Reviving the ADKATT idea

[Admin]

Hello again,

Even though I posted a while back that the Q forum was going to be discontinued, I have been thinking on and off about doing a new keyboard. The Q Keyboard will always be available to anyone that wants it, on the Ommiglot web site. For my own purposes, sometimes I will enable it, or one of my Fusion prototypes for testing purposes.

There is a problem with international keyboards that is hard to overcome, and that involves software compatibility.

Most keyboards use AltGr to access dead keys or add accented letters (using what I call "live keys"). In some cases, AltGr can confuse software, because internally, AltGr is treated like a Right Alt key plus a Left Ctrl Key. But, Alt+Ctrl is also used for "hot keys" in programs like Microsoft Word. With an international keyboard, you are supposed to use the Left Alt key (since that's the only one you have) plus Ctrl, for the hot keys. The software is supposed to be able to tell the difference, but not all software checks this carefully enough. So, either your "hot keys" don't work correctly, or you lose access to your dead keys and accented letters. It's a no-win situation.

KbdSoft, the company that makes the KbdEdit software, recommends designing keyboards that use the special "modifier" keys Kana, Roya and Loya as alternatives to AltGr. That is how the Q Keyboard works.

However, even those special modifiers have problems. They evidently don't work in the MS Edge browser, or in UWP (Universal Windows Platform) applications. As the KbdEdit web site admits about this problem, "its cause lies deep inside the OS, and is not fixable by KbdEdit".

This is a real dilemma. A designer like me could create some fabulous keyboard, but out in the real world, it won't work for some of you because of these limitations. What to do?

I got a hint from a new feature KbdSoft is supporting, called NLS Functions, where NLS means National Language Support. In the past, NLS meant Far East languages (abbreviated as FE), primarily Japanese. Enabling Japanese keyboards is complicated due to the many things their keyboards need to accomplish. KbdSoft has "opened up" that support, allowing us to create keyboards that have nothing to do with Japanese but where we need specialized access to our keyboards.

One of the intriguing features now available allows a given key to use different scan codes depending on what modifiers are being held down.

There's a lot technically to how it works, but long story short, it is possible to turn the Caps Lock key into a dead key.

So, how does that work, and why would you want it?

First, the HOW part. Using new KbdEdit features, it's possible to give the Caps Lock different scan codes, called VK codes, based on whether the Shift, Ctrl and/or Alt keys are pressed as the same time. My intent here is to make Caps Lock, or Shift+Caps Lock, to appear to be an ordinary character key. When you want that key to actually operate as a real Caps Lock, you will have to hold down an Alt or Ctrl key first. In testing, it's relatively easy to hold the left Alt with your thumb and press Caps Lock. The Caps Lock function isn't really used all that often, so this should be a practical approach.

So, if just pressing Caps Lock would now be an "ordinary" character, WHICH ordinary character will it be? If you have ever seen an international keyboard, there is often a small Left Shift key, and just to its right is a key with < and > on it. Technically, this is known as VK_OEM_102. When a key is described as "OEM" it means that each country is free to customize it however they wish. In practice, the letters or symbols they choose for the OEM positions are dictated by years of conventional use, and in practice can't really be changed. Anyway, for a US QWERTY keyboard, you generally will not see that <> key, but from the standpoint of KbdEdit, you can "pretend" that you have one, for key mapping purposes. That is important, because while the Caps Lock key can have its VK code changed, the KbdEdit software won't let you actually assign characters to it. It has to be done 'indirectly'. By giving Caps Lock a scan code of VK_OEM_102, I can go in and edit the <> key in its place. So, it allows me to anything that I would do with a regular letter key. Then, the <> key will have its regular and Shift positions mapped to some arbitrary symbol which is then treated as a Dead Key.

Second, the WHY part. Why go through all this?

As noted above, AltGr or the Kana, Roya, Loya keys don't always work the way you'd like. And, even if they did, remapping Ctrl, Alt and even the Windows Logo or Menu keys takes those keys away from normal use. Yes, there are work-arounds, but the more work-arounds are made, the more confusing and difficult the design becomes. All that remapping means more work learning how the keyboard works, and makes it much more "non-standard".

