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On May 30, 2005, at 3:42 PM, Hugh Birkenhead wrote:

>> Are you seriously suggesting using the numerical keys?
>> It would hardly be intuitive.
>
> To be honest, filling all the available keys on the keyboard with
> Shavian
> letters is a bad idea. You mustn't forget that the priority should be
> to
> place the *most typed* characters on the unshifted positions. Many
> punctuation symbols are far more frequently typed than most Shavian
> characters. This is why on my ShavianB layout I placed punctuation
> symbols
> on the number keys (and relegated the numbers themselves to shift
> positions).
>
> See the attached JPEG to see the ShavianB layout.
>
> Hugh B

I have to suggest against using the number keys. I , for one, would
have difficulty actually typing numbers at all on my laptop. I don't
want to hold another key for the numbers. They're difficult enough as
they are. That brings me to my next point: With letters on the number
row, we'd have to reach too far to be able to type very quickly. As it
is, we can rest our fingers on the home row and type every word we need
without moving them more than one row. That's precisely the reason
there are only three rows of letters on a standard keyboard (QWERTY or
Dvorak). I wouldn't mind giving up some of my punctuation, but you
must remember that some of them will be rather more common than some of
our letters, like the namer dot, the hyphen, and maybe the comma
(though it's used much more than it should be).

Regards,
Joseph Spicer

Hugh Birkenhead wrote:
>>>A response to your assertion that you don't see how one could avoid
>>>using the Shift key for the Shavian Letter Keyboard Mapping.
>>>
>>>While I am in favour of a logical distribution such as you suggest,
>>>I do wish to point out there are many unused keys on the normal
>>>keyboard.
>>>There are 11 available keys, not counting another 10 redundant keys
>>>for the numeric digits. (I usually type numbers from the keypad in
>>>any case. 26+11+10 = 47
>>>Why can't we use these extra keys.
>>
>>Are you seriously suggesting using the numerical keys?
>>It would hardly be intuitive.
>
>
> To be honest, filling all the available keys on the keyboard with Shavian
> letters is a bad idea. You mustn't forget that the priority should be to
> place the *most typed* characters on the unshifted positions. Many
> punctuation symbols are far more frequently typed than most Shavian
> characters. This is why on my ShavianB layout I placed punctuation symbols
> on the number keys (and relegated the numbers themselves to shift
> positions).
>
> See the attached JPEG to see the ShavianB layout.
>
> Hugh B

Hugh, I also put together a layout, based on the letter frequency data I
found with your layout on the group webpage. As I'm familiar with the
Dvorak layout, I based mine roughly on that system, and I realized
several advantages. One, I was able to learn it within minutes; two,
the number of shifted keystrokes was cut tremendously; Three, the keys
are in much more optimal positions for ease of use.

The only key position I'm not really happy about is that of Peep,
because it's a shifted key but is used more frequently than Gag, which
is not shifted. I'm considering moving it, perhaps to the hyphen key.
The only other problem I can think of off hand, which may not be a
problem with more practise, and that's the habit of typing They when I
mean Haha. Anyone care to try it? I could make an ascii shavian font
for it, or someone could make a keymap for Windows or Mac - I can't make
those myself, but I do have a keymap for X Windows under Linux.

The layout is an attached UTF-8 text file. For those who can't read it,
here's a description based on the English Dvorak layout.

Number row shifted:
~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) { }
Unshifted:
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 [ ]
(same as Dvorak)

Upper row shifted:
"Out <Ian >Air PAre YYea FPeep GJudge CChurch R< L> ? +
Unshifted:
'Up ,Ash .Age pArray yIce fFee gGag cKick rRoar lLol /
Home row shifted:
AAh OAwe EWool UOut I· Dblank HHaha TThigh NHung SSure _
Unshifted:
aAdo oOn eEgg uIf iEat dDead hThey tTot nNun sSo -

Lower row shifted:
: Qblank JEar K" X' B· M; W, V. ZMeasure
Unshifted:
;Ooze qErr jOr kYew xOak bBib mMime wWoa vVow zZoo

For those of you not familiar with Dvorak, you can change
',.pyfgcrl/ to qwertyuiop[
aoeuidhtns- to asdfghjkl;
;qjkxbmwvz to zxcvbnm,./
and see what keys I'm using.
Or else just count them!

