But the people who actually used it for SMS/ beepers were few and far between.
I mean, maybe this is true, but not my experience whatsoever. Most people (my circles) once they got the hang of it were typing SMS at 20-30 wpm using T9. My only argument is that alternative keyboards can be effective. I look at the deck (got mine right here) and I see plenty of opportunity (degrees of freedom) to support something along the lines of a T9 keyboard. Like if someone can come up with it, something that’s actually intuitive like T9 was, I really think it would gain generalized acceptance.
This is mapping an RPG/roguelite from old school curses input to a gamepad/touch screen combo. Which, as I said, is a fundamentally “wrong” idea.
I still completely agree with this sentiment, but I don’t think I agree with analog sticks or clusters and wheels. I’m on the same page as the “cool but I am sure as hell not going to learn that” category for any solution like this.
Lets say we just either the back l/r paddles and l/r top switches, along with 4 buttons left and 4 buttons right. Like, I’m playing with the positions with my fingers now. Maybe press paddle or switch, press either a left or right one of 4 options and complete it by pressing one of the opposing left or right one 4 options.
So (4^3)/2 (lets make it direction so that the target key is always found in a ‘caret’ formation (starts left, goes right, ends left; or starts right, goes left, ends right). That means for each of the 8 keys (4 left, 4 right), there would be 8 potential positions, which gives us a final 128 potential keybindings. We could probably sacrifice some fractional degrees of freedom here to make it more intuitive (like maybe its only 6 potential positions for a given initial key/ paddle combo).
Like I think its super doable.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Honestly? I think you are getting hung up on approaching this from the T9 perspective.
Take a look at the mechanical keyboard community. Most people are sane and looking at TKL or even 60% layouts where most buttons people actually use on a keyboard are represented by dedicated keys. But there are some real sickos who go for fully minimalist layouts where they have closer to 20 or even 10 keys. And those are the leyouts where you heavily rely on different layers so that “A” might actually be “Button 1 with modifier X and Y” whereas B is “button 1 with modifier X”. Basically people took the logic of dvorak and went to an insane degree.
And that has the same issues that mapping to a gamepad would. Some people are going to be able to internalize that in a timely fashion. Others are going to spend months using typing tools online to train themselves. And the rest of us are going to say “nope” and move on.
In terms of how to have a better steam deck keyboard? I think there is a lot of room for someone to go full keeb-pill and take advantage of the physical buttons. I would 100% watch that youtube video, maybe throw a tip in a tip jar, and then have a new appreciation for the touchscreen keyboard the next time I have to enter my Warframe password. But I still think that if your game is heavily reliant on having a keyboard… it isn’t a Steam Deck game. And that is fine. I am not going to play DCS on my Steam Deck. One of these days I probably will futz around with streaming X4 though.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah well I think you are hung up on the mechanical keyboard community.
The T9 approach worked excellently, was extremely intuitive, and once learned, it is easily as effective as an on screen keyboard.
There just aren’t enough buttons on a deck to have dedicated key mapping and as well would never be intuitive.
This can be overcome by incorporating the philosophy of the T9 keyboard, taking it down to maybe 8-12 total keys you interact with.
Two hands, two flippers (index fingers), 4 keys either side (two thumbs), and you’ve got all the degrees of freedom you need.