Arrow Keys Going Away

Look up "knolling".

I fully expect keys on all keyboards to soon be laid out in a grid like your basic numeric keypad is- no more offset from the other rows.

Mark L. Fergerson

" snipped-for-privacy@bid.nes" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

I know they are not real products, per se, but in the film "The Fate of the Furious, Charleze Theron's character uses a glass tabletop touch surface keyboard, and *appears* to be working it pretty well.

I am sure there is artistic license there, and the entire thing could even be CG added.

Looked very roomy and a lot of custom stuff around the basic advanced keyboard stuff.

snipped-for-privacy@decadence.org wrote in news:qmhj9u$civ$1 @gioia.aioe.org: snip

I posted this because I have a Lenovo that has a touch screen lower half which has a tablet and keyboard.

I too hate the lack of cursor keys.

On my Android phone and tablet I use the "Hacker's Keyboard", in portrait, instead of the built-in soft keyboard mostly to get cursor keys.

Mike.

Well, I wouldn't worry too much about the vanishing cursor keys on your computer.

Ever hear of "Alexa"? (Amazon Echo) The whole damn keyboard is disappearing!

I do have to say, though, it's one of the FEW refinements that the millennial crowd has helped pushed to widespread adoption. That, and maybe eliminating cords from MP3 players.

I worked with a touch keyboard once. They are horrible. You can't touch anything without activating the keys. So how do you ever find and keep your hands in the "home" position?

Of course it was all CGI. Today Max Headroom would not even use an actor.

....

omputer.

nial crowd has helped pushed to widespread adoption. That, and maybe elimi nating cords from MP3 players.

To be humorous I entered a friend's name in my phone as Lzzzz. No problem until I started using it with my car. It doesn't know that is pronounced " Liz". I have to spell it out verbally which, to my surprise, seems to work .

Personally I find the talking phone thing to be a pretty big frustration fa ctor. It truly is stupid only knowing a few canned phrases and not underst anding speech at all. I use it in the car for hands free operation and hal f the time I still have to wait for a light or pull over to make it work. Telling it I want to "drive" somewhere does not produce the same result as telling it to "navigate".

The keyboard thing is getting critical since my left shift key has broken. It's seriously slowing down my typing, but more importantly making the pro cess much more frustrating.

Rick C wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

I think they actually are easier to use for us two finger typists.

I do not need to save five seconds by typing faster. I want to be certain that what I typed is accurate, so I always look it over first. I have made typos here though, and another news client used to change texts on a couple occasions.

I do not need an orthodox typing manner to be productive. So I started a course back in '73 or such, but got out of it. By the same token, when I developed database apps, I was able to stand over the shoulders of my users and instruct of 'show' what they needed to do with a single hand, left or right, I know where all the keys are and can type with either hand just fine. I ypically use two or three fingers from each hand and check accuracy as I go. The time difference between me and a 130wpm typist is not enough to make a difference since I am not typing out multi-page documents.

Tabbing through a database field set is also not conducive to home row orthodox typing practice. Computer users around the world are happy that they can make use of their tools without formal typist training. It really only provides useful betterment for someone planning to write copius amounts of material.

It would have allowed me to type this out twice as fast or more, but then, I would not have had these extra few sips of coffee.

Rick C wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

You think they just had the actors tapping blindly on glass tabletops? Hollywood of all folks would be at the top of the "custom LCD panel" tech. Even if it was just illuminated, non functional button arrays. That can be done simply by laminating a thin film btween two glass layers and lighting it up photonically. No LCD requred.

Her stuff was responding to her taps though. Still possible to be al CGI, however. Not likely though considering the cash Hollywood has and the fact that custom LCD panel makers have been around a long time.

Remember "Minority Report"?

A lot of that tech was real, and that was a long time before "Fate of the Furious".

That all sounds like rationalization. I took typing in high school and hav e never regretted it. I do tons of typing and touch typing is so much fast er and more accurate since I can watch my typing appear for instant correct ions, or if I am reentering something on paper I can read as I type without moving my eyes back and forth (very tiring).

I would love voice recognition but voice is hard to follow since we talk mu ch more "loosely" with different grammar and lots of interjections. That's why some people are hard to follow when they write, they are typing what t hey would say but without the body language and other visual cues. Add to that the extensive use of impersonal pronouns and other common verbal commu nication habits and written messages can be very hard to follow. A friend texts me without punctuation and I often have no idea what he is actually s aying. At least here we typically use punctuation.

Of course.