--
·𐑰𐑔𐑩𐑯 - Ethan

--------------050704020008020709000401
Content-Type: text/plain;
name="shavianE.txt"
Content-Disposition: inline;
filename="shavianE.txt"

[ Attachment content not displayed ]
--------------050704020008020709000401--

hF evrI wun
F Am bAk hOm frum /grIs.
/ATInA iz a vXI unhelTI plEs His tFm v H yC,
sO it tUk mI a hwFal fUlI rikuvD
n get bAk in H swiN v TiNz.
glAd t bI hOm.

(*While I was there, I noticed that the Greeks have
a problem with their Alphabet. The Greek Alphabet
altho it has changed pronunciation dramatically over the
years, is still pretty well Phonetic and a good match for
the Greek Language, and of course you have all that history
and accessible ancient literature.
They publish more newspapers and books per capita,
than anywhere.
So what is the problem you say?
It is a pollution problem from the Roman Alphabet.
With the reduction in importance of Greece
in the world scheme of things
and the amalgamation with the E.U.
they are inundated with all kinds of packaging
adverts, and new things with names written in Roman
letters. Shop signs and Billboards.
Much as the average Greek would rather retreat back
into the civility of Greek and the ignorance of all these
foreign and even alien words, it is imossible.
At least in Athena.
The problem is that the Roman Alphabet has a
lot of resemblences with the Greek Alphabet,
so he sees all these jumbled up words, some which have the same
spelling as totally different Greek words.
Because
Various letters in the 2 alphabets overlap,
but the pronunciation
that those overlapping letters represent is seldom the same.
In English, We have trouble with O and the Zero,
and the L and the I and the one.
But the poor happless Greek, needs a solution to this
insidious corruption of his literacy.
He need all these foreign English words to be written
in Shavian or its European equivalent.
The Roman Alphabet for the Romans.
Shavian for Europeans.

Regards, Paul V.

Hi Joseph
Let's not put the cart before the horse.
I think we should avoid concerning ourselves about erganomic issues,
such as the hardship of using 4 rows of keys instead of 3 on a
Computer, specifically
a Laptop of a particular make.
We need to get a better mapping of the Shavian letters to a standard
QWERTY keyboard. I am not talking about a major overhaul.
I am talking about tweaking.
I am suggesting moving some of the more commonly used letters that
currently require a shift to some of the unused or duplicate keys
available on the QWERTY keyboard. In particular I was thinking of
the vowel letters. The normal "At" sound requires a Shift, for
instance.
As far as the number keys go. That is a non-issue for me.
Let's leave them alone.
I have a seperate block of number keys on my keyboard. I just assumed
most people would have no trouble using those keys, instead of the
Number keys on the Top row.

Anyway, let me know, if any of the current Key mappings are
particulary difficult or non-intuitive. For example using the
lower case "J" key for the Shaw "Yea" letter".

Regards, Paul V.
_______________attached___________________________________________

> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Spicer
<wurdbendur@g...>
> wrote:
> > I have to suggest against using the number keys. I , for one,
> would
> > have difficulty actually typing numbers at all on my laptop. I
> don't
> > want to hold another key for the numbers. They're difficult
enough
> as
> > they are. That brings me to my next point: With letters on the
> number
> > row, we'd have to reach too far to be able to type very quickly.
> As it is, we can rest our fingers on the home row and type every
word we need
> > without moving them more than one row.
> That's precisely the reason
> there are only three rows of letters on a standard keyboard (QWERTY
> or Dvorak).
> I wouldn't mind giving up some of my punctuation, but you
> > must remember that some of them will be rather more common than
> some of
> > our letters, like the namer dot, the hyphen, and maybe the comma
> > (though it's used much more than it should be).
> >
> > Regards,
> > Joseph Spicer

