Entering Characters and Keyboards

Overview of Keyboards and Layouts

Languages and Keyboard Layouts

When you choose a language, you're also choosing a country, which also chooses the keyboard layout depicted.

Please note that some country may have many keyboards. In this case, the layout chosen is the one used on Windows and Mac OS.

For Fab4, these languages will use these keyboard layouts as a starting point:

Language	Country	Reference Keyboard Layout	Style
Czech	Czech Republic	Czech	QWERTY
Danish	Denmark	Danish	QWERTY
Dutch	Netherlands	Dutch	QWERTY
English	United States	United States (Standard)	QWERTY
French	France	France	AZERTY
Finnish	Finland	Swedish/Finnish	QWERTY
German	Germany	Germany/Austria	QWERTZ
Italian	Italy	Italian	QWERTY
Norwegian	Norway	Norwegian	QWERTY
Polish	Poland	Polish QWERTZ 214	QWERTZ
Russian	Russia	Russian	JCUKEN (QWERTY for setup)
Spanish	Spain	Spain	QWERTY
Swedish	Sweden	Swedish/Finnish	QWERTY

Keyboard Layouts

There are a handful of basic keyboard styles. This is written up very nicely in Wikipedia discussion of keyboard layouts.

Latin Keyboards

File:Qwerty.jpg

10x3 grid QWERTY Keyboard

File:Qwertz example.JPG

10x3 grid QWERTZ Keyboard

File:Azerty.JPG

10x3 grid AZERTY Keyboard

The corresponding keyboard layout should be shown for the user's chosen language.

QWERTY

• Second row from top have keys Q-W-E-R-T-Y on far left.
• Similar to United States or United Kingdom keyboard. Some have additional keys.
• Corresponding languages:
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Finnish
  • Italian
  • Norwegian
  • Spanish
  • Swedish

QWERTZ

• Same as QWERTY but Z and Y are swapped
• Corresponding languages:
  • German
  • Polish

AZERTY

• A and Q, Z and W are swapped
• M is moved to middle row to the right of L
• Corresponding languages:
  • French

Non-Latin Keyboards

• For alphabets without A-Z.
• Corresponding languages:
  • Russian

Fab4 Keyboard Layout Plan

Displaying Layouts

For Latin keyboards, one of the basic layouts will be shown -- depending on language

• QWERTY
• QWERTZ
• AZERTY

If the user chooses Russian, then the Russian layout will be depicted.

These layouts may not show all characters in the language's alphabet. Letters that are not included in the Latin A-Z character set are referred to as Extended Latin. These are created by adding diacritics or ligatures to existing characters you can create new characters.

File:Possible non-latin key entry.JPG

Entering Extended Latin

Entering Extended Latin Characters

To enter one, you would hold down the key corresponding to its Latin character and the list of supported extended Latin characters are displayed.

Latin Keyboards

	Czech	Danish	Dutch	English	French	Finnish	German	Italian	Norwegian	Polish	Russian	Spanish	Swedish
Keyboard Type	QWERTY	QWERTY	QWERTY	QWERTY	AZERTY	QWERTY	QWERTZ	QWERTY	QWERTY	QWERTZ	Custom	QWERTY	QWERTY
a-z A-Z	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	21 letters, but all 26 are on keyboard	x	23 letters, but all 26 are on keyboard	No	x	x
à					X
á Á	X
â					X
å Å		X				X			X				X
ä Ä						X	X						X
ą Ą										X
æ Æ		X			X	X			X
ß							X
ć Ć	X
č Č	X
ç					X			X				X
ď Ď	X
é É	X				X			X
è					X			X
ê					X
ë					X
ě Ě	X
ę Ę										X
í Í	X
î					X
ï					X
ł Ł										X
ń Ń										X
ň Ň	x
ñ Ñ												X
ó Ó	X									X
ô					X
ö Ö						X	X						X
ø Ø		X							X
œ Œ					X
ř Ř	X
ś Ś										X
š Š	X
ť Ť	X
ú Ú	X
ù					X			X
û					X
ü					X
ů Ů	X
ý Ý	X
ÿ					X
ź Ź										X
ż Ż										X
ž Ž	X

Notes

• Dutch uses characters such as á,à,â,ä,ǎ,é,è,ê,ë,í,ì,i,î,ï,IJ,ó,ò,ô,ö,ú,ù,û,ü. These are not considered part of the Dutch alphabet and are not on the Dutch keyboard.

Non-Latin Keyboards

JCUKEN Layout

File:Proposed russian layout.JPG

Proposed 12x3 grid Russian Keyboard

The Russian alphabet is variant of the Cyrillic alphabet with 33 non-Latin characters.

The standard Russian keyboard layout is called JCUKEN. It uses this alphabet exclusively and does not contain Latin characters. This layout contains all characters of the Russian alphabet.

However, the iPhone Russian keyboard layout has only 32 characters and does not include "Ё", which is to the left of the "1" key on the standard layout. The proposal is to follow this convention on Fab4, and to hold down the "E" key to choose "Ё". Alternatively, "Ё" could be put on the remaining blank spot on the keyboard, but this would be different than the iPhone.

More Keys Than Latin Keyboards

The Fab4 keyboard layout is a 10x3 grid. With 32 characters proposed for the Russian layout, the keyboard grid for Russian must be 12x3. This will result in reduced-width keys for Russian.