Having different halves isn’t necessary, I was partially doing it to show two different fonts at the same time. What do you think of the left half?
@algernon would you please put together a mirrored version of your Menda Kikakui? Also, could you check how it looks with a thicker line (e.g. Bold)?
Maybe we could look at Bamum? It comes with defined numerals and some punctuation, making the placement a bit more like a regular keyboard. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/bamum.htm
I can take a stab at that later, unless someone else wants to try it out! It has enough characters to have each key unique.
I’ll try my hands on a mirrored Mende today. Mirroring will make it even
nicer, I hope, as I can use more distinct symbols within one half.
I really like the idea of having runic keycaps, since I will probably be creating some custom layout.
Is the idea to have only runes on the keycaps? Because I don’t want arrows or any other anything else on there that would “hinder” customization.
At least I would expect there to be only runes on the keycaps, for the same reasons you mentioned.
Also, some personal preferences as additional data points:
I understand where you are coming from, my disagreement with this is that I touch type, and so I rarely ever look at my keyboard for specific characters, so having the same character on two keycaps doesn’t matter to me. The images in the runic are to have something interesting to look at, rather than just blank black.
Here is my first attempt. I like Bamum more than Atlantean or Mende. All unique characters on both sides. The software I am using to prepare these isn’t able to print the Unicode characters for Bamum, which is why the characters are small, not aligned to the keys, and not as distinct. Looking into how I can improve it.
That already looks better than I had thought… wow! Thanks for taking the time to work this out, I was waiting for some free moment this weekend.
If others like it as well, I will put in the effort to make it nicer.
The Atlantean font is from a Disney movie, so I would assume there is copyright on it. Benefit of the Bamum and Mende is that they are Unicode.
Yeah, that looks really pretty!
I don’t quite understand your point about copyrights, though. The unicode font may well be in copyright as well. Or did you mean that since it is Unicode it will be possible to find a font which it would be legal to use?
I have to agree that the Bamum version looks pretty good! Thanks for putting that together.
Legal for use. As far as I have seen, there is only one Atlantea font, which would require permission from Disney. From what I have found, the official Bamum font is JG Bamum Akauku, and it is is free under the SIL Open Font License. At least, that I what I have been able to figure out in my digging into Bamum.
My next version of the Bamum keycaps will use the JG Bamum font, rather than the Unicode Chart pdf.
License:
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=OFL
Description of font:
http://www.bamumscript.org/font.php
GitHub repository of font:
@adam.ard Excellent! You seem to have checked your stuff! A quick look seemed to suggest that there are no nasty surprises lurking there. Thinking about these things early on is good.
Using the official Bamum font. The characters are aligned to the keycaps.
Do you like the style? The individual position of characters can be modified, but if we don’t like the style of the font and the shape of the characters, there is no point.
I like it a lot. I think it is similar to the style of the Atlantean, where the characters have more curves and flow, rather than sharp edges, corners and points. I like the variety of the character shapes, without anything looking excessively complex. There are more characters in the Bamum Syllabary, so if we want to replace one that looks too similar to a Latin character, we do have some options, but in my opinion they are far enough different to not be confusing. The characters I didn’t use are either: Boring, repetitive to existing Bamum characters, or look like Latin characters.
I like it, a lot. Probably even more than Mende, which has been my favourite so far. There is only one symbol I’d replace: the downward pointing arrow with a dot underneath in the lower right corner. Looks a bit less cryptic than the rest, at least to me.
I like the bold symbols too. Great work!
That layout is really really great. My favorite so far 
Another vote here! Love it! (but, maybe replace of the downarrow-dot symbol, which could actually be interpreted to mean something…)
Below is the full syllabary from Unicode. Yellow are the characters I used. What would you like to see replaced, and with what? Since you like it, it makes sense to get characters in the positions people want. I mostly just went top left to bottom right on both keyboard and character sheet.
E.g. Replace R3C15 (down arrow w/ Dot) with A6F4 (double slash/dot). Or Flip R2C9 and R0C9
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/208ec9c7f9a08382c101b558f1d983b1
This, or replace it with A6B6, but A6F4 may be better.
In general, I love it, great work!
For some reason I dislike the “Flag” rune A6B0 at R2C3, maybe use A6B6 (or A6F4, which ever doesn’t get used for R3C15) instead.