On Jun 4, 2005, at 10:59 PM, paul vandenbrink wrote:

> Hi Joseph
> Let's not put the cart before the horse.
> I think we should avoid concerning ourselves about erganomic issues,

The ergonomic issue is exactly why we want to move the lesser-used
letters to non-shifted keys. Usability is the most important factor,
but we can't forget ergonomics.

> such as the hardship of using 4 rows of keys instead of 3 on a
> Computer, specifically
> a Laptop of a particular make.

Almost all laptops have the same arrangement of a condensed keyboard
and no number pad. Most have a function key which may allow a section
of the keyboard to be used in its place, but it's hardly equivalent.

> We need to get a better mapping of the Shavian letters to a standard
> QWERTY keyboard. I am not talking about a major overhaul.
> I am talking about tweaking.

It doesn't necessarily have to be related to the QWERTY keyboard.
Those who like it can have it, but we should have other options.

> I am suggesting moving some of the more commonly used letters that
> currently require a shift to some of the unused or duplicate keys
> available on the QWERTY keyboard. In particular I was thinking of
> the vowel letters. The normal "At" sound requires a Shift, for
> instance.

That would definitely be a benefit. Most of our punctuation is
uncommon enough that it won't be a problem to move them to shifted
positions. And less common letters can be moved to make the more
common ones more accessible. Layouts have already been made which
accomplish this quite well.

> As far as the number keys go. That is a non-issue for me.
> Let's leave them alone.
> I have a seperate block of number keys on my keyboard. I just assumed
> most people would have no trouble using those keys, instead of the
> Number keys on the Top row.

Most laptop users do not have the same luxury, and even some larger
keyboards lack the number pad. Shifting the numbers wouldn't be so bad
if we can use caps lock, but it will still slow things down.

> Anyway, let me know, if any of the current Key mappings are
> particulary difficult or non-intuitive. For example using the
> lower case "J" key for the Shaw "Yea" letter".

I like Shavorak, myself (though I haven't really tried it), since most
are fairly easy to remember if you know Dvorak. A similar
Roman-Shavian correspondence could be arranged for QWERTY for people
who don't use Dvorak to make learning easier than the current ASCII
mapping.

Regards,
Joseph Spicer

Hi Joseph

I get your point about ergonomics. Obviously, Ergonomics is not just
mechanical easy of use, but ease remembering the Shaw keys and ease
of switching back and forth between the Shavian and Roman Keyboard
mappings.

We just want to make it easy for new people to Shavian on a Computer
Keyboard, whether or not the have Dvorak.

As I see it we have 8 available keys.
I would recommend leaving alone the Bottom 3 punctuation keys (Comma,
Full Stop, Namer Dot) on the right side of the bottom row of the
keyboard. 5 of the 8 are well placed for ease of use.
But the square brackets, Backslash, Semi-colon and apostrophe are
rarely needed, especially with Shavian writing conventions.
Perhaps we can use those keys instead for some of the currently off
shifted Vowel letters?

Agreed?
Regards, Paul V.
________________attached__________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Spicer <wurdbendur@g...>
wrote:
>
> The ergonomic issue is exactly why we want to move the lesser-used
> letters to non-shifted keys. Usability is the most important
factor,
> but we can't forget ergonomics.
>
> > such as the hardship of using 4 rows of keys instead of 3 on a
> > Computer, specifically
> > a Laptop of a particular make.
>
> Almost all laptops have the same arrangement of a condensed
keyboard
> and no number pad. Most have a function key which may allow a
section
> of the keyboard to be used in its place, but it's hardly equivalent.
>
> > We need to get a better mapping of the Shavian letters to a
standard
> > QWERTY keyboard. I am not talking about a major overhaul.
> > I am talking about tweaking.
> >
> > I am suggesting moving some of the more commonly used letters that
> > currently require a shift to some of the unused or duplicate keys
> > available on the QWERTY keyboard. In particular I was thinking of
> > the vowel letters. The normal "At" sound requires a Shift, for
> > instance.
>
> That would definitely be a benefit. Most of our punctuation is
> uncommon enough that it won't be a problem to move them to shifted
> positions. And less common letters can be moved to make the more
> common ones more accessible. Layouts have already been made which
> accomplish this quite well.
>

