keyboard layout page

pages/tokipona/keyboard.md

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+% toki pona keyboard layout
+% /dev/urandom
+% may 2020
+
+# toki pona keyboard layout
+
+> %warning%
+> This page uses box-drawing characters heavily. It may display incorrectly on
+> some web browsers and computers.
+
+Inspired by jan Misali's [toki pona ASCII
+syllabary](https://www.seximal.net/tkpn), I had an idea: what would such a
+syllabary look like if the final "n" was treated as a separate syllable (like in
+Japanese)? How far could it be compressed?
+
+The end result of my experiments turned out to look like this:
+
+<pre>
+   ┌───┬───┬───┬───┬───┐
+   │-i │-u │-e │-o │-a │
+┌──┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
+│ -│ i │ u │ e │ o │ a │
+├──┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤ ┌───┐
+│m-│ I │ 3 │ M │ X │ x │ │ - │
+├──┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤─├───┤
+│n-│ y │ Y │ N │ H │ h │ │ n │
+├──┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤─└───┘
+│p-│ b │ B │ P │ F │ f │
+├──┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
+│t-│###│ 2 │ T │ D │ d │
+├──┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
+│k-│ q │ Q │ K │ G │ g │
+├──┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
+│s-│ c │ C │ S │ Z │ z │
+├──┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
+│w-│ v │###│ W │###│ 1 │
+├──┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
+│l-│ J │ 5 │ L │ R │ r │
+├──┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
+│j-│###│ U │ E │ O │ A │
+└──┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┘
+</pre>
+
+To make the system easier to learn, the characters in it all follow a set of
+rules:
+
+* all j+? syllables use the capital version of the vowel
+* all ?+e syllables use the capital version of the consonant 
+* 1, 2, 3 and 5 are wa(n), tu, mu(te) and lu(ka)
+* li is J and mi is I
+* if a ?+u syllable is a capital letter, a corresponding ?+i is its lowercase version
+* if a ?+o syllable is a capital letter, a corresponding ?+a is its lovercase version
+* none of the lowercase toki pona characters should used
+
+At the end, it completely used up all of the remaining lowercase and uppercase
+letters of the Latin alphabet, with the exception of V, as well as a few
+numbers. Which in turn made me think: how would it look as a keyboard layout?
+
+<pre>
+┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬──────
+│    │    │    │    │    │    │    │    │    │    │    │    │
+│ wa │ tu │ mu │  4 │ lu │  6 │  7 │  8 │  9 │  0 │  - │  = │ Back
+┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬───
+ |<│ ku │ we │ je │ lo │ te │ nu │ ju │ mi │ jo │ pe │ {  │ }  │
+ |>│ ki │ w  │  e │ la │ t  │ ni │  u │  i │  o │ p  │ [  │ ]  │
+───┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬
+ Caps │ ja │ se │ to │ po │ ko │ no │ li │ ke │ le │ :  │ "  │ │  │
+ Lock │  a │ s  │ ta │ pa │ ka │ na │ j  │ k  │ l  │ ;  │ '  │ \  │
+──────┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴──┬─┴────┴─
+         │ so │ mo │ su │ lu │ pu │ ne │ me │  < │  > │  ? │
+ Shift ^ │ sa │ ma │ si │ wi │ pi │ n  │ m  │  , │  . │  / │ Shift ^
+─────────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────────
+</pre>
+
+(In this version, uppercase V is also used for "lu". After all, V is the Roman
+numeral for 5, and V is an easier key to reach than 5.)
+
+# toki pona smartphone keyboard layout
+
+Of course, on smartphones, everything is much easier. You can use whatever
+layout you want. Here's an Android-style virtual keyboard, modified to only
+include characters needed in toki pona (the ones shown on the upper part are the
+characters shown when holding the corresponding key down):
+
+<pre>
+     ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐
+     │VF  │?   │D   │'   │"   │:;  │BH  │
+     │  w │  e │  t │  u │  i │  o │  p │
+┌────├────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤────┐
+│    │!@  │CXZ │#   │-+$ │Y   │GQ  │R   │Back│
+│Shft│  a │  s │  n │  m │  j │  k │  l │ <- │
+└────└────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘────┘
+│   #  │    │                    │    │      │    
+│  123 │ ,  │ t o k i    p o n a │ .  │      │    
+└──────┴────┴────────────────────┴────┴──────┘
+</pre>
+
+[Top page](index.html)