Transylvanian non(?)-vampire Sorin Neica has created the “Keyboard-S,” an enormous (yet thin) keyboard designed to drive Photoshop & potentially other apps. It’s sort of a Configurator panel that’s sprung right off your screen:
I have a hard time imagining it taking off, and funding on Kickstarter is pretty anemic to date, but I found the idea interesting enough to share. [Via Gary Greenwald]
that thing is a monster, not sure if i like the rainbow color scheme or the dudes accent more but it does look kinda awesome. i think my favorite line was:
“now the photoshop will be very very simple”
My first thought was, why isn’t this a little iPad app? Might be more configurable that way.
[People (Adobe included—remember Nav? no?) tried that, and no one cared. It’s harder to use a featureless glass screen (which requires eye movement) than a physical keyboard. —J.]
If you want to see how the iPad can be an amazing interface for desktop software, check these videos out where touchAble on the iPad is used to control Ableton Live
complex DJ mixing …..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRrpozAovPI
or creating a track ….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvJ12QMPWD8
http://www.touch-able.com/
Cool, now all you have to do is memorize the meaning and location of hundreds of little icons 🙂
[You think that’s hard? Try updating all of those icons for Retina displays, and doing it 4x apiece (for dark, medium dark, medium light, and light UI settings)! Goooood times. —J.]
Wouldn’t you need to update this keyboard with each iteration of Photoshop?
On a related note, I just updated my keyboard shortcut cheatsheets and keys file for Photoshop CC: http://bit.ly/sILemP
cool , thanks i use to use it ;p when it was uptodate !!
And I like your site Trevor, lot of usefull things
BTW i am a mac user ;-p, but i am sure you will make the mac version uptodate too 😀
its weak point could be the ‘locked in’ setup, so that much of the buttons might not be used by any one person, and just create clutter. this other kickstarter seems more fitting for anyone needing a set of controls like sliders, knobs, and buttons, because you can assign them in photoshop or davinci resolve, and then physically set them up as you wish.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cchu/palette-a-freeform-interface-that-controls-any-sof
The off-the-shelf $80 Razer Nostromo kind of makes Palette gasp for respectability. This is such a flexible tool way beyond it’s intended gaming origins.
Razer Nostromo http://www.razerzone.com/au-en/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-nostromo/
-pw
Am I alone in finding it difficult to extract the message Sorin Neica is trying to get across because of the overloud music? – If music is necessary here, IT should be in the background – not the Speech!
In a past life I used to print just such a layout for David Zeh; these were used as menus to drive Intergraph CAD machines, and they gave way to keyboards. Sorry, I do think this one will be Kicked into touch; I reckon it’s a non-Starter.
But, hey, I did take a look.
Rod
Awesome idea but this will never work in the real world. What happens when the heel of your hand hits the wrong key?And it’s just too darn big. I have a solution that beats the pants off this. It’s the totally configurable Nostromo from the gaming input device people Razer. http://www.pwp3.com/nostromo.jpg This image shows how I have it set up. Every key can be custom configured with YOUR kb shortcuts & macros. Let’s see, 14 keys x 8 possible keymaps = 112 custom shortcuts or macros in an $80 device twice the size of a mouse. It’s one of the most powerful, utterly unexpected productivity tools that is used in my very busy studio.
Razer Nostromo http://www.razerzone.com/au-en/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-nostromo/
-pw
ill wait new hardware ‘shortcuts’ out until i can just look at onscreen commands and or to enable them
oops, per last comment, it appears putting the word ‘blink’ in a comment with erases the word entirely as it thinks its a command
I saw this and thought “what a nice idea” but I didn’t like its implementation before I could understand why. A keyboard is still a keyboard and to be used ergonomically it shouldn’t be deeper than one’s hand so the wrist/palm is supported to avoid the “gorilla arm”. There are no tactile hints where you can feel if your finger tips are where you want. There should be different sized keys like bigger for more common functions.
I use my keyboard with my fingers and not with my eyes (most of the time) and that’s how I would like to continue using a keyboard.