I think I’ve addressed all the suggestions raised here. What have I gotten wrong or missed?
PDFS:
< and > are swapped. It should be < unshifted, and > shifted.
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By moving { [ ] } \ to the number row of the function layer: What happens to the F7 to F11 keys previously there?
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{ } \ aren’t on the Fun layer but on the altgr layer, at least as I understand QWERTZ layouts.
Fun layer legends should be top-right and altgr legends should be bottom-right.
Ah right, then never mind.
Like I wrote you (Jesse) in an e-mail, I would like to see German translations of Shift, Control, Space, Backspace and Command or, better yet, the symbols that are used on standard QWERTZ keyboards. Tab and Enter are also symbols on standard QWERTZ keyboards. Using symbols on the QWERTY layout for the Model 100 as well would make it more international since they probably are independent of any specific language. I guess it’s too late in the production process now to make changes to the QWERTY keycaps. But maybe this is something to keep in mind for the next iteration of the Keyboardio keyboard.
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Is the “Key Labels” section of German keyboard layout - Wikipedia a good representation of common practice?
@jesse
Yes, it is. I think, I have only ever seen the abbreviations printed on German keyboards. So the key caps read “Strg”, “Alt Gr” and so on, not “Steuerung”, “Alternative Grafik”, …
Ctrl to Strg is easy.
I’m not confident that I can do a good job with a blend of ISO symbol labels and textual labels, so I think we’d potentially need to translate abbreviations for “shift”, “enter”, “space” “bksp”, “led”, “cmd” (windows/super), “prog” (for “program”) and “fun” for (function)
Do folks have recommendations?
shift would be “umschalt”, but that would be a bit long to fit on a key I guess. “umsch” could be used, but I think for most people “shift” should be fine as well?
enter could be “eingabe” but I think most people refer to it as “enter”
space would be “leer”
bksp could be “rück” I think, not sure how commonly it is called that way nowadays 
led, prog and fun are fine
Most people would refer to “cmd” as “win” or “windows” as in “the windows key” but not if they use a mac of course, so we have the same problem as naming it “cmd” in the regular qwerty keycaps.
- “Shift” is “Umschalt” in German. It could be abbreviated “Umsch”.
- “Enter” is “Eingabe”, which could be abbreviated as “Eing”.
- “Space” is “Leertaste”. It should probably say “Leer”.
- “Backspace” is “Rücktaste” or “Rücklöschtaste”. It could be labelled “Rück” or “Lösch”.
- “LED” could stay “LED” as the abbrevation is also used in German or it could be “Licht” (German for “light”). I like “Licht” more. It’s also easier to understand if the labels are printed in lower case.
- “Command” is “Befehl”. If the whole word doesn’t fit on the keycap, it could be abbreviated as “Bfhl” or “Bfl”.
- “Program” is “Programm” in German. So “Prog” can stay as it is.
- “Function” is “Funktion” in German. So it can either stay “Fun” or it could be “Fn”, which is a more standard thing I have actually seen on German laptop keyboards.
- “Tab” can also stay.
- “Esc” is standard on German keyboards an can stay, too.
I would also capitalise the first letter of every word/abbreviation. But that’s just my taste.
It sounds like DIN 2137-1:2018-12 may actually specify the right abbreviations, but I haven’t been able to find a write up.
It seems you can only buy it from some publisher. But I wouldn’t count on there being much more info in that paper than is generally available. I installed the german language pack on my windows and checked the on-screen keyboard.
So again no text for “backspace” I would argue that it should be “Rück”, not “Lösch” as that would sound more like “Entfernen” which is the term for the “Delete” key
“Fn” is labeled “Fnkt” in the on-screen keyboard, but most laptops use “Fn”, so any of these labels “Fn” “Fun” “Fnkt” would be fine.
While the “Command” key on a mac would indeed be called “Befehlstaste” in German I never heard anyone call it that. People usually refer to it as “Apfeltaste” - “apple key” on a mac or “Windowstaste” - “Windows key” on other keyboards. Maybe just put the butterfly on it?
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So again no text for “backspace” I would argue that it should be “Rück”, not “Lösch” as that would sound more like “Entfernen” which is the term for the “Delete” key
I think you’re right about that.
I’m nervous about the textual abbreviations, since they seem…very uncommon.
Here’s a take on using what I believe are the “right” symbols, with the butterfly moving to the “Windows” key.
I’d really really like feedback on these in the next day or so.
On my keyboards (german and swiss) the following keys are almost always
represented as symbols instead of text:
- Shift
- Tab
- Backspace
- Return / Enter
- Caps Lock
- Ctrl (in fact it has text and a symbol)
- Windows Key
- Menu Key
I think I never had a keyboard where the first four of them were not represented as symbols.
