In picture

I think it would be unfair to do this kind of post without showing the keyboard

Keyboard: Sofle Choc by splitted.space.
They're making Cooler Sofles these days.

Switches: 35gf Ambient Twilights

Keycaps: 57x MBK Convex POM, 1x wrk. Dime (for the Gui key!)

Legs: "Slim laptop kickstand" by Baseus

Macro pad: UwU by Wooting
Sometimes you can find these for cheap when people discover that switch actuation point was not the only thing stopping them from being good at osu! / etc.

Mouse: Razer Naga X
A slightly excessive number of side buttons requires the so-called MMO mice to have a somewhat ergonomic profile.

Mostly out of frame: Kensington Orbit
Here for the "scroll ring" or giving the cursor small nudges.

Default layer

I've had the keyboard for slightly less than two years now so the layout has relatively stabilized.

Notes:

• I have medium-sized hands and use a lightly claw-ish hand placement so all of the keys are accessible from the home row
• Ukrainian alphabet has 33 letters in it so the alpha rows have to be mostly like this unless you're willing to learn an alt. layout (as if I don't have enough things to do)
• Having a rotary encoder with Up/Down arrows next to an Enter key is very nice for navigating menus!
• I press those Left/Right keys by curling fingers, not with a thumb
• Having Delete as a tap on Alt is very nice when selecting things with a mouse!
• Having -_ =+ on thumb is a little silly, but it's nice for programming/markup.

Navigation layer

Notes:

• I don't like home-row mods, but I do like a home-row of mods on a navigation layer for wiggling lines of text/code around.
• Having PrtScr and F4 above Alt is very nice on Windows/Linux!
• Copy Word does Ctrl-Left, Ctrl-Shift-Right, Ctrl-C. This isn't perfect (can't select on word start), but still I get a lot of use out of this.
• There are two AltGrs because I have a bunch of symbols (— · ➜ ≤≥ etc.) mapped through AHK on Windows and custom shortcuts on Linux.
• "Search" opens voidtools Everything on Windows and FSearch on Linux - for quickly locating well-named files and directories.
• The top-left key used to be Esc and I haven't found anything else I'd like there.
• TG N/2 toggles the following:

Nav block toggle layer

For playing games without re-mappable controls (or playing them without re-mapping anything).

Numpad and mirror layer

Enough to type numbers and small snippets of text without moving the right hand away from the mouse!

The numpad portion is mostly used to type phone numbers and 2FA codes.

The mouse

Evidently it's mostly navigation keys and shortcuts that would take more work to access otherwise (e.g. are on the right half of the keyboard). Scroll Up/Down do 4 scroll "clicks" at a time.

Razer's software isn't The Best, but they do have application-specific profiles, which is good help for games with a large number of inputs.

You can also define one extra layer, but this mouse does not have any buttons that are convenient enough to press for that (e.g. G600 had a third "shift" button on top) so it's mostly useless unless you have another Razer peripheral and the service is running.

Considerations

Hypothetically I could use another column for layout experiments (like offloading [ and | keys there and having an arrow key corner instead of a toggle layer), but there are rather few keyboards like this, less so pre-soldered and/or low-profile.

On other hand, the smallest keyboard I could use for anything would likely be 6x3+3, though I don't see myself needing one unless PG1316S boards become common enough for vendors to sell pre-built options.

Thanks for reading !

tl;dr: It's a great keyboard with a few minor flaws, if you need a good keyboard because you have wrist pains; I would recommend this.

Around 6 months ago I started getting really bad pains in my wrists after using the keyboard all day. I was originally going to get a Cyboard Imprint, but as my pain had been going on for a few weeks at that stage, I needed something ASAP.

I thought I would leave a review on Lemmy and help grow the community here :)

I got the white version with the clicky switches. I've used pretty much every popular switch and keyboard variety, Cherry, Gateron, Topre, buckling spring, you name it. A few years ago I've gotten ridden rid of most of them and started using a 65% custom board with Clicky Box Navy switches and QMK. This served me very well, but as it's a "joint" or classic non-split keyboard I used it with my shoulders hunched in. I really thought this would have been my endgame as it had hotswappable switches and therefore pretty much indestructible. This combined with my wrists pains drove me to get a new keyboard with better ergonomics.

