Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards
Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)
i.e. no regular non-split¹ row-stagger and no non-split¹ ortholinear²
¹ split meaning a separation of the halves, whether fixed in place or entirely separate, both are fine.
² ortholinear meaning keys layed out in a grid
No excessive posting/"shilling" for commercial purposes. Vendors are permitted to promote their products/services but keep it to a minimum and use the [vendor] flair. Posts that appear to be marketing without being transparent about it will be removed.
This subreddit is not a marketplace, please post on r/mechmarket or other relevant marketplace.
A while ago, I bought a pre-built Totem and just enough switches. I could never get used to the large stagger and the splay.
When I saw a relatively cheap wireless Corne on Aliexpress, I thought I'd have another try at a low profile keyboard. I didn't think of checking how many switches I had. Well, I'm two short! Damn.
Otherwise, the keeb uses ZMK and it took me a minute to flash it with my config.
So... whatcha gonna do with all that Totem, all that Totem inside your desk?
I like it. I need the aggressive stagger. I wish it had a full pinky column, but I can do without. Does it have hot-swappable keys? What's the interface?
I have a pre-built Piantor Plus, which I like well enough, but I got the most tactile Chocs available and they still feel really squishy to me. I'm coming to the conclusion that I need a hot-swap keyboard so I can experiment with different key switches.
What I'm trying to say, RedSideOfTheMoon, is: are you looking to maybe offload that Totem? If so, how much? Let me know, if you are. I'm in the US.
I thought I needed the aggressive stagger... until I tried it.
I'm in Europe so the shipping to the US would be expensive. Anyway I'm not sure I want to entirely give up on it.
It is the wireless ZMK version, hotswappable switches, resin printed case. It is very nice.
Aww, it sounds perfectly horrible! You should definitely resell it.
Anyway, yeah, everyone's fingers are different. My fingers are very clearly different lengths; at rest, they sit almost perfectly on a Piantor's keys; I think the designer must have had hands very similar to mine.
One day, if we don't extinct ourselves, 3D printers will be like microwaves, and be able to print circuit boards, and every household will have one. They'll all be able to print custom keyboards for each person. Or, maybe by then everyone will be using cybernetic interfaces and typing will go the way of cursive.
My work keyboard is almost like yours but without the 6th column on each side. Still fine to use if you use a proper key mapping. Mine is https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku
I just wrote an opinionated blog entry about my experience with Miryoku. To each their own, and if you're happy with it that's fantastic. My experience was not that great.
I took it as a basis and adapted it to my needs. It's for my travel keyboard that has to be as portable as possible. For normal work I use another keyboard that has extra keys for the modifiers.
Miryoku is worth looking at for layout ideas. But using it as-is of a non starter for me.
I'm still slowly making changes to my layout. It has some features that you say you don't like in your blog (numpad on the left) but it works for me.
I mean, lefties exist. It's fine if they want to have left-dominant. And if fast 10-key numeric entry isn't important and you're a rightie, then that's fine too. It's just, in both cases, the exception rather than the rule.
I really liked the layer switching on the thumbs; the problem, as I mentioned, is that if you're not ambi and you have a low key count board, a lot of common stuff is going to be in layers, and preferably under your dominant hand, and that really only comfortably lets you use three layers (under your non-dominant thumbs), and it's just not enough.
But TLDR on my blog, the real killer of Miryoku for me was having the modifier keys (M/A/C/S) under alphabet keys. There's simply no way to time that s.t. it's not either causing false mods or slowing your typing down. I really can only see Shift being under a letter key not doing either if you're not a fast typist. Nobody types perfectly consistently. Maybe MAC alone works, with a long enough activation delay; those aren't used in speed typing. But shift has to be its own key, or shared with something uncommon, like brace/bracket or some other uncommon punctuation.
If you're having trouble with homerow mods, I recommend trying Urob's timeless homerow mods. I had issues with the default implementation of ZMKs homerow mods until I started using urob's config
Thanks! I'll check out out.
Holy crap. I looked at that and it's brilliant. Now I just have to try it.
Normally, I flash with qmk-vial and then load my Vial config. I've had the kb for a year and a half, and I still tweak the layout, and Vial is peerless for that.
I'll figure it out.
Thanks. I'm used to my own config. https://github.com/y-muller/zmk-config-public I have the missing switches on the keys I use the least, but on some layers I do need them.