Request: Review of Framework Laptop 16 Keyboard Layouts

For the Danish layout I have found two mistakes:
There is a comma sublegend on the M key, which either should not be there, or have µ as the sublegend.
And while € can be written using alt gr + e it can also be written using alt gr + 5, some Danish keyboards only have € sublegend on the E key, some have it on both E and 5.

Other than that the underscore legend looks a little small and the rest of the keys have the correct legends and placements.

On all keyboards, the Windows logo is the old angled logo from Windows 8 to Windows 10.

It would be good to update this logo to the new flat Windows 11 logo.

4 Likes

There are some serious errors here. This layout doesn’t correspond to any layout I’ve ever seen. It certainly doesn’t match anything included with Windows. It appears to be a non-standard fusion of the legacy French AZERTY layout with the French Canadian layout.

The two Canadian layouts are the following:

(Sorry for the broken link above. I had to remove spaces because apparently I’m too much of a noob to be allowed to post links.)

2 Likes

The overall layout is correct, you should change the inscription on the Print Screen button from PRT SCR to STAMP, which is what you actually find on any italian keyboard.

On a side note, Page Up and Page Down are generally noted with PAG and not with PG, it’s not really important of course, it’s just for consistency in this case.

I appreciate asking the community for feedback on this kind of thing!

Is there a reason the shifted symbols are below the non-shifted symbols? I’ve never seen this before and much prefer it like the non-RGB variant. I guess this could just be how the LED under the keys aligns to the symbol, but it’s still off-putting.

Also, is there a reason that no keys are preset next to the arrow keys if they aren’t full-size? My ThinkPad has page up/down keys in those corners that I use those frequently, I think it would be a great use of the empty space.

Also, how are the arrow keys set to work wrt home/end/pageup/pagedown? What button enables that functionality? If it’s fn, is that independent from fnlock?

The only other difference I can see is the numpad not having parentheses keys, but I don’t mind the replacements on the proposed keyboard layout.

Thanks!

2 Likes

SIAP Re the mute button (in the F1 position, seemingly on every keyboard posted):

I think it is more intuitive to have more detail (“communicative”) here. It could be an x in place of the noise waves, or a diagonal line through it (as shown in this image from Google search) or a few other methods but I would think most users would appreciate this.

image

7 Likes

Yeah, I agree the French Canadian keyboard looks very odd, and this is not what I’m used to. This one as linked by @DanielJacobs works better, and is the most common in French Canada. The Canadian Multilingual Standard is also a good alternative, but it’s mainly used on Apple Macs and at the government.

1 Like

@Matt_Hartley the layout is for czech and slovak(don’t have ě ř) just to know, could it be possible to update the keyboard as on the picture?

i would like more to have ANSI type of keyboard rather than ISO with characters as on the picture

Sweden looks great, still can’t wait to be able to order it :wink:

1 Like

Not sure if it’s too late in the game, but “southpaw” numpads, i.e. numpads with the keys mirror-imaged for use with the left hand, are becoming a more common thing in the mechanical keyboard community. It would be really cool to see that made for the Framework, assuming the numpad can actually be installed to the left of the main keyboard.

Here’s an example: SouthPad - Southpaw Mechanical Numberpad featuring USB-C – Logan Butler

1 Like

“Programmers tend to write function calls like f(0,2,1) often.”

Not round here they don’t.

Magic numbers smell bad, should be defined as constants with useful names.

4 Likes

No russian layout?

2 Likes

Personally, I like Framework’s concept arrow keys with the small blank spaces, that way you don’t have to be precise about tapping them. The full-height side arrow keys look pretty ugly to me.

Looks like pg up and pg dn are alternate inputs on the arrow keys anyway.

1 Like

Regarding which layout variant: Had not heard of the new French layout before, after having looked a both; given the option of choosing between the two, I’d go with the more recent NF Z71-300 one.
As adoption of new standards has to start somewhere, would be nice to have the new one, possibly as alternative option.

Regarding the layout as shown in the picture: The “Print Screen” key not having an actual icon compared to the other F-keys in that row makes it look slighly out of place.
Maybe a pictogram of a printer would fit?

1 Like

Slovenian looks fine to me; you can probably rename it to Slovenian/Croatian, since both languages use the same layout.

2 Likes

The Slovenian is maybe more a Croatian then a Slovenian.
They both share the letters, but Croatian alphabet has Ć and Đ officially in it, while Slovenian doesn’t.
Slovene alphabet - Wikipedia for Slovenian
Gaj's Latin alphabet - Wikipedia for Croatian

Keyboard layout is fine. I have a Logitech keyboard with Croatian layout that also has International English signs on Č, Ć, Ž, Š and Đ signs (and on , . -) which is really nice if you want to use English layout also.

All in all it’s ok and you can market it as Slovenian/Croatian

1 Like

Yeah, but Slovenian keyboard layout is exactly the same as Croatian one (well, at least the layout that everybody uses; about 15 years ago there was an official standard passed [SIST-1014] that defines a different layout, but nothing ever implemented it – it’s not even available in software).

2 Likes

The new French layout seems a bit odd at first but imo it looks better designed and it’s a good idea to embrace change.
On the other hand it would be good to still offer the old one at least a marketplace item for people that can’t live without it

1 Like

Personally, I’m curious if it’d be practical to sell keycaps separately on the marketplace. For one, keycaps can wear over time to the point that they warrant replacement. For two, I think it might be a lot cheaper to sell Super keycaps individually rather than create a Linux version of every single language/layout. For three, fans of alternative layouts such as Dvorak and Colemak might be content with being provided the necessary keycaps to rearrange their boards on their own (e.g. bumped U & H keys and flat F & J keys for Dvorak) rather than having dedicated alt layout modules.

3 Likes

Besides what @Antonio_Fernandes and @Tomas_Barreira mentioned:

  1. the menu key is missing between alt gr and ctrl.
  2. Print screen (doubled as F11) is usually Prt Sc.
  3. The SYSRQ key is missing. It’s usually overlayed with Prt Sc

I also have other elements to point out but they are not about the layout. Where should I write them?

E.g.

  1. Use extra size of the 16’’ for larger arrow keys
  2. No button to turn screen off
1 Like