It is very good as you would expect, the tenting is pretty tedious to setup as you have to screw in poles in and tighten them manually. This is a good mechanism that I'm sure will stand the wear and tear of daily use. But when you change one leg, you also have to change the other legs in order to keep it level. Because of this, it took me a few days to find a good level. I'm also not too sure if it is the best level for me, while I'm comfortable, it's a faff to properly test and use every tilt level.

The keycaps are high quality, but a bit too smooth for my liking. I prefer them rougher so I can get a better grip on the caps. As this is a unique layout with less common switches I really doubt I could get better keycaps, so it's good that most people will be just fine with the default set.

Speaking of the switches, they are good quality, the lower travel compared to standard MX switches has not been that noticeable for me, despite me preferring longer travel and a stronger click usually. The tactile feedback on the switches are good, but I prefer something more tactile if available.

The key well is well designed, and I can reach most of the keys without much trouble. I think a tighter curve would have been good so more of the keys can be reached easier. If you have larger hands I don't think this would be an issue. The keywell on the pinky is slightly shifted, and while a tad strange, I think it is a good choice.

There are quite a few things I don't like about this keyboard. The Glove 80 doesn't have a full top row, I actually use the F11 and F12 keys so this was a very strange choice to me. I cannot see why anyone thought this was a good design choice.

Likewise, I find the sharp edges very strange here as well. While I do use a keyboard for most of the interactions with my computer, I do use a mouse for certain tasks. I usually have my mouse in the middle of the 2 keyboard halves, and because of the super sharp corner of the thumb cluster, I've stabbed myself more times than I can count. The keyboard well also has sharp edges between the columns. The 2nd column (the columns with the F and J keys) has this very weird and sharp lump right below the keys. While it's not an major issue, I struggle to find why they have left it like this. Maybe some people like this more "brutalist" approach, and have it show the heritage of the design process. But to me, it just feels lazy, and almost like a prototype. I can also see the groves between the columns collecting dust and dirt during usage. Just some work in CAD would have removed these sharp edges before mass manufacturing. I cannot see what utilitarian purpose that this sharp design will have, maybe some people thinks it looks nice? I'm not one of them...

The build overall is good, I've heard some people say it feels cheap, while I can see what they mean because the plastic can flex in some places, once you place it down on a table, it doesn't move in any tangible way. While I don't think it is cheap, it's just designed to be light. Again, I don't really understand this design choice, this keyboard is meant to be used on a table, and I really cannot see anyone carrying this around despite the nice case they give you. It is huge, and with proper tenting it wouldn't fit in the case anyway.

I also bought the split cable on their website. It is so crap. While it does allow you to plug both in at the same time, the split in the cable is quite far down. So you can only spread the 2 halves ~20cm MAX, and even then, you are putting some serious strain on the ports and connectors. I ended up buying a 1->2 usb type a cable/hub, then plugging in 2 different type a to right angle type c cable. This was cheaper, more durable, and modular so you can replace cables if it ever broke.

Overall a strong 8, the points I deducted are more due to personal preference than anything inherently wrong with the keyboard. I'm sure someone likes the sharp design, not me... Some strange design choices here and there, but nothing that makes the ergonomics worse. The cable did leave a bad taste in my mouth for how much it cost, and literally defeating the point of a split board. Nevertheless, I think the V2 of this will sell like hotcakes.

The Voyager in its case (including a trackpad) is about ¼ the size of a Glove80 case. Personally I think the Glove80 makes up for it in its ergonomics, but it does take up most of my backpack when commuting to the office.

Hey!

I'm searching for a dream keyboard design, and cannot find this anywhere on the internet, so asking for a recommendation (or maybe a "nope, you won't find it, build it yourself").

