Switch recognition

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Was: Another SVG challenge: switch recognition chart

I've just posted an [wiki]Alps recognition[/wiki] page on the wiki. I've only covered the switches I own (two and four tab), the colours on the [wiki]Alps CM[/wiki] page, the indisputable colours at http://kbtalking.cool3c.com/article/8366 and the colours in the chart Taiwan Tai-Hao sent me.

It makes sense to me that we should extend this out to all switches, which means that we need everyone to diagram their own switches or send me (or another artist) all the measurements so that we can make nice little diagrams. (Though for four-tab Alps clones I'm ignoring all the subtle differences in slider shape for now at least.)

In the meantime, the wiki also lacks photos of a great many switches! All the SMK switches for example are missing, as well as inverse Futabas, if they exist.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

OK, here we go:

New category: http://deskthority.net/wiki/Category:Recognition_guides
Overview page: http://deskthority.net/wiki/Switch_recognition

I already had a pretty good diagram for Cherry MX so I've uploaded that, with a page for all the MX colours including the infamous yellow clone switch.

This can go on the main page once we have all the most common switches covered.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

OK everyone — pros and cons of what I've done above? Like? Dislike? Agree, or do you have better ideas?

[webwit]

I'm currently too busy with/focused on other stuff to make a truly intelligent or insightful reply, but as usual, that's some really great stuff which is a big improvement on what there was before.

[mintberryminuscrunch]

impressive (Alps)thread you linked there, thanks

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I've rebuilt both the U mount and Z mount recognition guides in terms of some very easy templates. Gone is the pages of raw HTML; in place is extremely simple wiki code. The new implementation is 95% CSS — shift-refresh (ctrl+F5 in Windows) the page to get the new CSS.

Makes it actually possible for anyone else here to edit the pages now.

My main query is whether it's best to have diagrams for all the switches, or photos. I prefer the clean, image-to-image consistent look of diagrams purely for aesthetic purposes, but it does come at a cost of true authenticity.

Basically it's preferable to find out now that everyone thinks diagrams suck for recognition, before I waste any more hours on them.

[rodtang]

I think the diagrams are great but the best would be to have both pictures and diagrams though this would be most work.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Why both? What would one convey that the other would not, in your view?

[rodtang]

The diagrams would make it easy to see the difference between the switches while images are easier to compare with the switches you might have in your board.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

You'd want both side by side on each of the http://deskthority.net/wiki/Switch_recognition overview page and the individual switch recognition pages? Obviously each switch has its own page with photos already.

[rodtang]

Pretty much, yeah.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Personally I disagree—I wanted the visual simplicity of a single image per switch— but let's wait to see what others think.

[webwit]

I think there's something to be said about photo recognition too, in whatever format (not necessarily but probably side by side, I haven't thought about the best format).

Humans are animals of pattern recognition. Both methods have their advantages. Schematic is better to compare various implementations, but photos might be better for individual switch recognition/look-up. You have some switch, you want to compare it to a photo. It might also depend on personal preference.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

You mean I've now got to design my own gallery system that supports two images per image? :P Grr.

[webwit]

Yes, in SVG, supported by BSD!

[webwit]

Actually, looking at the Cherry SVG, it's so good you don't really need a photo, so now I'm no longer sure.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Technically I do own a BSD system (in the form of an AGP PowerMac G4), but I'm pretty sure something is messed up on your server. I just use standalone copies of rsvg for testing — not sure why you can't do that on your server, as then you won't need to install X11.

(MediaWiki's gallery is pathetic anyway, as it generates each image box with the box width, not the image width, set to the size given. Since I often carefully adjust SVG images to snap to the pixel grid for 1:1 presentation, the gallery system doesn't ever guarantee images being shown correctly. But then the template system is also pathetic as it has no support for N matching items, e.g. template A accepts N parameters and applying template B to each one. For switch recognition colours, I've just set a fixed limit of 8 names per colour, but I've seen other templates handle far more.)

If the consensus is that diagrams are good, then I won't worry about photos for now (hey, I've given you nice new templates to manage the recognition pages themselves) — it just means that I won't feel like I'm completely wasting my time drawing more diagrams. There's a fine line between therapeutic, and feeling that the effort is so much in vain that it's not worth bothering.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Actually, looking at the Cherry SVG, it's so good you don't really need a photo, so now I'm no longer sure.

It's OK. I wanted someone with some loose switches to give me proper measurements (it's really hard trying to jam a cardboard ruler inside the key wells), but I gave up and just shoved up the image anyway.

I quickly shaded it in for the recognition page (and scaled it up, as SVG appears not to support independent unit scale and presentation size), but the schematic itself isn't correct yet. It's still better than the wretched one on Cherry's site, though, which is why I uploaded it.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Honestly though — looking at all the vintage stuff HaaTa finds, etc — I suspect that diagrams, however pretty, are just not viable. Even if I wanted to draw them all (!) it would take forever.

I did contemplate just drawing the basics to start out with, e.g. Futaba would just be like this:

Switch recognition--Futaba--Clicky.png (5.6 KiB) Viewed 5476 times

(Sort of — the photo on the wiki isn't taken from directly above, which makes it hard to even get the basics right without someone sending me the actual measurements. And I can't tell exactly what's meant to be below the plate and above the plate. Most switch photos are from far too steep an angle for accurate diagrams.)

[JBert]

On a somewhat related note: where did the names "U mount" and "Z mount" come from? Is this just made up by some keyboard community or is there a reason for them being named as such?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

According to Signature Plastics (see under Mount on http://keycapsdirect.com/keycaps-101.php), Cherry MX switches take 4U, 6U, HU and PU mounts, while most Alps keyboards take 1Z caps and some take EX mount — the difference is in the shaft size within the keycap. The "U" is specific to the 0.159"x0.159"x0.047" cruciform, but Alps keycaps don't even have a letter in common.

We now know that it likely wasn't a Geekhack idea, but it doesn't answer your question — as usual, digging around only makes things worse! It's like regular expressions — now we have more holes in our knowledge!

I shall ask Signature Plastics :)