's not the feedback that the touch is pressed (what you described in the above post, and what haptic feedback currently solves), it's the feedback that the touch is even there ! In other words, it's not the pressing, but the finding/reaching the next key.

Again, I agree that current phone keyboard are faaar beyond an actual keyboard in speed, only arguing on the cause.

As I hinted in my previous message there are new haptic techs that aims to actually give a sensation of where the various keys are, I have never tried it but I hope they can do even half of what they claim.

> I agree, but then I genuinely believe you are mistaken in what makes you faster: it's not the feedback that the touch is pressed (what you described in the above post, and what haptic feedback currently solves), it's the feedback that the touch is even there

That's my point. Haptic feedback doesn't solve this, as evidenced by the keyboards that have haptic feedback on keypress but no tactile indication that the key has been located.

Then either I misunderstood or you weren't clear enough, your first message said

> As a touch typist, I depend on a certain amount of feedback to my fingers to identify when a key has been actuated [...] > how could I know the spacebar registered properly

Which specifically means when the key is pressed, not when you are on it / reached it, which I believe is the thing causing the slow down of our speed.

imo this will be nightmare for both hands fast typists. Spacebar provides "anchor" for your hand. When you have bigger hands you can also put your thumbs under the spacebar in natural position to rest your hands.

There is so many better things to work on to be honest...

Kinda crap title. They don't want to get rid of it, or even move it, just incorporate it into the touchpad.

Seems like an awesome idea for gaming. "No, I didn't mean to shoot, I wanted to jump!"

The Planck keyboard design splits up the spacebar into multiple meta keys. It's a much nicer use of space: http://i.imgur.com/7nSlhyQ.png

It could be useful it it allowed you to scroll the cursor in text by swiping you fingers left or right. You could even have another vertical bar on the left for vertical scrolling. All without moving from normal typing position.

That would be pretty awesome. Mock up: http://imgur.com/k2Iee5B

Why not get rid of the touchpad, and use a pointing stick like the Thinkpad?

Touchpad is a rich input devices that supports gestures, think about how you use it to scroll your page, go back/forward a web page, select test, move windows, etc...

Point Stick can only capture a small fragment of those without keyboard combinations.

Two reasons this won't work, movies and music. You need a HUGE button to stop/start play.

And don't forget viewing comments on YouTube. With this set-up I will be missing out.

Interesting, I never intentionally control media with the spacebar.

It's pretty helpful in a number of situations for me. Occasionally I like to put my laptop on the coffee table and recline on the couch watching something. If I have to pause for whatever reason it's much easier to slap the spacebar at arms length than to do something else.

And you can't do that with this design because... ?

Like the direction this is going in, but true that its combining space and gesture area, not getting rid of the space bar.

I've thought that it would be more efficient, if one could keep ones fingers on the keyboard rows, and use the some type of thumb gestures to move the cursor.

Summary of http://qz.com/393209/google-wants-to-do-away-with-space-bars...

Whereas I want a keyboard with two spacebars. How much simpler would shell command lines be if we could hit an 'command space' key which would mark the end of a shell argument array string.

This is making me think of the buttonless trackpad Lenovo tried for a while. Everyone at work who got one totally hates it.

Google should insist on a browser without a back button.

I think developers of web apps should be able have more control when back is pressed, but i use it all the time during normal browsing.

Hm? How so? I think we have plenty of control with the history API, no?

Maybe I'm going a little mad, but is the acceleration when scrolling on that site incredibly high for anyone else (Chrome, OSX)? I doubt it's by design, but its certainly hard to navigate.

Aside from the annoying appearing-and-disappearing top bar, the scrolling seems pretty normal to me (Chrome on Ubuntu).

I have a similar issue with Chrome 43 and Firefox 36 on OS X, but not Safari. It feels like the scrolling is dropping frames under Chrome - there's something that feels laggy/unresponsive about it. I wish sites didn't try to hijack scroll behaviour

They have some sort of strange "SmoothScroll" contraption going on in tie-scripts.js

That's what's causing your issues.

edit: Ah, it's actually a minified version of https://github.com/galambalazs/smoothscroll

Because...?

Editors, for both music and film, animators and pretty much anyone who use non-linear systems very much rely on the space bar to start/stop playback. Much easier, faster and more efficient than always having to reach up and push a button.

howitwouldlookandhowyouwillreaditwithoutspacebar.

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