My main concerns are:

1. Split (no RSI, but my shoulders feel much better when keyboard halves are far apart).
2. Completely wireless with good battery life (have a keychron k3, their battery life is abysmal), looking at least for 1m+
3. 60% (fell in love with the UHK layout, less than that is too chord-heavy, i want my numbers to be pressable as-is without modifier keys), both due to layout and portability.
4. Integrated trackpoint/touchpad/anything mouse-like. I'm using a trackpoint with uhk, and got completely rid of mouse and trackpad.

UHK60 checks almost all boxes, but it being wired is inconvenient, and i for some reason couldn't get it to be completely silent (tried lubing and pads), probably something to do with the metal backplate.

Disconnect MK1 (https://www.hidergo.fi/shop/disconnect_mk1/) is kinda almost perfect (although i would still prefer a trackpoint), but they are out of stock for the time being, and judging by their discord are not planning on making any new ones anytime soon.

After developing wrist issues and plateauing at 65 WPM on traditional keyboards, I decided it was time to improve my typing form. My technique had always been a hybrid of touch typing and hunt-and-peck, heavily favoring my left hand while only using 2-3 fingers on my right.

Twenty plus years of ingrained typing habits needed a complete reset, and what better way than switching to an entirely new format? The ergonomic mechanical keyboard scene had caught my eye since college, which led me to the 42-key split Corne.

I opted for a pre-built model, and despite the current learning curve (hovering around 15 WPM), I couldn't be happier with the decision. The only minor issue is with the tenting stands I added - they tend to slide during pinky key presses. While I have a few spare double-sided adhesive pads to experiment with, I'm still working on finding the optimal tenting solution through trial and error.

Choc brown switches Sculpted keycaps ZMK firmware

Unfortunately, I'm already eyeing other ergo mechs like dactyl, totem, and the KLOR polydactyl but I'm going to try to restrain myself, at least for a few months 🤣

Keyboards with custom firmware supports keycodes like XF86Copy and XF86Paste. These are great for having truly global copy/paste shortcuts that also work in apps like terminals where "Control-V" and "Control-C" aren't supported by default.

I advocated that these keycodes be supported in a web browser, Qutebrowser. The author of that project, Florian Bruhin liked the idea and submitted a patch upstream to the QT framework, which is used by many apps associated with the KDE Linux desktop. And about 5 years later, apps will be packaged with QT 6.10 that include the fix.

Here’s the change description.

This adds support for the Help, Open, Close, Save, New, Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo, Redo, Back, Forward, Refresh, ZoomIn, ZoomOut, Find, Settings, Exit, and Cancel keys to the default keyboard shortcuts.

The bug report:

https://bugreports.qt.io/plugins/servlet/mobile#issue/QTBUG-93269

I designed the case and the custom NASA glyphs for POS caps, so it has a completely flat console-like feel. It's Stocked with ChosFox Arctic Fox clickies (box whites on crack). I rewrote the firmware (didn't like the stock one) and added VIAL support as well as some different color modes. Also handmade the interconnect.

I loved the formfactor of the Sofle RBG, so I basically polished it up. I have 3 sets of these and a few spare boards just in case.

My case design is published here, for free, for anyone who wants it :)

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/gadget/refc-labs-sofle-rgb-split-ergo-colstag-keyboard-full-dress-case

More pics/deets here:

https://imgur.com/gallery/flightcontrol-edition-sofle-rgb-split-ergo-colstag-keyboard-customized-by-refc-labs-hXzjwtz

Am I allowed to just post my work setup here? Is that even legal?

Recently picked up a Kinesis Advantage 360 Pro and I love it! I also love bringing my laptop to the coffee shop to do work.

I’m wondering how difficult and expensive it would be to build a custom split keyboard to match the Kinesis as closely as possible. I would want this keyboard to be flat and use low-profile keys, but have the same thumb clusters and ortholinear layout allowing me to utilize the same muscle memory. I would also like it to be flat enough that I can fit it in a laptop sleeve case.

I have no idea how difficult it is to build custom keyboards. I’ve watched a few videos, but I would love some tips. I have some very basic soldering skills and I would love a fun project!