In addition, any keyboard that uses AltGr or other extended modifier keys requires the user to hold down those modifiers while some other key is typed. Having to activate two keys at the same time takes more effort, and can make typing harder. It also makes it difficult, and in some cases impossible, for persons with severe dexterity issues to even use the keyboard at all. The Caps Lock approach does not have that problem. Suppose you wanted to use this keyboard with only one finger (or for a disabled person, by a typing stick of some kind). If this Caps Lock international keyboard is running, and Windows is properly set up with its keyboard Sticky Keys feature enabled, any letter, symbol or punctuation can be typed. That is something current international keyboards cannot claim - not even my own Q Keyboard.

The use of Caps Lock in this special way means that only one key - just the Caps Lock itself - works differently. Besides that one change, everything on the keyboard is identical in every way with a standard US QWERTY keyboard. It causes NO software compatibility problems, and doesn't take away anything you are used to using.

What's the down side?  As good as all this sounds, it's not without certain drawbacks. They are not that bad, but 'full disclosure' calls for us to identify them.

1. The change to how Caps Lock works will have to be learned. You won't be able to just tap the Caps Lock key to be in caps lock mode. Now, you'll have to hold the Alt key first. It's not that hard to do, and you won't usually require it that often, but it's a change that must be learned with practice.

2. For persons with dexterity issues, being able to type in ALL CAPS can no longer be done by tapping on Caps Lock. Enabling the Sticky Keys feature allows you to keep the Shift key in a "held state", which is similar to Caps Lock, but not exactly. That impacts punctuation and digit keys, which are affect by Shift but not by Caps Lock.

3. For good typists, use of AltGr plus another key can be typed a little faster. That's because there can be a certain amount of "overlap" between when AltGr is held and the regular key typed. With the Caps Lock approach, the Caps Lock key must be released FIRST, then the second key pressed. This will result in somewhat slower typing.

4. Since Caps Lock will now be treated as a "regular" key, it also gains the "typematic" feature every regular key has: It will automatically repeat as long as the key is held down. That didn't matter when it was an ordinary Caps Lock; the internal repetition that did happen before was effectively ignored, because it just "re-asserted" that Caps Lock was being held down (so, no harm, no foul). Now, the autorepeat behavior has to be accounted for somehow.

One way to do this is to design our dead key tables so that repetitions don't cause problems. The keyboard uses a feature called Chained Dead Keys. This is when a dead key table has an entry that links to another dead key table. That is the technique used to allow dual-accented letters like in Vietnamese to be typed. It is possible to have an entry in a dead key table that links to itself. So, no matter how many times you typed an accent key, the extra ones would get ignored.

Another way to handle this is in Windows. You can set the keyboard repeat rate so that the keyboard will wait a longer time before reporting any repeated keys. This is a hardware feature in all keyboards, and Windows gives you access to the settings for it. That should be enough to prevent accidental repeats of keys, including Caps Lock. On the slowest setting, you have to hold a key down for a full second before it starts repeating. That should be enough of a delay for nearly all users. For some typists with special needs, it is possible to completely disable keyboard repeating, at the cost of a little keyboard responsiveness. So, one way or another, having a Caps Lock that repeats is an issue that can be handled.

Could we just use some other key besides Caps Lock? Yes, but doing so has its own set of issues. We could redefine the right Alt key as a "regular" key and not as a modifier. That would leave Caps Lock with totally standard behavior. But it would also mean you'd no longer have the right Alt key as an Alt key. Now, if you had a keyboard with a right Windows Logo key, you could that. But, modern keyboards have been dropping that key to simplify their designs, so we can't depend on that key being present. Even the Windows Menu (App) keys are not always present on every keyboard. Other possible candidates among seldom-used keys are Scroll Lock and Print Screen, but even they are not present on all keyboards, especially on modern laptops. Now, if some keyboard company would add an extra key that could be remapped, that might solve the problem, but it wouldn't be any help for the billions of existing keyboards that didn't have it.