paul vandenbrink wrote:
> Hi Joseph
>
> I get your point about ergonomics. Obviously, Ergonomics is not just
> mechanical easy of use, but ease remembering the Shaw keys and ease
> of switching back and forth between the Shavian and Roman Keyboard
> mappings.
>
> We just want to make it easy for new people to Shavian on a Computer
> Keyboard, whether or not the have Dvorak.
>
> As I see it we have 8 available keys.
> I would recommend leaving alone the Bottom 3 punctuation keys (Comma,
> Full Stop, Namer Dot) on the right side of the bottom row of the
> keyboard. 5 of the 8 are well placed for ease of use.
> But the square brackets, Backslash, Semi-colon and apostrophe are
> rarely needed, especially with Shavian writing conventions.
> Perhaps we can use those keys instead for some of the currently off
> shifted Vowel letters?
>
> Agreed?
> Regards, Paul V.

The other keys probably okay, but not the backslash key. You can't
depend on it being in a consistent location from one keyboard to
another. All the rest of the keys are fairly standard, but that one key
(backslash and vertical bar) moves around all over the place. For
instance, on my keyboard it's located in the top row between the
backspace and the += key. Everybody look at their own keyboard and see
where it is - chances are good it's somewhere else.

--
·𐑰𐑔𐑩𐑯 ·𐑤𐑨𐑥𐑮𐑴 - Ethan Lamoreaux

𐑮𐑰𐑕𐑲𐑑 𐑞 𐑨𐑤𐑓𐑩𐑚𐑧𐑑:
𐑐𐑚𐑑𐑛𐑒𐑜𐑓𐑝𐑔𐑞𐑕𐑟𐑖𐑠𐑗𐑡𐑘𐑢𐑙𐑣𐑤𐑮𐑥𐑯
𐑦𐑰𐑧𐑱𐑨𐑲𐑩𐑳𐑪𐑴𐑫𐑵𐑬𐑶𐑭𐑷𐑸𐑹𐑺𐑻𐑼𐑽𐑾𐑿
𐑹𐑛𐑼𐑛 𐑨𐑟 𐑜𐑦𐑝𐑩𐑯 𐑦𐑯 "·𐑨𐑯𐑛𐑮𐑩𐑒𐑤𐑰𐑟 𐑯 𐑞 𐑤𐑲𐑩𐑯"

Thanks, Ethan
We will Skip over the Backslash
So that leave us with 4 easy to use new keys (non-shift),
the square brackets, Semi-colon and apostrophe,
and 2 slightly less
accessible keys, the Tilde and the Plus key that we can make use
of. I will lay off the Hyphen key for the moment, because it is
commonly used for Roman letters. I do not know how prevalent it would
be in Shavian writing. I suspect probably 50% less so, due to the
shorter words. Modern typesetting is much better at fitting words on
a line, in anycase.
The other 6 Keys are rarely used under any circumstance and so can be
allocated to Common Shavian Vowel Letters, current in awkward non-
intuitive positions requiring the Shift Key.

Agreed?
Can we proceed to the tweaking?

