Hi Chris, On 23 Aug 2012, at 19:45, Chris Leonard <cjlhomeaddr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Gary Martin > <garycmar...@googlemail.com> wrote: > >>> I like the most recent version well enough, >>> >>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:Maliit_Sugar_theme_work_13.png >> >> High praise ;) Improvements/changes? > > Sorry, I did not mean to "damn with faint praise", it is really good > work under very tight restrictions. I personally find the XO physical > kb limiting, so I bought a rollable rubber USB kb :-) > > I am sincerely excited about the potential for an OSK in the realm of > limitless i18n/L10n freed from the shackles of silkscreening. > >>> I'm a little concerned that the absence of the >>> Home/Friends/Neighborhood/World quartet of XO specific keys will be >>> missed, but I understand that it is tough to collapse 6 rows of XO >>> keys into 4 rows for Maliit. >> >> Yes space is at a premium using an OSK [1], however as the OSK is only >> visible when a text input widget has focus, we need to make sure >> Neighborhood/Group/Home/Activity/Journal are accessible at all other times >> as well, primarily by improving touch access to the Frame (and improving >> Frame discovery, though unlikely for this cycle). > > Yes, the ergonomics of frame invocation/dismissal and switching focus > from kb to other touch input needs deep thought, but I have confidence > in the people smarter in UI design than I am that will be working on > it. :-). I don't expect it to be tuned to re-training fossils like > me, but at the agile minds and fingers of kids. > >>> I've got lots of other questions, but they are more i18n related, so >>> I'll forego inserting them into this design thread, >> >> No, bring them up here if they are OSK related! > > Ok, you asked for it :-) > >>> Is there currently a mechanism for re-creating the many xkb-based >>> layouts already designed for OLPC that never got silkscreened? >>> >>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Keyboard_layouts >> >> No, those are physical layouts not designed for OSK. There about 40 existing >> maliit layouts that I'll update to match our OSK design modifications. And >> then I'd imagine we will want to closely check the OSK layouts for the >> languages we prioritise, and make sure they cover our needs (the existing >> OLPC layouts will be a useful reference). >> > > Getting the existing OLPC xkb designs recreated is going to be pretty > important once the existing Maliit layouts are adapted. It's also > going to be a repetitive task (see attached spreadsheet), I'm > wondering if there are hackerish methods for assisting in that task > (scripts, spreadsheet templates, etc.)? Even the list of OLPC xkb > layouts in my spreadsheet is incomplete, for example, I know of a > layout for an Inuktitut variant that Walter helped some Canadians > design. > > Generating some local documentation on de novo Maliit keyboard design > is going to pretty important as I can easily imagine getting asked a > lot of questions about this that can no longer be put off with, "well, > first you make a silkscreen in a factory in China. . . " > > I'd love to be able to do more for new languages than say go look at > https://wiki.maliit.org/Documentation and let me know when you've > figured out their process. Sugar Labs is, by it's nature, an entry > point for languages under-represented in ICT and we already do a lot > of stuff (like glibc locale design assistance) in support of these > language communities. > > > Language switching: > So, with the "language switch key" you can toggle through a stack of > keyboards that you've configured in the Control Panel (in advance). > All by itself, that would be awesome and really enhance multilingual / > multi-script input. > > This more-or-less implements the Language key already found on Arabic > and Thai OLPC keyboards, but does so for all keyboards. > > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Keyboard#Special_Keys > > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Arabic_Keyboard > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/File:Key_arabic.jpg > > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Thai_Keyboard > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/File:Key_thai.jpg > > This also seems to be necessary, but not sufficient, for the utopian > ideal of toggling through UI languages / glibc locales on-the-fly > (without going to Control Panel and rebooting). How far away is such > a promised land once we have keyboard switching? FWIW, I've added the output to the discussion page from Maliit listing the language files in a little more detail. I'll put up screenshots of the layouts once I'm a little further along with the style/layout changes (I need to do this as part of my layout change testing anyway): http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User_talk:Garycmartin/Maliit Regards, --Gary > cjl > <OLPC_kbs.ods> _______________________________________________ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
