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How would you improve a standard PC keyboard?

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tranglos:
Not Dvorak, not anything completely new or outlandish, but a regular 102+ keys PC keyboard. How would you improve it?

Here's what I'd love to see:

1. An Enter key on the left.

There are already two enter keys on a standard PC keyboard, both on the right side, extremely impractical to press with the left hand. If you hold the mouse with your right hand, you have to drop the mouse before you can hit Enter.

This has been bothering me for a long time. Do the single "long" click in Windows Explorer or Total Commander to rename a file, then right-click to paste a new name (or cut/delete a part of the string with the mouse), but you cannot complete the rename operation with the mouse. Or, it's becoming common to have a search box somewhere near the top right corner, both in desktop apps and websites. Often the search box cannot be (easily) accessed with the keyboard, so you need the mouse to click it. Then you can paste your search string, but often still need to press Enter, because sometimes there is no button to click to initiate the search.

An Enter key accessible with the left hand would make such operations much smoother.

2. A dedicated key for navigating controls in a window.

Using Tab for jumping from edit box to edit box may have seemed like a good idea at the time people were accustomed to typewriters, but often the metaphor breaks with no obvious workaround. The Tab key has two distinct uses: one is to navigate fields, the other to enter the tab character. This works as long as you have only simple one-line controls in a window, or if a window contains only one multi-line edit control. Anything beyond that, and users are left to wonder how to navigate via the keyboard to neighboring areas. Take Word 2003 with a task pane open: you should be able to jump between the editor and the task pane using Tab, but you can't. (Even though you can still use Tab to navigate within the task pane itself).

Or take a split-screen text editor with two edit panes side by side - how do you jump between them? It's surprising that no common standard has evolved for navigation in such cases. Tab won't do. Each vendor comes up with their custom binding, so much so you can never be sure what will work. (Similarly, there seems to be no solid standard for switching between MDI windows. F6 or Ctrl+F6 are common, but this type of binding should be set in stone as much as directional arrows are.)

Microsoft has pretty much succeeded in extending the PC keyboard with two additional keys; I'm sure they could add one more :) A dedicated Nav key whose sole function would be to jump from one enabled control to another, regardless of what the controls are. Alt+Nav would cycle through MDI windows, while Ctrl+Nav could be used to cycle between tabs in tabbed applications. (There seems to be no fixed standard for that, either: try Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+PageDown or even Alt+Left/Right).

This is what I would manufacture if I were a bit more entrepreneurial and a bit less of a slacker :)

AndyM:
If you hold the mouse with your right hand, you have to drop the mouse before you can hit Enter.
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Not if you have <Enter> assigned to <LeftButtonDown><WheelDown>

(and <Escape> assigned to <LeftButtonDown><WheelUp>; <Copy> assigned to <LeftButtonDown><RightClick>; <Paste> assigned to <LeftButtonDown><DoubleRightClick>, and a few others...)

mwb1100:
1. An Enter key on the left.
-tranglos (November 08, 2009, 07:39 PM)
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A good idea!

I'd get rid of the damn CapsLock key.  It might be worth little test to get a key mapping utility to make it behave instead like an Enter key and see how that would work out. I may just do that.

Ehtyar:
+1 for both of your suggestions tranglos.

I'm also very into a block of programmable keys similar to the numpad but with no functionality other than what you assign them, and a small LCD display just for convenience functions (like when using fullscreen apps etc). Something similar to the relatively well known Logitech G15 that's not ugly would be nice.

Also, why the *frack* have peripheral manufacturers still not made a mouse with a wheel that supports side scrolling *as-well-as* non-retarded right-click?

Ehtyar.

4wd:
I'm also very into a block of programmable keys similar to the numpad but with no functionality other than what you assign them, and a small LCD display just for convenience functions (like when using fullscreen apps etc). Something similar to the relatively well known Logitech G15 that's not ugly would be nice.-Ehtyar (November 08, 2009, 10:57 PM)
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Well, you could save up your pennies and get the Optimus Maximus.  Has it seen the light of day yet?  Apparently shipping....crap, now I want one.

Also, why the *frack* have peripheral manufacturers still not made a mouse with a wheel that supports side scrolling *as-well-as* non-retarded right-click?
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Not sure what you mean but Logitech, (for one), make mice where the scroll wheel also does sideways scrolling by tilting it left or right, also A4Tech made mice with 2 scroll wheels for vertical and horizontal.

And my mouse switches to sideways if whatever is on screen fits vertically and not horizontally.

It might be worth little test to get a key mapping utility to make it behave instead like an Enter key and see how that would work out. I may just do that.-mwb1100 (November 08, 2009, 08:51 PM)
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Attached is an archive containing the required remapping for a plain US keyboard as well as an undo file.

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