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How would you improve a standard PC keyboard?
40hz:
Well with so many people on this planet, we cannot all be working with excel, can we?
-housetier (November 09, 2009, 09:40 AM)
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True. But that doesn't mean they're any less effected by it just because they themselves don't use it.
Consider:
Some play Warcraft. Some play Doom. Some play Biohazard.
And then there's those who play the deadliest virtual reality game of all - Microsoft Excel!
You've got layoffs happening; troop deployments being put in motion; and serious thought being given to exactly how much in taxes you'll be asked to pay next year. Things like that don't get worked out on blackboards any more.
Just think how much of what we get to live with on a daily basis goes back to a decision someone made after running an Excel spreadsheet or two...
Microsoft Excel - FEAR IT! :P ;D
AndyM:
... a regular 102+ keys PC keyboard. How would you improve it?
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Put the App/Context/RightClick (whatever you call it) back next to the Right-Control key.
I always found that key handy to bring up a context menu, now I have to assign that to a key combination (RightControl-/).
40hz:
Not so much improve as go back to something that got changed for no good reason.
1) Reduce the size of the right SHIFT key and go back to giving us a correctly sized (as in vertically bigger) ENTER key.
2) Reduce the size of the BACKSPACE key and put the ESC key back in the 'numbers row' (top-left) where it belongs.
mwb1100:
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.
-4wd (November 08, 2009, 11:19 PM)
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Very nice looking. To say the least.
But it looks like it'll be a number of years (to say the least) before I'll be moving on from my essentially free keyboards to one of those (and even the most expensive wireless, multimedia, fancy backlit keyboards qualify as free in comparison). $ouch$.
Attached is an archive containing the required remapping for a plain US keyboard as well as an undo file.
-4wd (November 08, 2009, 11:19 PM)
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Thanks for that; I'll give it a try for a week or so. I suspect I'll not like it - mainly because I'm not a great typist so I expect more errant 'enters' than I'd like. But maybe not - I don't get a bogus CapsLock all too often (but often enough that it bugs me because I pretty much never, ever want it - at least as an enter key it has a chance of being useful at times).
We'll see.
MilesAhead:
Not so much improve as go back to something that got changed for no good reason.
1) Reduce the size of the right SHIFT key and go back to giving us a correctly sized (as in vertically bigger) ENTER key.
2) Reduce the size of the BACKSPACE key and put the ESC key back in the 'numbers row' (top-left) where it belongs.
-40hz (November 09, 2009, 02:00 PM)
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My first inclination would be, get a hot babe to do the typing. But to go along with your thoughts, the thing I liked when they switched away from the XT style keyboard, was the separate navigation and number pads. The thing I hated was the function keys across the top. On XT style there were 10 function keys on the left. If you could touch type at all, and were using an app that made heavy use of the F keys, you could reach with the little finger of your left hand and hit the F keys without moving your fingers from the standard typing position or "home row." On these 101 key variants, every time I have to hit an F key the touch type orientation is gone. I have to fumble around to get back to position. It's like Bizarro Ergonomics.
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