Request: Review of Framework Laptop 16 Keyboard Layouts

As @Captain_Pumpkinhead mentioned, the number row being above the shift characters is slightly confusing. What makes it worse is the row is flipped and the tilda (~), and the tick ( `) remain the same. This would read to me as if I need to press shift, to type a number on the number row.

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Currently the International English keyboard looks identical to the US English keyboard except for the “super” key and the “alt gr” key.

Shouldn’t the International English keyboard show the additional characters that are available using a “alt gr” key or shift-“alt gr” key?

For Windows 11, this interactive page “United States International Keyoard” shows each key’s action when you hold “alt gr”, or shift then “alt gr” on a US English keyboard. Symbols like ¢, €, ¥, or £. Or °, µ, ÷, and ×. Or ¼, ½, ¾. Or §, ¶, ©, ®.

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French and Japanese both look good to me!

By the way, I think you can call the Swedish layout “Estonian / Finnish / Swedish layout”.
It is used in all three two countries, per Wikipedia.

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If I recall correctly, the EC does usually assign this key to open the multimedia player in Windows and Linux. The only time this differs is in pre-built laptops running Framework’s Windows image, where they have edited the OS to have that key open the Framework homepage when pressed.

+1 for the Framework logo on Super. It shouldn’t be too hard to replace the f12 graphic with a media player icon or similar.

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Thanks. I searched & found Nrp mention it here

Also found that in windows you might need to use Microsoft power toys to remap it. Or alternatively via the registry.

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yep! I’ve used powertoys to set it to open the powertoys search feature!

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I found two missing symbols on the swiss keyboard layout:

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Everything seems alrigth but I noticed that the plus symbol (+) isn’t present on the portuguese Keyboard

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On the Spanish keyboard, the number 3 has two ‘#’ which seems redundant. My current keyboard has ‘#’ as Alt-3 and ‘·’ as Shift-3. Also, not sure what the extra symbol is under the M key, it seems like a repeated comma, never seen those.

As a more personal note, I would also love to have a version without the windows logo and the framework logo in its place. Everything else looks great.

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Adding on to what @Captain_Pumpkinhead and @mrwm said about US English (RGB), not only are the number/symbol keys swapped from how I’ve seen them since them since the 90’s, but all the symbol/symbol keys even in other rows such as [/{ , '/" , ;/: and ,/< are swapped. As a touch typist, this is unlikely to slow me down, but it certainly catches me off guard every time I look at the image above.

I will assume the smaller size of the number row symbols !..) in comparison to the other US layouts and general horizontal alignment changes in the function key row are likely intentional stylistic changes.

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I believe that when NumLock is off, the 7 and 1 number pad keys are generally treated as Home and End respectively. Rather than using the left and right tab arrow symbols on these keys, I believe “home” and “end” text would make more sense and also maintain consistency with the labeling on the arrow keys across the presented English keyboards.

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Portuguese is missing “+” as the default state of the “*” key. “5” is missing “€” as the alt gr state, “3” is missing “£” as alt gr state.

  • The typeface looks… a bit too Microsoft-y (I suspect it’s 맑은 고딕?) May I kindly suggest/recommend Pretendard, a golden standard for Korean sans-serif loved by many Koreans? It’s under the SIL Open Font License.

  • The Korean legends look a little bit too small in comparison to the alphabets due to their more condensed nature. I think Apple strikes a nice balance between the two when it comes to this.

  • In same fashion, 한/영 and 한자 keys (left to the arrows key) are currently matched in size with the rest of the Fn row legends (ctrl, fn, alt), but for the readability’s sake I think it definitely needs a size bump. (Not too much, but just a little for visual compensation)

Apart from that, I think you guys nailed it! I’m so glad you guys didn’t went with serif fonts or god forbid, using 굴림 like Logitech did.

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I’m responding to this thread, because I saw the tweet on the Framework account asking for feedback, especially wrt to the French layout.

As a French user, and computer programmer since a long time ago, I never managed to change my layout from AZERTY to a more efficient one. This has severely hindered my ability to enter some new ecosystems or hobbies, for instance custom mechanical keyboards.

I just learned that there is a new AZERTY layout, and that framework is considering replacing the old one with the new one.

I can’t speak for all french people, but I can say that as of now (IIUC, 5 years later after the release of the new layout), neither me or my friends have ever seen one in the wild, let alone used one. I think not having the option to use the old AZERTY would severely hinder my motivation to get a replacement part if mine was to fail, and it would defeat the entire purpose of having gotten in the framework ecosystem in the first place.
Maybe when I am forced to change by a greater trend in manufacturers, I’ll have to make the switch anyway ; but I desperately need an old AZERTY in order to being able to simply use a computer.

Now I’m not one for being resistant to change, I think supporting the new norm and offering the keyboard is a great idea. Hell, maybe that’s the thing that helps some French people like myself to actually make the switch. It is probably more efficient, and is technically the current norm, but keyboards are a very personal thing. The disconnect from switching in between all the machines I use in my life (work computers, desktop computer, gf’s computers, etc…) would be really awful to have to deal with on a daily basis.
Framework wants to be on the bleeding edge, and I would encourage the team to produce such a keyboard, but only if it means not dropping support for the old AZERTY layout.

TL;DR : please don’t shelve old AZERTY, add the new layout if you must, but most French people I know of have never even heard of a new layout.

PS: big +1 for the gear icon on super. I hate having the windows icon everywhere, even being a windows user myself.

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J’étais même pas au courant qu’il y avait un nouvel AZERTY. Est-ce qu’il y a une raison qui fait qu’il n’est pas implémenté plus souvent ? Que ça soit sur mon téléphone or les ordinateurs récents, j’en avais même pas entendu parler.

I can help with Hebrew and Russian.

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Shouldn’t it be just “Finnish / Swedish”?According to another section of the page you linked, Estonian would have two additional letters, Ü and Õ: List of QWERTY keyboard language variants - Wikipedia

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I checked that this matches the “Finnish / Swedish” layout I have on a Thinkpad.

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This layout is the exact same as my current laptop keyboard, which makes me confident I’ll be comfortable and familiar with this one once it ships. However as other users stated on Twitter and in this thread :

Until this was brought to my attention by your tweet, I never came across the new AZERTY layout, and never tried it either.
Even though the official website presenting the standard showcases a CHERRY keyboard with the new layout, I can’t even seem to find that keyboard on the official CHERRY page. It seems like the level of interest in the new layout is pretty low (rather, nobody seems to know it even exists), and I have an easier time finding a BÉPO keyboard on Amazon than one with the new AZERTY layout.

Therefore, keeping the old AZERTY layout seems like the way to go.

Also, as others have pointed out, having a Super key instead of a Windows logo would be nice.

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