No, we are pretty much stuck with the keys on the keyboards we have. There's only two viable choices: Redefine Caps Lock as discussed above, or use Right Alt in an AltGr kind of way, only not as a modifier but as a special dead key.

There's nothing to use either approach. Because the new ADKATT design truly is an All Dead Keys All The Time design, all of what makes it special is what are in the dead key tables. The "main" keyboard has only a tiny difference from a real, unmodified US QWERTY. There is no reason why each of the possible "special" keys could not be made available on different variants of the design. These would be:

• Special use of Caps Lock as described above (CL)
• Left or Right Alt key (LA, RA)
• Right Menu (apps) key (RM)
• Left or Right Windows Logo key (LW, RW)

In theory, any could be turned into this "special" key, but beyond the ones listed here, the choices become less and less practical. One international keyboard that was marketed until recently used the Grave Accent key as a dead key. That could certainly be done, but then it would take the Grave key away from normal use, which is an undesirable disruption for users.

The various versions would be named so the special key used is part of the name: ADKATT_CL for a Caps Lock version, AKATT_RA for a Right Alt Key version, and so on. These are names that would appear on the Windows Taskbar and when swapping keyboard layouts.

For users with an available Windows Menu (app) key, that key is rarely used and works the same way as does a right mouse button click in an application window. It would cause little disruption if it were taken over for another purpose.

About Cyrillic. In order to meet the goal of simplicity that I want for this design, Cyrillic support will have to be dropped. I can't really do justice to a real Cyrillic layout while fully supporting Latin. Is a Cyrillic-only version of ADKATT a possibility? I think so. I will have to first do the Latin version, and if it works out, I will try to see if Cyrillic is possible. In any case, I feel that a Latin/Cyrillic keyboard is too complex for most users. If a Cyrillic typist needed Latin, they can always swap to a standard QWERTY layout, or perhaps one I made.

I am limited by health issues, which for now makes me more tired than I would prefer, so there is a limit to how much time and effort I can devote to this new idea. But I will try and I hopeful I can come up with something. The current dead-key definition files I have now have nearly everything I need, with just a few minor adjustments required, so I don't have to start from scratch.

Well, that the idea behind the new ADKATT initiative. I am hoping to get something working in the near future.

Comments invited.

Robert

P.S. Hope you are all doing well in the crazy world we are in at the moment. Let's hope the future gets better, for all of us.

[Admin]

Doing some further research, I see that only 3 possible keyboard variants are possible with the new ADKATT design. These are:

• Caps Lock Key, with Ctrl Caps Lock or Alt Caps Lock used for normal Caps Lock functionality
• Windows Menu (app) Key, with Ctrl Caps Lock or Alt Caps Lock used for normal Menu (app) functionality
• Left Windows Key, with Ctrl ESC used for basic Windows Key functionality

Of these three choices, using Caps Lock will work on all hardware.

Using the Menu key will cause the least disruption to normal operations, but only works if the Menu key is convenient to type. It is on a full-size keyboard, but may be awkward (or not present) on a laptop. This approach allows a remapped Caps Lock to serve as a substitute Menu key, and you still can use Right Mouse Button within an application window to get the same popup menu.

Using the Left Windows key will be easy to type, but it takes away the "extra" functions of the Windows key. You can use Ctrl ESC but not in combination with Shift, Ctrl or Alt. For users like me, I almost never use the Win key, so it wouldn't matter much that I had to use Ctrl ESC. And, that way, the Caps Lock still works as usual.

On a full-size external keyboard, you may have a Right Windows key. If so, and assuming you also have a Left Windows key, the Right Windows key could easily be "taken" as the new key. That is a perfectly good solution, except that modern keyboards have been omitting this key, so it's a "solution" that isn't applicable much any more.

There are other tricky things that could be done, such as using the Left Windows key as the new key, and using the Menu key as a replacement Windows key. Problem is, some new keyboards are so sparse that they may not even have a Menu key.