I want something designed to last, but I would love to do this for under $200 if possible. I have no idea if that’s remotely realistic.

If there are prebuilt split keyboard that match the Kinesis closely, I’m happy for recommendations but I figured this is specific enough it would need to be custom.

Thanks in advance!

Just got my first ergonomic keyboard! Coming from a Keychron K2 and now using a Kineses Advantage 360 Pro, which I picked up refurbished for a nice discount.

I’ve been using it exclusively to type for a week, and today I used my M2 MacBook Pro keyboard for the first time in a week.

To the person that decided computer keyboards should be staggered instead of ortholinear, I hate you.

I know there is history to the keyboards being adapted from typewriters, but I realized I’ve been hitting the entire bottom row of keys with the wrong finger. For example, I’ve been hitting Z with my ring finger instead of my little finger.

I could give up the thumb clusters, but I really wish Apple would give you an ortholinear keyboard option in their laptops.

I also keep hitting the wrong key on the Kineses because all the keys are so much closer now than I’m used to. It takes so much less movement and I love it!

Got my trackball today.

I know there is the Ultimate Gadget Laboratories (ultimate hacker keyboard) but I'm looking fore something more Cornish. And I want premium grade stuff that has a CE stamp. I.e. no low quality 3D-print plastics that will give me a rash or maybe cancer in a couple of years. Something like ZSA or Kinesis.

So, is there any?

I wanted to design a funny keyboard with an alternative to TRRS, so I made this floppy disk sized keyboard! (Perfect replica, under 10cm x 10cm)

I made a build guide for it too: https://lexp.lt/posts/floppy_keyboard/

While I'm particularly looking for chords (ex: if jkl; are all keydown at the same time then send the space keypress) I'd be happy to hear about your keymapping approach in general. E.g. how do you organize your layers, have you needed to custom compile anything, mapping choices you regret but are too hard to change now, etc.

I got my first ergomech board recently. I've got the background to flash the board manually and code everything in C. But before I go down that very deep rabbit hole, I wanted to see if what others had done/learned.

Personally I'm not planning to go full asetniop with cords. I think I just want a handful of chords to go along with layers.

This is admittedly a lazy post where I show that I haven't done much research.

Whenever I start searching around online, I find tons of smaller companies selling ergo keyboards or parts for keyboards, but they are always very pricey and don't match the layout I want. I quickly give up since it can take long to search store-by-store online.

The keyboard of my dreams has:

1. All (104) the keys. This means arrow keys and as numpad. I like the layout of my current keyboard (below). I guess this is called a "full keyboard"?
2. Mechanical and with plenty of clackedy clack in the keys.
3. Corded with USB (I still miss PS/2 :))
4. Is curved, similar to this one.
5. Has the "Y" key on the left side of the gap! This is my biggest sticking point. I have realized that I type the "Y" key with my left hand 99% of the time and I don't want to change.
6. I am also willing to investigate split design keyboards if the "Y" is on the left and a numpad can exist separately which I could put to the right of my mouse. But still I'd prefer that to be attached.
7. I don't care about RGB or lights or much else. Take it or leave it.

For reference, this is my current keyboard and I actually quite love it. I just wish it was curved.

After a few years of tinkering and learning I'm finally ready to share the result of my work. Meet Kühlmak. What started out as my attempt to create the perfect keyboard layout morphed into a project to make a flexible and fast analyzer and optimizer. The feature highlights:

• Command line interface
• Information-rich, text-based layout overview and stats
• Support for different types of physical keyboard layouts and fingerings (row-staggered, angle-mod, column-staggered and more)
• Extremely fast analyzer that enables simulated annealing
• Multi-threaded annealing to find many optimized layouts quickly
• Multi-objective fitness function with soft targets for individual objectives
• Multi-objective ranking system to identify the best trade-offs out of many generated layouts
• Metrics that naturally favour finger and/or hand balance for effort, travel and n-grams
• Finger travel distance weighted by speed (inspired by Semimak)
• Comprehensive same-hand bigram, disjointed-bigram and same-hand 3-gram scoring system
• Support for affinity of Space to one thumb or both
• Optional constraints to enable steering certain layout features (e.g. preferred positions of punctuations and shortcuts)

The terminology and metrics are partially inspired by and partially adapted to The Keyboard Layouts Doc (2nd edition). However, I made some deliberate design choices and probably introduced more subtle biases that deviate from some of those definitions. There is lots more information in the README.

