Request: Review of Framework Laptop 16 Keyboard Layouts

Interesting. I’d never heard of Optimot. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

The CC BY‑NC‑SA license under which the layout is made available is very unfortunate.

This license prohibits commercial use, so selling a keyboard with the layout printed on it would be prohibited (without special consent from the original author). It also means commercial operating systems can’t include the layout.

This is notably in contrast to the likes of Colemak, which is released as public domain. And Bépo, which has a more liberal CC license. (Bépo also got published as a national standard, implementations of which are not subject to any licensing restrictions. It was this national standard version which got included in Windows, not the CC-licensed Bépo.fr version.)

2 Likes

US English (RGB)
(UPDATED)

ID2206--keyboard-US-eng-rgb-V7

7 Likes

Swiss
(UPDATED)

ID2206--keyboard-swiss-white-backlight-V3

5 Likes

Spanish
(UPDATED)

ID2206--keyboard-spanish-white-backlight-V3

Portuguese
(UPDATED)

ID2206--keyboard-portuguese-white-backlight-V3

International English / Windows v3

ID2206--keyboard-int-eng-white-backlight-v3

2 Likes

French Canadian
(UPDATED)

ID2206--keyboard-french-canadian-white-backlight-V3

1 Like

This looks more normal to me.
My only note is for the bottom-right:
it looks like there’s no way to insert é.
The ◌́ should be moved to right side of the key.

I’m not sure what’s supposed to be above the ., but it’s fine.

1 Like

As it was pointed out @Brunoais

and also the 3 key is missing the £ symbol in the alt gr state

Doesn’t the FW16 use QMK for setting the keymapping?
I would rather see some alternate key layouts (e.g. ortholinear).

2 Likes

It does. And their QMK firmware is already public on their github. But of course note that work is still being done on it.

That is what Tomas Barreira mentioned :slightly_smiling_face:. I’ll quote here:

1 Like

This is the hard part about doing keyboard layouts! There are very rarely formal standards for the layout definition, so we followed what Microsoft defined for Windows here: Belgian (Period) Keyboard - Globalization | Microsoft Learn

This one does have those two symbols, but as you note, not all keyboard makers use them, and the Wikipedia article for Belgian keyboards doesn’t have them either…

2 Likes

That Microsoft documentation shows the layout as defined in software. That’s often very different from what is intended to be printed on the physical keyboard.

Often, especially on the AltGr layer, there’s loads of extra superfluous stuff that’s not usually printed on keys.

For example, here’s the English International keyboard, as implemented in Windows: http://www.kbdlayout.info/KBDUSX/

As you can see, it’s much busier than the physical keyboard labelling, which usually only has a single AltGr position labelled — AltGr + 5 for the euro symbol.

For another example of this phenomenon, see the new French keyboard layout: French (Standard, AZERTY) - Keyboard Layout Info

1 Like

Re: International English / Windows v3

Should the € symbol remain the only Alt-Gr symbol shown on the international US English keyboard? Not all its Alt-Gr characters are Europe oriented. (2560×1600, 180°, ½ cup, 8ft², Ch2 §3 ¶2, etc).

Historically, € required Unicode support (unlike many other Alt-Gr keys in Latin-1). Around the turn of the century, highlighting € was a way to advertise new Unicode support on computers, but that is not a reason to make € special now.

2 Likes

Wow, I am offended… :smiley: No Turkish-Q keyboard request?
I would have assumed some one would have already requested it but no-one has…


I am waiting patiently to order the 16" version with the Turkish Q version…

1 Like

We are working at a Pan-EU-NGO and have struggled with all those keyboard layouts out there. Usually we pick the Swiss layout, since it has French and German umlauts-layout combined. Unfortunately Spanish Punctuation and Slavic (and Nordic) letters are missing. So there is one that we would really like to have: it’s called EurKEY (by Steffen Bruentjen)

source: https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu/layout.html

On English:

Why are there symbols for backspace, enter, but words for tab, capslock and shift?

2 Likes

Wow, that’s a great point! I made a table to show the differences and inconsistencies between the legends of each keyboard layout.

Text = 🇹
Symbol = :red_square:

Name Tab Backspace Enter/Return Left Shift Right Shift Caps lock
Belgian :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square:
Danish :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
French Canadian (updated) 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 :red_square:
French :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square:
German :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square:
Hungarian :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
International English / Linux V2 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹
Italian :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square:
Japanese 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹
Korean 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹
Name Tab Backspace Enter/Return Left Shift Right Shift Caps lock
Latin American Spanish :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
Norweigian :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
Portuguese (updated) :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
Slovak :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
Slovenian :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
Spanish (updated) 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹
Sweden :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
Swiss (updated) :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
Traditional Chinese 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹
Tai :red_square: :red_square: 🇹 :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
Name Tab Backspace Enter/Return Left Shift Right Shift Caps lock
UK English :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: :red_square: 🇹
US English (RGB) (updated) 🇹 :red_square: :red_square: 🇹 🇹 🇹
US English (Linux V2) 🇹 :red_square: :red_square: 🇹 🇹 🇹
US English 🇹 :red_square: :red_square: 🇹 🇹 🇹
International English / Windows v3 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹 🇹
Name Tab Backspace Enter/Return Left Shift Right Shift Caps lock

Please let me know if I missed a legend or got one wrong.


Of all the layouts, I find it interesting that the US English has left side text, right side symbol (except for the right shift).

Just wondering, was this a design choice, or it just happened as the layouts were designed independently?

On the FW13, the legends are all text, but I do find the symbols a welcome change. :slight_smile:

7 Likes