In fact I prefer symbols and would want them everywhere a standard symbol is available. As far as I remember that is:
-
⇧Shift -
⇬Caps Lock (I see that you have selected a different symbol for it, which is fine for me and I think I have seen this before, but none of my keyboards use it) -
⭾Tab -
⌫/⟵Backspace (both equally common; I would prefer the first as is it not so easy to confuse it with an actual arrow key) -
↵/⏎Enter / Return -
◆/⎈Control (The first much more common, but the second being more “mnemonic”; also the first is used on other keyboards as a dedicated Meta Key) -
⎇Alt -
❖Windows (an actual MS Windows Logo, but I don’t have unicode symbol for it) -
▤Menu (sometimes even more resembling a menu and a mouse pointer)
The following seem to be used on Macs, but are not as common on PCs:
-
⌘Cmd -
⌥Option
There exist standard symbols for the following keys, even though I have not seen them in the wild:
-
⎄Compose -
⎋Esc -
⌦Del -
⎀Insert -
␣Space (as the spacebar is usually a very wide key and therefore different to all other keys, it ususally has neither a symbol nor text on it, but there exists this symbol to represent a space in written text)
I have never seen Alt Gr being represented by a symbol, but I like the idea of using ⇮ for that purpose.
Page Up / Page Down and Home / End could also be represented by some kind of arrow symbols, but there doesn’t seem to be a standard (mostly they use simple arrows accompanied by text).
I know, we are talking about the QWERTZ version here, but I even prefer those symols on QWERTY (even though I know it is probably much too late for that change, but maybe in a future revision of the keyboard?).
Xah Lee lists even more (even uncommon) symbols for keys.
So my (personal) preference is using the following symbols on the Model 100:
-
⇧Shift -
⇬Caps Lock (or the one Jesse has chosen) -
⭾Tab -
⌫Backspace -
↵Enter -
⎈Control -
⎇Alt -
⌘Cmd -
⇮Alt Gr -
␣Space -
⎋Esc
And even more so, I would propose these (non-standard) symbols, but again suspect that more people will disagree here:
-
⇞Page Up -
⇟Page Down
And, while I am already proposing controversial things:
As the above symbols would leave out the butterfly key, I would use the butterfly for the function palm keys (which makes most sense to me as the butterfly is the Keyboardio symbol and the palm keys are unique to the Keyboardio Models):
-
🦋Fun
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I like these suggestions very much. Tab definitively has to be the full ⭾, not just half of the symbol. I have only ever seen it with both arrows. I would use the butterfly logo on the windows key. For caps lock, if it’s even needed for the Model 100 – I would say it is not –, I would use ⇫ instead of ⇬, which is a slight variation that is a little cleaner and more consistent with ⇧. Space should be ␣. The keycap shouldn’t be left blank like on standard-layout keyboards. And I would also like to see symbols used universally on more keyboards instead of textual labels on special (non-letter and non-number) keys.
German keyboards have a mix of symbols (for shift, enter, tab, backspace, caps lock) and Text (such as Strg (for Ctrl) and Altgr). PgUp and PgDn keys have both.
I don’t think we should use unfamiliar symbols just to have it all as symbols. Stick to the standard.
Refer to the T1 layout i posted earlier.
Also the space bar should be blank (but i guess ␣ would be ok, too)
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I bit the bullet and have actually purchased a copy of the standard. (DIN 2137-1:2020-11)
Frustratingly, the legal agreements around buying DIN standards don’t let me reproduce the whole thing, but the keyboard images themselves aren’t considered normative.
The specific text about what’s allowed under the standard is:
Alternatively to the graphic symbols specified in ISO/IEC 9995 or described in Annex B, the appelations or abbreviations given in Table A.1, in Annex A can be used.
Sadly, they don’t actually define abbreviations for most keys.
Alt, Num. and Esc are all “standard”.
“Alt Gr” is acceptable, but is no longer preferred - The standard recommends use of Grᵃ instead.
“Strg” of course for Control.
The following full names can be used, but obviously do not work for us:
- Alternativ-Funktion wählen
- Ebene 2 wählen; Umschalttaste
- Ebene 3 wählen; Grafikzeichentaste
- Gruppenumschaltung; Extra-Wahltaste
- Eingabe
- Feststellen
- Großschreibung feststellen
- Rückführen/Neue Zeile
- Rückwärtsschritt
- Rückwärtsschritt mit Tilgen/Entfernen
- Steuerungsumschaltung wählen
- Tabulation links
- Tabulation rechts
- Superselekt
- Sekundär-Superselekt
- Numerische Eingabe feststellen
- Abbrechen
- Bildschirmanzeige drucken
- Escape
- F1 bis F12
- Pause
- Rollen
The symbols in Annex B are:
The best free resource I can find for ISO 9995-7 is: Category:ISO 9995-7 symbols - Wikimedia Commons
As far as I can tell, these do match what’s in the standard.