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Ploopy Bean: a trackpoint for every computer

ploopy.co

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Re: Ploopy Bean: a trackpoint for every computer

#81

Post by kristianp »

jrgd wrote: post #5
kristianp wrote: post #3

This gives me an idea, does anyone sell these?: HEU N DIN U ^ M 0.,E With all full-sized keys? i.e. Numpad, arrows and home-end-insert-delete-pgup-pgdn? i.e. all the keys that Apple's laptops fucked plus numpad.

I’m using the caps unlocked CU7 every day; that’s how i discovered it : same frustration as yours! ( then i jumped onto otholinear keeb and now I’m not even bothered by apple anymore and run omarchy on a second hand thinkpad. Same excitement as when i got my first powerbook in the early 2000s…)

Looks like the CU7 has 6 keys. I'd like 10 or so. Maybe something like this:

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0B1CWJCS5

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009224555917.html

For just the navigation cluster, I found this but it's a kit: https://keyhive.xyz/shop/navi10

Re: Ploopy Bean: a trackpoint for every computer

#82

Post by schmiddim »

vincent-manis wrote: post #76
schmiddim wrote: post #42

Nice idea but the keyboard around the trackpoint is missing. The concept behind the trackpoint is that you can control the mouse pointer while your fingers are resting on asd and ;lkj. Checkout Tex Shinobi or Shura if you like Keyboards with Trackpoint.

I have a Shinobi, and like it, but I recently got an HHKB Studio w, and really like it too.

This is a nice looking keyboard. But not enough F keys for me:).

Re: Ploopy Bean: a trackpoint for every computer

#83

Post by jb1991 »

rjh29 wrote: post #41
rzzzt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nub around the G-B-H keys that doesn't really move but responds to pressure and lets you fly the mouse cursor around the screen with various speeds. Lenovo, Dell, HP, Fujitsu and many others equipped their business laptops with such a pointing device.

And notably as touchpads have improved, most of the makers have stopped including TrackPoints. Lenovo is the main holdout. Still waiting for Framework to introduce a keyboard with a trackpoint included, but apparently the room allocated for the keyboard is too thin for it to be possible.

Is a trackpoint the same as a pointing stick?

Re: Ploopy Bean: a trackpoint for every computer

#84

Post by rjh29 »

jb1991 wrote: post #83
rjh29 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And notably as touchpads have improved, most of the makers have stopped including TrackPoints. Lenovo is the main holdout. Still waiting for Framework to introduce a keyboard with a trackpoint included, but apparently the room allocated for the keyboard is too thin for it to be possible.

Is a trackpoint the same as a pointing stick?

Yeah, TrackPoint is the ThinkPad term for it and very usable. The quality of other brands of pointing stick is highly variable.

Re: Ploopy Bean: a trackpoint for every computer

#85

Post by 1dom »

tra3 wrote: post #75
1dom wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a UHK for a few months before refunding it because the shielding wasn't good enough to stop it becoming unreliable when my mobile phone was within about 30cm of my keyboard. I contacted support and the solution was to move the phone away from the keyboard, which is kind of irritating for such an expensive piece of kit. But, just wanted to share that I was similarly surprised to land on mouse keys as a preferenc…

You bring up a good point -- I have the same issue with mouse keys. I wonder how the track point gets around this. Is the tracepoint "progressive" in that it allows various speeds depends on deflection from center?

That's a good question and make me think. I always thought the trackpoint nubs were binary too, basically just a stick in the middle of up/down/left/right mousekey buttons, bit it turns out they're not!

For original trackpoints, it's basically a stick in the middle of an up/down/left/right resistive strain gauge.

For the ploopy beans here, they use hall effect sensors instead of resistive strain to get a bit more movement.

As soon as you have non-binary up/down/left/right values, the mouse direction and speed can be interpolated to so many values that mousekey accidental squares become impossible.

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