Re: About the keycount on the keyboard Message #43 Posted by Bill Carter on 14 Dec 2012, 11:25 a.m., in response to message #34 by Walter B
Has it been decided that the top row will be dedicated menu keys (i.e., no other function markings)? I agree with Maximilian and Gerson that menus are a last resort (and not for trigs and logs).
I disagree with Paul Dale that there are too many too-important functions for the keyboard. Below, Eric Smith presented a fairly workable approach that got all the fundamentals by assigning functions to the top row keys. Walter correctly points out that these functions won't be available when a menu is called, so some tweaking would be justified. One approach would be to put the more "controversial" functions that some say they never use (trig, logs, i/theta) up there and put the less controversial functions (1/x, sqrt, y^x) safely on the second row with sigma and roll.
Essentially, the keys on the top row would act like a "default" menu and would be re-assigned through soft keys. Sure, when re-assigned, F1...F6 might be aesthetically nicer, but having "default" functions on these keys wouldn't prevent their use as soft keys. The reverse wouldn't be true. I can see the reasoning, though, that the top row wouldn't get blue-shifted keys since they already serve a third function as soft keys.
If the constraint of no blue-shifted functions on the second row is relieved, there would even be plenty of space for the rectangular/polar, H.MS, radians/degrees conversions and other nice-to-haves like parallel, combinations/permutations, etc.
-Bill
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