What I’m missing is an option to customize the backlit color. That would be great.
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I can’t speak for everyone, but I think a keyboard is different from UI elements or other features you describe because it’s standard across machines (for the most part). It’s not uncommon for me to switch between 4-5 keyboards from different manufacturers attached to machines running different operating systems and I can still touch type on all of them.
This consistency makes differences like a shrunken shift key more than a minor annoyance because there’s a repeated readjustment period. I imagine this is even more of an issue for people who use a language/country specific keyboard with special symbols they type all the time.
I’m less concerned about keys I’d have to look at or feel around for anyway (fn and arrows come to mind) because that isn’t breaking my “flow”.
That said, there aren’t many “deal breakers” for me with keyboards if the rest of the machine makes up for it. Thankfully, the Framework laptop has a good keyboard for me and the rest of the machine matched my needs, too.
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Crystal clear keycaps + stickers = awesome
One thing I would LOVE to see is an external usb or bluetooth housing using the laptop keyboard. There are a number of external chiclet keyboard attempts but none come close to the ease of typing that almost every latptop I’ve ever used allows.
I’ve since settled for a keychron K7 with bananna keys to try to mimic the typing experience of my lenovo and dell laptops while using my desktop, but it’s still not quite the same.
Currently the only way I’ve seen this done is by hodgepodgeing a test board to the ribbon cable of the laptop board.
It would be so neat to see your keyboard get its own external chassis for this purpose.
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Colemak layout user here. I would prefer a Colemak board but I have a good idea as well to allow people to change the arrangement of their keys to their preference.
Can we change the positions of the keycaps so that any alternate layouts can be attained?
If you can move the keys to their respective places, you deal with the dimples of the QWERTY (F and J) being in useless and annoying place. Plus, the t and n keys (the Colemak homing keys) are undimpled, and thus, preventing touch typing for Colemak (and many other layouts).
Solution 1.
Have a blank keyboard or any other layout and memorize your alternative layout and ignore the keyboard (not preferred when one handed typing is easier for mouse + keyboard work).
Solution 2.
Allow people to order key caps with and without dimples for the most keys (allows people to have their own personal layout, which may be essential for people with disabilities as well)
Solution 3.
Have more selection for alternative keyboard layouts (ie Dvorak, Colemak, Neo, workman are the main ones).
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I’m really looking forward the moment French canadian is available. My old XPS 15 is starting to show its age. The frame.work laptop is everything I’m looking for (Specs, Ethics, price) except for the keyboard layout. Something like that would be perfect fro me (from XPS 13):
Can’t wait to “show off” to collegues and friends with this laptop 
Cheers,
Fred
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Pretty neat! Enjoyed the deep dives into the design process and the effort to keep everything open for the consumers to learn from.
Technology has become closed, which is quite counter intuitive considering the reason we have what we do today comes from ideas and designs being open!
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LOOK. AT. THAT. GORGEOUS. BEZEL <3
When and where can we buy that?
I’m really looking forward to this being available in Europe, but one thing I think Framework could really do in future is offer more choice of keyboard arrangements.
Offering alternative top panels to support this would be great. I know for some people dedicated home/end/pgup/pgdn keys are essential, though I’m quite happy with Fn+arrow keys. I would love full side arrow keys if you could find room for them, preferably by taking a notch out of the bezel in front of the keyboard.
One think that has blighted European keyboards since the 1980s is the reduced left shift key to fig an extra key next to Z ("" in UK/Irish layouts). Has anyone actually asked users if this is where they want this key? Why shrink the shift key, but leave a giant caps lock key above it? I would much prefer a tiny caps lock and a full size shift key (this would also save me writing a full line of text not noticing I’d hit caps instead of A… at least I’d only have one character to go back and edit.
One last thing, If you do an Irish layout keyboard, I would buy it. The only difference from the UK layout is ÁÉÍÓÚ with AltGr on the vowel keys, and we all know where to find them, but if we could have the option to have them on the keycaps, I’d happily pay a little extra for them.
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awww man no more clicky keyboards where can I buy and exteral one?
If there’s timeline, could you let me know when we can choose Japanese keyboard?
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In the marketplace you can buy one so whenever you are able to buy it from the marketplace you will be able to select it in the configuration area in the checkout.
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Waiting for the model with:
Danish (Scandinavian) keyboard layout
(Northern EU)
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Hi @nrp first, props on the launch of Marketplace, it looks great! I know in a previous thread people were asking for DVORAK and such and the response was generally that there needs to be a sustained demand for that to be produced. I am wondering though if there are any plans to have a Russian keyboard? I’m learning Russian and would like to be able to use my laptop to write. Of course, I might just carefully write the Russian letters underneath the English keyboard, but just wondering if that’s a demographic that will have a keyboard in the future!
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Until a Swedish keyboard layout is available, I’m considering getting the English International keyboard and purchasing keyboard stickers to get the desired layout. Is the size of the keycaps available?
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So there are already a few comments here about this, but I’d love to add my +1 for a Colemak layout, an ortholinear layout, and/or an ergonomic layout, like the Atreus. There are so many people that use Colemak these days, but no integrated laptop keyboards that I know of that support it.
Mechanical key switches would also be remarkable, and a total game-changer.
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Now that I’ve got my framework, no complaints about the keyboard itself, but I truly hate the trackpad, and regret going this direction vs getting a crappy thinkpad. And it’s not the fault of your particular touchpad, I hate it as much as I hate my xps 9710’s touchpad.
Please try to find a way to get a trackpoint. I would gladly pay $250 for an alternate bottom chasis, keyboard plate, and keyboard assembly bundle that included a trackpoint. The original chasis would be in the recycling bin the instant I got a shipping notification.
Replacement chasis to accomodate extra thickness necessary for trackpoint.
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Welcome to the Discourse, Jonathan. Your +1 will be gratefully received on my Atreus thread! I am delighted by the interest it has generated so far and hopeful it might catch the eye of someone with the required chops to take it forward.
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I sometimes see people who want trackpoint. I am curious to know why they like the trackpoint. Because I am using Thinkpad X1 Carbon where the keyboard has the trackpoint. But I am not comfortable with it. Because I have to push the trackpoint with some power. I also see the speed of the cursor by the trackpoint is slow, while the speed of the cursor by the mouse is ok.
I was also not comfortable with clicking left/right click area on the trackpad. I often mistook the left click with the right click, while I am comfortable with the trackpad on my Macbook air where there is no right click area on the trackpad.
But recently I found on Linux there is a feature called clickfinger to disable middle/right click area replacing it as left click area on the trackpad, and enable right click as double click on any area on the trackpad.
I am not sure if the desktop environment such as Gnome or KDE support this feature as a GUI config. In my case, as I am using the i3 window manager where it does not support as config, I needed to set the config as a X window level. Here is my config to enable it for someone who is interested in it. The Option "ClickMethod" "clickfinger" is the config. I am comfortable with the trackpad on Linux now. 
$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-trackpad.conf
# https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/
# https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Libinput
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput touchpad"
Driver "libinput"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "Tapping" "False"
Option "TappingDrag" "True"
# Trackpad no longer has middle and right button areas and instead
# two-finger click is a context click and three-finger click is a middle click
# https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/clickpad-softbuttons.html#clickfinger-behavior
Option "ClickMethod" "clickfinger"
# Like Mac.
Option "NaturalScrolling" "True"
EndSection
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I am not sure if the desktop environment such as Gnome or KDE support this feature as a GUI config.
It seems the desktop environment Gnome? has this feature as “Fingers” as GUI config.