Here are my recommendations:

(1) For maximum ease of use, the Left Windows key is best, if you can accept not having a full-featured Windows Key available and can live with Ctrl ESC bringing up only the basic Windows display.

(2) For maximum compatibility, the Caps Lock key will cause the least interference, at the cost of having to use Alt Caps to toggle Caps Lock mode.

(3) For good ease of use, if the key is available, the Windows Menu key. The original key is rarely used, can be mapped to something like Alt Caps Lock, and its function is available via Right Mouse Button.

[Admin]

Well I have progress to report.

I am dropping the Caps Lock usage. From now on, only the Apps (Menu) key or the Left Windows Logo will be used as the 'starting point'.

I have a working prototype that is feature complete as of today. Now comes the long part, doing testing. So far, everything is working correctly, but there's LOTS of keys to test, so this will take a while.

[Admin]

What a difference a week makes (give or take a day).

Here's the problem: Suppose I make a keyboard layout and try to get a whole bunch of people to use it. Which keys are they going to have available to them? That is, what keys can I "steal" that (a) will WORK for what I want, and (b) will even BE THERE on people's keyboards?

Remember the days when everyone copied IBM, and the right side of the keyboard you had АLT, WIN, APP(MENU) and CTRL? Not any more. Almost all new keyboards drop the right WIN key, and many are dropping the APP key, sometimes just dropping it altogether, sometimes replacing it with an FN key, and sometimes the APP key is shared with CTRL, so now you have to press FN+CTRL to get APP.

If you have a laptop keyboard, it's even worse. I have one where the only keys on the right are Alt and Ctrl. There IS an APP key, but it's way on the top row where it's not convenient to use.

On the left, it is *possible* to steal the left WIN key, with the understanding that you wouldn't have the WIN functionality any more; all you could do for the basic WIN screen is press Ctrl+ESC. For some people like me who never use WIN, it would be enough, but for many others it would be too severe a change. So stealing WIN is out.

On top of this, I now have all my Cyrillic letters from prior keyboard projects that I want to make available. Unless I figure something out, I'm in big trouble. What to do?

I have some definite ideas. First, ideally I want every version of the new keyboard to have the same features. Second, I *really* don't want too many versions, or people will be totally put off by it. Third, I want to change as few keys as possible.

Finally, because physical keyboards generally are laid out the same way for all markets, some things have to be there. Because many languages require an AltGr key, even for US layouts there HAS to be a right Alt. They are never going to remove it. Likewise, no keyboard would lack a Caps Lock, no matter what.

So, as I see it, those are the two keys that could be taken that would be the least disruptive, and would have the greatest likelihood of being present on the most keyboard devices.

I am still deciding just exactly how these keys are going to be used in practice.

One major point left is that, while I *do* want all versions to have the same features, including Cyrillic, not everyone cares about typing Cyrillic on a US keyboard. I see it important to have two versions, one with Cyrillic being relatively easy to type, and one where it's *possible* but maybe a little hardest, in exchanging for taking fewer keys.

I will let you know how it goes.

[Admin]

Wow, you'd think SOMETHING would be easy ...

OK, here goes. After my prior experience using the APP key, I really got to enjoy doing it that way. But, we have to account for people that don't have one.

On the Cyrillic side, we need to accommodate two groups of people: those that use Cyrillic a lot, and those who use it only rarely.

Finally, we just CAN'T steal the WIN key. Not only for people who use Win+R and similar keys a lot, but for US. Why? We need to be able to swap keyboards easily, and that means WIN+Spacebar. So, the Left (or, only) Win key has to stay as-is. For a majority of new keyboards and new laptops, there will ONLY be a Left Win. The Win key cannot be touched. That's it, end of story.

What does that leave us with?

(1) Two choices on the right: Use the Menu(App) key IF IT'S THERE; otherwise take the Right Alt key. Whichever one we use on the right-hand side becomes the "principle dead key" for Latin. This "principle Latin" key is referred to with the term "L1". When the L1 key is typed twice, we call it L2. This L1 and L2 thing will be referred to in documentation.

