Any Janko Keyboard iOS apps?

LeftyChris

I don’t know if anyone here likes the Janko keyboard format, but I love it. I’ve been using the iOS Musix Pro app for many years. It has a Janko layout in addition to many other interesting keyboards.

But I’ve never found any other Janko keyboard iOS apps. Does anyone know of another one? I asked on the Facebook Janko group but didn’t get any replies.

If you aren’t familiar with Musix Pro, check it out:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/musix-pro-midi-controller/id585857087

If you like the grid based Linnstrument style keyboard, Musix Pro has that too, though these days there are better choices for the grid style keyboard, like GeoShred, Velocity Keyboard, Beat Pads (Midi Poly Grid), and Isotope.

LeftyChris

I posted this comment about Janko keyboards and grid keyboards on the Facebook Janko group and thought I would post it here too. The gist is that a good Janko iOS app would probably have to have two keyboards stacked on top of each other on the screen.

Grid style keyboard apps like GeoShred (configured like the Linnstrument) are becoming increasingly common on iOS. It would be a shame if Janko keyboards were ignored.

Grid style keyboards (which typically rise up by a fourth or a fifth between rows) are a natural fit for iPad screens because they are as vertical as they are horizontal. Perhaps Janko keyboards are not as good a fit on iPad because they are more horizontal, but of course, so are regular piano keyboards.

Perhaps the solution for a good Janko keyboard on iOS would then be to have two Janko or partial Janko keyboards (maybe some rows would have to be sacrificed) stacked on top of each other like organ manuals. I’ve seen many conventional piano keyboard apps that do this.

wim

That looks interesting. I'm going to work on a layout using Surface Builder. It's going to be tedious work though. 😂

wim

Meh. Doesn’t work out very well. The keys have to be way too small, and splitting it up into two stacked keyboards isn’t very playable. Also, since it’s done with “button” objects, sliding across them doesn’t trigger presses like sliding along an onscreen keyboard does.

LeftyChris

@wim said:
Meh. Doesn’t work out very well. The keys have to be way too small, and splitting it up into two stacked keyboards isn’t very playable. Also, since it’s done with “button” objects, sliding across them doesn’t trigger presses like sliding along an onscreen keyboard does.

Oh, that’s too bad. I hadn’t even heard of Surface Builder. I see that it just came out - sounds fantastic. A shame that the Janko layout didn’t produce a good result. Thanks for trying, though.

wim

@LeftyChris said:

@wim said:
Meh. Doesn’t work out very well. The keys have to be way too small, and splitting it up into two stacked keyboards isn’t very playable. Also, since it’s done with “button” objects, sliding across them doesn’t trigger presses like sliding along an onscreen keyboard does.

Oh, that’s too bad. I hadn’t even heard of Surface Builder. I see that it just came out - sounds fantastic. A shame that the Janko layout didn’t produce a good result. Thanks for trying, though.

I may find a layout that works well enough. I'm trying cutting it down to three rows by three repetitions, then having three pages with a button to switch between them. That gives a fair range of fingerings and octaves with reasonable key sizes. You still can't do glissando slides like on keyboard, but I guess with this layout that's a less frequent thing to do.

LeftyChris

@wim said:

@LeftyChris said:

@wim said:
Meh. Doesn’t work out very well. The keys have to be way too small, and splitting it up into two stacked keyboards isn’t very playable. Also, since it’s done with “button” objects, sliding across them doesn’t trigger presses like sliding along an onscreen keyboard does.

Oh, that’s too bad. I hadn’t even heard of Surface Builder. I see that it just came out - sounds fantastic. A shame that the Janko layout didn’t produce a good result. Thanks for trying, though.

I may find a layout that works well enough. I'm trying cutting it down to three rows by three repetitions, then having three pages with a button to switch between them. That gives a fair range of fingerings and octaves with reasonable key sizes. You still can't do glissando slides like on keyboard, but I guess with this layout that's a less frequent thing to do.

That’s great! I hadn’t thought of the idea of glissando slides on a Janko keyboard but it occurs to me that they would have to be done diagonally since the semitones are all on the two diagonals.

Is it not possible to add glissando because of a limitation in Surface Builder? That button objects don’t allow glissando? Maybe 4Pockets will change that? It looks to me like the app is only a week old!

LeftyChris

I wonder if today’s update will help:

wim

@LeftyChris - no, that only affects the XY pads.
I'm not sure that he'd implement swiping for buttons. Buttons don't usually work that way. But, I can suggest it.

wim

Here's what I came up with. It works fairly well on an iPad at least. For an iPhone I'd surely need to zoom in and use scrolling to get around, or make a version with only two rows and probably 4 pages.

LeftyChris

@wim said:
Here's what I came up with. It works fairly well on an iPad at least. For an iPhone I'd surely need to zoom in and use scrolling to get around, or make a version with only two rows and probably 4 pages.

Wow, that looks fantastic! Can you send it to me? Or perhaps it’s possible to post it here-?

I really like the way you divide the white piano key notes into green and blue based on the row - that should help people remember which row they’re on.

Thanks so much for making that - I hope you enjoy using the Janko layout. I’ve tried many alternate and isomorphic keyboard layouts and the Janko is one of my favorites (along with the Linnstrument grid style layout).

I think the Janko layout makes a lot of intuitive sense and has the potential to be much more popular than it is.

LeftyChris

@wim said:
@LeftyChris - no, that only affects the XY pads.
I'm not sure that he'd implement swiping for buttons. Buttons don't usually work that way. But, I can suggest it.

It sounds like you know the developer, so that might be a cool suggestion.

wim

Here you go. Hopefully error free, but I seem to keep finding mistakes.

The forum wouldn’t let me past without zipping the file, so you’ll need to uncompress the file first.

LeftyChris

@wim said:
It would be great if you could change here you go. Hopefully error free, but I seem to keep finding mistakes.

The forum wouldn’t let me past without zipping the file, so you’ll need to uncompress the file first.

Excellent, thanks so much! I can’t wait to try it out.