Keyboard Layout Survey

[TomXP411]

On 5/3/2022 at 7:56 PM, Michael Steil said:

• 
  The ROM bank is still only 2/3 full. Who can think of other useful layouts?
  


• 
  Any comments on the order?
  


• 
  The Japanese layout doesn't seem to be too useful, since the ISO-8859-15 encoding can't map any of the Kana characters, so it's very close to a US keyboard, no?
  

The two things I"d like to see are an easy way to select a specific layout (already there maybe?) and a Dvorak keyboard, for those people who swing that way. If for no other reason, than to say we support Dvorak .

 

[Michael Steil]

On 5/4/2022 at 8:36 AM, TomXP411 said:

The two things I"d like to see are an easy way to select a specific layout (already there maybe?) and a DVORAK keyboard, for those people who swing that way. If for no other reason, than to say we support DVORAK.

To switch to US Dvorak:

KEYMAP"EN*US"

Details: https://github.com/commanderx16/x16-docs/blob/master/X16 Reference - 02 - Editor.md#Keyboard-Layouts

[Michael Steil]

Added a few more:

EN!US	United States - Colemak	-
NL-NL	Dutch	00000413
HR-HR	Croatian	0000041A
SK-SK	Slovak	0000041B
SQ-AL	Albanian	0000041C
SL-SI	Slovenian	00000424
LV-LV	Latvian	00000426
LT-LT	Lithuanian IBM	00000427

[TomXP411]

On 5/4/2022 at 12:15 AM, Michael Steil said:

To switch to US Dvorak:



KEYMAP"EN*US"



Details: https://github.com/commanderx16/x16-docs/blob/master/X16 Reference - 02 - Editor.md#Keyboard-Layouts

It took me a minute to see the difference between "EN-US" (QWERTY) and EN*US (Dvorak). That's Fantastic, thank you.

So the next obvious question: Do the low-level keyboard routines still return the same scancode for the same key position? 

1. 
   For example, if I wrote a game that used WASD (on an EN-US keyboard) control and ran it on a keyboard with a French AZERTY keyboard, will the scan codes be returned for the ZQSD keys? 
   


2. 
   How hard will it be to translate from a known scancode (say the W key, $1D) back to the key label for that layout (The Z key on AZERTY or ,/< on a Dvorak keyboard)?
   

I'm just thinking about games that use the keyboard for input, we'll want some way for game programmers to be able to show the correct key labels for their language, since some of these keyboard layouts can be pretty different. 

 

[Michael Steil]

On 5/4/2022 at 11:03 AM, TomXP411 said:

So the next obvious question: Do the low-level keyboard routines still return the same scancode for the same key position? 

1. 
   For example, if I wrote a game that used WASD (on an EN-US keyboard) control and ran it on a keyboard with a French AZERTY keyboard, will the scan codes be returned for the ZQSD keys? 
   


2. 
   How hard will it be to translate from a known scancode (say the W key, $1D) back to the key label for that layout (The Z key on AZERTY or ,/< on a Dvorak keyboard)?
   

I'm just thinking about games that use the keyboard for input, we'll want some way for game programmers to be able to show the correct key labels for their language, since some of these keyboard layouts can be pretty different. 

Yes, scancodes are pre-tables. If if you want to know the label on the key, you can use the documented scancode-to-PET/ISO tables that are guaranteed to be at 0:$A000. The the Programmer's Reference Guide for the layout of these tables as well as a BASIC example that accesses them.

[svenvandevelde]

On 5/4/2022 at 4:56 AM, Michael Steil said:

The ROM bank is still only 2/3 full. Who can think of other useful layouts?

Since you have 40C French included, instead of 80C Belgian French, as both are very similar, suggest you add 813 Belgian point, the "Flemish" azerty version. You would do 5 million people a favour. 

What about Russian (Not kidding), Chinese, Romanian, ...

Another 1.5 billion...

 

 

[svenvandevelde]

On 5/4/2022 at 3:50 PM, svenvandevelde said:

Since you have 40C French included, instead of 80C Belgian French, as both are very similar, suggest you add 813 Belgian point, the "Flemish" azerty version. You would do 5 million people a favour. 



What about Russian (Not kidding), Chinese, Romanian, ...



Another 1.5 billion...



 



 

Please consider this additional info ...

http://www.kbdlayout.info/KBDBE/

[BruceMcF]

On 5/4/2022 at 9:50 AM, svenvandevelde said:

Since you have 40C French included, instead of 80C Belgian French, as both are very similar, suggest you add 813 Belgian point, the "Flemish" azerty version. You would do 5 million people a favour. 



What about Russian (Not kidding), Chinese, Romanian, ...



Another 1.5 billion...

For the majority of that 1.5b, the mainland Chinese layout is EN-US. The translation of keystrokes into Hanzi is on the computer system side, not on the keyboard side.

It would always hit me on classroom display computers in Beijing if I forgot to change WIndows7 from Chinese language input to English language input. But I never had to worry about typing on a keyboard I was not used to.

For adding a big chunk of a billion people, 00004009, en-IN, might be good.

[Ed_]

1009 Canadian French

[svenvandevelde]

On 5/5/2022 at 5:30 PM, Ed_ said:

1009 Canadian French

Touché!