(2) On the left, the Caps Lock key will always be used, in some way, for the actual Caps Lock function, but exactly how that will be done depends on whether Cyrillic use is of major or minor importance.

When Cyrillic is of MAJOR importance, Caps Lock alone becomes the principle dead key for Cyrillic; this is referred to as C1. If you actually want to toggle Caps Lock, you'd have to use Ctrl+the Caps Lock key.

When Cyrillic is of MINOR importance, Ctrl+the Caps Lock is the principle dead key for Cyrillic; this is referred to as C1. If you want to toggle Caps Lock, you can use an ordinary Caps Lock key as always.

When you press the principle Cyrillic key twice (however you have to type it), it's referred to as C2.Again, this is for documentation purpose.

All this means that there will be 4 possible versions. The naming will indicate whether the right ALT key or the APP (menu) key is being used on the right, and whether Caps Lock (CL) is used directly for Cyrillic, or if you have to hold the Ctrl key along with it. That give us these tentative keyboard names:

ADKATT_APP_CL
ADKATT_ALT_CL
ADKATT_APP (without mentioning CL in the name, you have to hold Ctrl+Caps Lock for Cyrillic letters)
ADKATT_ALT (again, without mentioning CL in the name, you have to hold Ctrl+Caps Lock for Cyrillic)

I think this is a plan.

Now, if ANYONE is out there reading this, does this seem reasonable?

[Admin]

Testing of my prototype ADKATT keyboards is continuing.

I just did an exhaustive review of all Latin keyboards on Omniglot. One thing I found is how much the punctuation of Single Right Apostrophe is used. How much? Lots. LOTS. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTs.

I also noted that an identical appearing symbol, Modifier Letter Apostrophe, is in fact used but not as often, not nearly so.

As a result, I changed some assignments to make sure the Right Apostrophe is as easy to type as possible.

I also found there were a few languages that use DEZH and Insular D, of all things. So, these are now supported. I also found that Latin Lambda with Stroke is used quite frequently in the languages of indigenous people such as native Americans and native Canadians. So, this letter is easy to type also.

Things are going pretty well, all said.

[Admin]

Funny thing happened on the way to testing my new keyboards. Almost all online internet forums, in which you type and edit data that you are going to submit to some site, have their own software to interact with the user. They seem to take over the keyboard for the duration of the session. So, no matter if you use AltGr, Kana, Roya, Loya or repurpose an App or Alt key, they will have none of it.

There's only one that they WON'T reject - a repurposed Caps Lock. That seems to be the ONLY thing that doesn't get rejected.

It seems if I want to make this keyboard work for the maximum number of users, Caps Lock needs to be the primary way to access Latin letters.

Where does that leave Cyrillic? Only thing I can do is put THAT on Alt or App, and hope the user is in an application that doesn't block it.

Oh Yeah - one other thing ...

It seems that in some web pages, the ADKATT keyboard is not recognized until you hit a key - ANY key - at least once, as long as that key is NOT one of my special dead keys.

It doesn't even have to be a LETTER key. You can tap a Shift key, then begin your typing, and everything works. But if the first thing you want to type is some accented letter, it's not recognized. Now, once you do hit some "normal" key, everything works from that point forward. Even more weird: If a web page has two places to enter something, like a chat dialog and a search window, the web page might force you to do the "hit Shift" thing in both places. Although, with my new version that primarily uses Caps Lock, that hasn't been a problem so far.

Testing continues ...

[Admin]

OK, now I have the new versions, here are the new names…

ADKATT_CL: Only changes Caps Lock
ADKATT_CL_APP: Changes Caps Lock and App(menu) key
ADKATT_CL_ALT: Changes Caps Lock and Right Alt

I am running the ADKATT_CL version right now, and I can enter any Latin or Cyrillic letter, and the web site is not stopping me. Only major change is I have to get used to use Alt+Caps Lock to toggle caps. But, that's something that works for all 3 versions, and it works on a normal keyboard too. So, just one new habit and I'm good to go.

Yay!

Testing continues ...

[Admin]

Hoo-ray for simplicity :-)

Just made a breakthrough. No, there's NOT going to be 3 versions - there will only be ONE. How?