Why bother? A show I watch adds a few cityscapes once in a while and I realize they are all CGI. It would be nearly nothing to send up a drone, but why bother when it is so easy to CGI scenes these days?

Her "stuff"??? Yes, not likely to be a big screen table top. Why mess with all the programming and custom hardware when CGI is trivial for something like that???

The tech in Back to the Future was all real too. lol

touch anything without activating the keys. So how do you ever find and keep your hands in the "home" position?

Nothing to do with touch-typing, then. And no use for sight-impaired who require touch-typing. Just cater for the hunt-and-peck brigade...

Mike.

I use it too but it doesn't have 'word suggestions' and no option in the settings for it.

How many games do you play on your computah? If none, why are you complaining about a keyboard layout made for gamers? The only keys of interest to a gamer are the keys used by the various games. Those are easy to find. They're the broken keys on the gamers keyboard. Arrow keys are used only by games who can't afford a gaming mouse, joystick, etc, or don't know that the arrow keys are duplicated on the number pad and as the ESDX or WASD keys, also known as the "cursor diamond". The really important keys are the alt keys, ctrl keys, shift keys, tab, space bar, enter, escape, and backspace. You could remove most of the other keys off a gamers keyboard, and nobody would notice (unless they have to type a password).

Well, you got that one right, but failed to understand why aesthetics are important. It's the advent of RGB color shifting keyboards that are driving the aesthetics. A ragged edge on an illuminated RGB keyboard looks awful. Since RGB illumination on boxes, fans, plumbing, keyboards, and mice are the driving force in sales to gamers, and that the Acer Aspire 7 17.3" Gaming Laptop is for gamers, whatever they want, they get, even if it means that you can't type on the keyboard. Look at the available external keyboards and notice that most have straight edges and a few narrow keys:

The other part of the puzzle are mechanical versus dome type keyboard switches. Gamers prefer mechanical keyboards mostly because they are able to mash the keys in order to gain a few nanoseconds of response time over other players. Rather than build a new keyboard just for the laptop, the manufactures just transplanted the guts from an external keyboard into the gaming laptop. Of course the transplanted switch layout didn't quite fit in the laptop case, so a few changes were necessary. Since there wasn't any vertical headroom available for a real mechanical switches, Acer used slim and thin dome switches and low profile keycaps.

Obsolete and replace by "Form follows Fashion".

There are some alternatives to the built in Android keyboard:

"Top 5 Android Keyboards with Arrow Keys"

"How to Easily Move the Cursor While Typing in Android"

I needed a new kb so ordered one that looked nice, from Amazon. It was a "gamer" keyboard with varying color LED backlights, weird layout, and really klunky action. I threw it away.

I do now have some nice backlit keyboards by Logitech.

I do disable Caps Lock. Why does anyone want Caps Lock?

the

But then I see too many examples of what, I am generously assuming, was wrong suggestions being accepted. I even wrote to a yachting magazine to point out they used the word "salver", which is typically a silver plate that might be a racing trophy, whereas they meant "salvor", which is a salvage company needed after a catastrophe!

Mike.

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You seem to be making sense, but not really. You say there are alternative s for the arrow keys, but the arrow keys are still the first choice, no? I would have thought the second choice would be the numeric keypad which giv es arrow keys any time the numlock is off. None of that addresses why they would diminish the arrow keys and the number pad anyway. There are still ash trays in many cars even though they are typically not used.

Again, not closing the loop. If the RGB color shifting keyboards are so sp ecial, why does MSI make so many that are only red? I don't see how my cur rent illuminated keyboard is ugly with the uneven edges.

Don't get what this has to do with tiny keycaps. The issue is not the heig ht, it's the XY size. I recognized they had crammed the two up/down arrow keys into the size of one key initially. Then I found they shrunk the left /right arrow keys the same way and left the rest of the space empty!!!

Louis Sullivan is turning over in his grave and I'm not buying a $1,200 pie ce of crap with a malformed keyboard. Sooner or later I'll find something worth while.

If you have ever lost a keyboard due to spilled coke or coffee, try a Kensi ngton. Waterproof so liquids cannot get in and ruin the keyboard. Washable so you can clean dirt and grime off the keys. I don't know how the keys wor k, but they are quite easy to type on. Here's more info:

Kensington K64406US Washable USB Keyboard with Antimicrobial Protection

Item #: IM1BA6329 Model #: K64406US White : $31.49 Black : $24.99

White keyboard with 104-key layout, is perfect for use in many different environments such as hospitals, government offices, schools and more.

Dimensions: 1.38"H x 18"W x 7.32"D

Good idea to have one on hand in case disaster strikes.