Input methods at the age of Unicode

[Hans Aberg]

> On 16 Jul 2015, at 16:44, Marcel Schneider <charupdate at orange.fr> wrote:

> On 16 Jul 2015, at 15:20, Hans Aberg <haberg-1 at telia.com> wrote:

> > It may suffice with a logical layout, letters in alphabetical order. The traditional layouts were designed for speed typing on physical typing machines, specifically, with fixed finger positioning, in order not having look at the keyboard while typing.
> 
> This is an important point, not to look at the keyboard. Even with alphabetical order, one *must* learn typing. Often suggested for computers, the alphabetical order is also often rejected, because it needs much more finger move than its couterpart, the ergonomical order as proposed by August Dvorak, and very actively promoted in a French version by the association ERGODIS [http://bepo.fr/].

It depends on the objective. Languages may have a number of layouts, which may efficient for just that.

But if one would want to have a single layout for the Latin scripts, it would be hard to have special letter orders.

> > It is also considerably faster with moving finger positioning, which can be done if one does not have too look at some text while typing.
> 
> I don't understand well how to speed up with moving fingers except towards the dedicated keys, the little fingers having much more of these, and the thumbs acting the central modifiers if any, and/or the central Compose key, additionally to the space bar. Central means on the Alt keys. Alt itself at this favorite position is counter-productive, it should be moved on Left Windows, this on Apps (Menu), which is not suppressed by a set of netbook manufacturers. If it is, then use the mouse/trackpad.

It is used on music keyboards. For example, one can use more than one finger on the same key if it should be pressed rapidly in succession. If the hand needs to move, one shifts the fingers, which will avoid the stretching that would occur in fixed hand positioning.

> I believe that at this juncture of imminent climate change and global destruction, we should stick with the existing hardware. For France neither I am not going to propose a completely *new* layout, I will bring something you can use by simply thinking at the little set of useful modifications, even without needing keyboard stickers. A reuse-what-you've-got concept.

There are physical keyboard with displays on the keys that can be changed, e.g., [1], thus able to display different key layouts, but currently they are expensive, and the keys require more force when depressed.

1. http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/