The new client now features a nifty key map that shows how often certain keys and key patterns are pressed. I find this all very interesting, however I noticed that there was a huge problem. The key layout is only in English QWERTY and has no option to change it.
Other countries use different variants of the QWERTY with a few characters in different places (AZERTY, QWERTZ). For myself, I use the Dvorak layout where the entire keyboard is completely rearranged. While this will not change the number of keystrokes for the majority of letters, for the other letters the number can drastically change.
For example, I’m a gamer. On a QWERTY keyboard WASD and its neighbors (QEXZCF) are used extensively for movement. However on a Dvorak, the keys ,AOE and '.Q;JU will be used a lot more. Even in other applications, some hotkeys with related actions are within close proximity of each other on a QWERTY but may be remapped to other keys to suit the same on a different layout.
Obviously the point I’m trying to make in this ridiculously long post is for the client to have support of other key layouts. It would provide more accurate and relevant information for the user as well as record data for other special characters often used on other countries’ layouts such as Ä, Á, Å, Ç, Ñ, Ø, ß, etc.
I would really like to see this feature added in future updates. Will this be an easy thing to do, or will the coding prove too difficult? Surely if the new client can record network traffic than moving a couple keys around can’t be too difficult.
Keyboard-layout is usually nothing more/less than a few variables set to let the kernel know what keyboard is being used.
That said; I can imagine a huge amount of keyboard-layouts that are impossible to track accurately. Think of people that are in a language that requires a lot of extra keypresses for 1 character or people that use a specific keyboard but are also proficient in using multi-language applications and need different combinatios (or variables for that matter) to do their work.
And last, but not least: take a look @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout and quite possibly identify a huge number of pitfalls for detecting every keyboard on the planet.
Would it be possible to add german layout (QWERTZ) to the keyboard layouts? Also on a Tenkeyless keyboard i’m missing the Print, Scroll Lock and Pause key in the heatmap.
just add option to customize layout. Im from Czech Rep. and we have QWERTZ keyboard with addition letter row instead of numbers (we type them with shift) ěščřžýáíé and some other diffreneces. So if you will add ability to change keyboard layout by your own, It will solve all problems. Especially if you will add export/import your layout. Lots of people will share it, and after a couple of month you will have a database of all major keyboard layouts, and some of them you will be able add as a standart into the client.