Regards, /pYl /vI.
_______________________attached_____________________________

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Ethan <ethanl@3...> wrote:
>
> The other keys probably okay, but not the backslash key. You can't
> depend on it being in a consistent location from one keyboard to
> another. All the rest of the keys are fairly standard, but that
one key
> (backslash and vertical bar) moves around all over the place. For
> instance, on my keyboard it's located in the top row between the
> backspace and the += key. Everybody look at their own keyboard and
see
> where it is - chances are good it's somewhere else.
>

The slash (/) key will be very important to anyone needing to use
Unix(-like) pathnames, including URLs, as well as its use as a usual
punctuation. We may not need to keep it on an unshifted position, but
I suggest moving it up next to the backslash (\) to free its current
and more accessible location for a letter. The tilde (~) and grave
accent (`) are also necessary sometimes (the latter is used as a left
quote in *nix), and they're not in a position that I would worry about
using. Then again, none of these are really common enough to
necessitate an unshifted position (except maybe the ` which already has
it).

If these are not a problem, then I say let the tweaking begin.


Regards,
Joseph Spicer
·𐑡𐑴𐑕𐑧𐑓 𐑕𐑐𐑲𐑕𐑼

On Jun 7, 2005, at 12:10 PM, paul vandenbrink wrote:

> Thanks, Ethan
> We will Skip over the Backslash
> So that leave us with 4 easy to use new keys (non-shift),
> the square brackets, Semi-colon and apostrophe,
> and 2 slightly less
> accessible keys, the Tilde and the Plus key that we can make use
> of. I will lay off the Hyphen key for the moment, because it is
> commonly used for Roman letters. I do not know how prevalent it would
> be in Shavian writing. I suspect probably 50% less so, due to the
> shorter words. Modern typesetting is much better at fitting words on
> a line, in anycase.
> The other 6 Keys are rarely used under any circumstance and so can be
> allocated to Common Shavian Vowel Letters, current in awkward non-
> intuitive positions requiring the Shift Key.
>
> Agreed?
> Can we proceed to the tweaking?
>
> Regards, /pYl /vI.

Here's the problem that I see with all of this. We have 48 "letters" of
the shaw alphabet. There are 26 letters of the Roman Alphabet. That
means, allowing for shifting, 52 possible letter combos. Even adding
extra characters such as /wh/ and the Namer dot, I still don't see the
neccessity to use the numbers or moving the punctuation.

So why all the crazy talk?
--Star

--- Ethan <ethanl@...> wrote:

> paul vandenbrink wrote:
> > Hi Joseph
> >
> > I get your point about ergonomics. Obviously, Ergonomics is not
> just
> > mechanical easy of use, but ease remembering the Shaw keys and ease
>
> > of switching back and forth between the Shavian and Roman Keyboard
> > mappings.
> >
> > We just want to make it easy for new people to Shavian on a
> Computer
> > Keyboard, whether or not the have Dvorak.
> >
> > As I see it we have 8 available keys.
> > I would recommend leaving alone the Bottom 3 punctuation keys
> (Comma,
> > Full Stop, Namer Dot) on the right side of the bottom row of the
> > keyboard. 5 of the 8 are well placed for ease of use.
> > But the square brackets, Backslash, Semi-colon and apostrophe are
> > rarely needed, especially with Shavian writing conventions.
> > Perhaps we can use those keys instead for some of the currently off
>
> > shifted Vowel letters?
> >
> > Agreed?
> > Regards, Paul V.
>
> The other keys probably okay, but not the backslash key. You can't
> depend on it being in a consistent location from one keyboard to
> another. All the rest of the keys are fairly standard, but that one
> key
> (backslash and vertical bar) moves around all over the place. For
> instance, on my keyboard it's located in the top row between the
> backspace and the += key. Everybody look at their own keyboard and
> see
> where it is - chances are good it's somewhere else.
>
> --
> ·����
·����� - Ethan
Lamoreaux
>
> ����� �
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>
>
������������������������
>
>
������������������������
> ���� ��
�����
��
>
"·���������
� � ����"
>


=========
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Numfar! Do the Dance of Joy!



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