Well, the main problem all along is finding some key to "steal" to use at the master Dead Key. And believe me, I've tried. Lo and behold, it was sitting there all along and I only realized it a few days ago.

Right Alt.

Now, you might be saying, "didn't you already talk about Right Alt? What's different now?" Glad you asked.

The problem with using any existing key is that with some software, it doesn't always work. Yeah, I can get things to work in Notepad or MS Word, but then I go on some browser or chat session or web mail, and it stops working.

What's the deal? Well, it wasn't the keyboard design itself. The problem is that other software seems to jump in in front of me and interferes with the keyboard driver. How? Not totally sure, but I suspect it's in the nature of a "key hook". That's software that intercepts key-press "messages" within Windows. And, sometimes a key hook can do more than just *look* but may actually delete or modify those messages, if it wants to.

Sometimes that's needed, in cases where you press Alt with the intention of activating a Title Bar menu line, like ones that say: File, Edit, View, Help, etc. That gets Windows "ready" to intercept your keyboard as a request for one of those functions if you type the first letter, like F E V or H.

BUT ... if the keyboard is declared as one that "Uses Alt Gr" then the right Alt key doesn't get intercepted in that way. Windows and other would-be interlopers leave it alone.

It's all pretty technical and boring, but the main thing is, it *works*, so I don't need three different versions.

However ......

I am working on a Cyrillic version of ADKATT. Sort of ADKATT in reverse, where the primary purpose of the thing is to write in Cyrillic, with Latin treated as secondary. In doing so, I am using the SAME dead key tables as the 'original recipe' ADKATT. Some adjustments are needed to get the 'extra crispy' version to behave itself, but so far it's working pretty good.

A lot more testing will be needed on that one.

[Barbara L]

I am very interest in your Cyrillic version of AKKATT.

[Admin]

Hello Barbara, thanks for your interest.

The ADKATT keyboards are designed so that you have a fully-functioning Latin and Cyrillic, side by side. In the past, this was not possible to do, due to the software limitations of the keyboard authoring software I use. However, the vendor has recently updated their software to allow this.

There will be two versions of the keyboard. One operates as Latin as its primary alphabet, with Cyrillic as a secondary one. The other keyboard is just the reverse. To switch between the primary and secondary uses of the keyboard, you hold the Ctrl key and type the Caps Lock key. This special key sequence is made possible by the keyboard software; normally, any modifier + Caps Lock is just Caps Lock.

There is one limitation when you go to the secondary keyboard, and that is that Caps Lock is no longer effective. You would have to hold Shift as needed for capital letters. You could also use Sticky Keys in Windows to lock the Shift key, but that's not quite the same as a caps lock.

The expectation is that someone who needs to switch between Latin and Cyrillic frequently but only want one physical keyboard would benefit from this. For instance, the Kazakh people are changing from a Cyrillic to a Latin alphabet, but the transition will take time, and people will need to type both ways.

When someone needs dual alphabets like that, probably most of the time, switching from primary to secondary will fully address their needs. But, if you need a "native" keyboard behavior, you would go into Windows and switch keyboards using the WIN + Spacebar technique.

The Cyrillic support in ADKATT is unique, as far as I know. All existing Cyrillic keyboards I have found choose a set of Cyrillic letters, which are directly typed, or typed with an Alt Gr key, and that is all you get. My approach is that you get a fixed set of Cyrillic letters that, for the most part, resemble Latin, and then everything else is on a dead key. For instance, the letter И is on key N because it resembles N. To get letter Ӥ you type the right Alt key, then the ; key, then the N key. The semicolon key is used in both Latin and Cyrillic for a Diaeresis (umlaut) accent.

Because Cyrillic letters do use accents, but not extensively, it was necessary to be somewhat "informal" about what an accent actually is. For instance, Cyrillic does not use the "dot below" accent seen in Latin, but they have several letters where a descender is added. So, I use the dot-below key (the period) to indicate a descender. So, letter Ж is on the Z key, while Җ with descender is Alt + . + Z.