At this point I consider it ready enough to finally optimize a layout for my Mantis keyboard and see if it works as well as I hope it will.

Hey,

I'm choosing keys switches.

I have to choose between kailh red or the pro red (for a zsa voyager).

I'm torn because I'm reading online that many find the normal reds too stiff, but I'm worried that the pro red won't allow me to rest on the home row without misfires.

I absolutely do rest my fingers on the home row. Especially when starting typing. I use the concave feel of the caps to confirm I'm in the right place to start.

My research suggests that the mx blacks I use at home are stiffer than the reds (60gf, but much more travel), and the keys on my thinkpad are in theory stiffer too (57gf).

Has anyone here trodden this same path? Any insights?

Hey folks, me again.

Those of you who went from a larger keyboard to a smaller one that required the use of layers: was the transition hard? Could you still type on the old keyboard after?

Context: I was asking the other day about which ortholinear to get for commuting. Although the glove80 is the closest to my current home desktop keyboard, I've ruled it out as I don't think it will fit in my backpack. If it does, it will take up too much space.

So I'm looking at something like the voyager, but with such a small keyboard, there will be a learning curve. I'm used to ortholinear, but I've never used layers. And if I manage to adapt, it'd be nice to still be able to use my desktop keywell keyboard at home.

Thoughts?

I'm posting here because I have nowhere else to post. If you squint, this meets the community rules because my current keyboard is a Piantor/42, and my issue stems from a combination of 40% and QMK behavior. Although, to be honest, this is mostly about QMK, but using Discord is painful, and I'll go there only as a last resort.

For a long while, I used Kanata on my laptop, and desktop an ErgoDox, having replaced kmonad because of one certain feature: tap-hold key sequence behavior. It's best described here, but the tl;dr is that (press lsft) (press a) (release lsft) (release a) where a is a tap-hold key should output "A" and not "a" -- kmonad outputs "a".

A few months ago, when I got my Piantor, I discovered that this sequence outputs no character, and although there's an option that makes it output "a", I can't find a combination that makes it output "A". I'm asking whether, in the bewildering set of QMK variables, is there a way to configure QMK s.t. the sequence (press lsft) (press a) (release lsft) (release a) outputs "A"?

That's the main thrust of my question. As a sort of addendum, I think this behavior is behind another of my QMK irritations: I'm a reasonably fast typer, and often will be typing the next key before I've completely released the previous key. This means I have to set a large-ish time-out before tap-hold engages, which introduces an annoying delay whenever I want to chord a layer and get at, e.g. numbers. I do understand that this is may be an unsolvable issue, that it's just an unavoidable limitation on small keyboards in having so many common keys (numbers, punctuation, and arrows are the worst -- coding, nearly half the text are characters from layers). Either I have a long timeout and and live with an annoying delay when I want to type (many) punctuation characters or numbers; or I have a short timeout and frequently accidentally shifting layers. However, I feel as if this might be mitigated somewhat with the Kanata-style key sequence handling, because even though my Kanata configuration is nearly an exact mirror of my QMK layer configuration, I never have this problem with Kanata.

I suppose I could give up on using QMK for anything except the most fundamental mapping, and use Kanata instead. However, there's an appeal to the portability of having the programming in the keyboard itself; it makes me a little less dependent on the computer to which the keyboard is attached.

Hey,

I'm looking for a portable ortholinear for taking to co-working in my backpack.

For context, I'm a coder. I use neovim all day. At home I use a maltron 3d. It's a fantastic comfortable keyboard (I think kinesis nicked the design?), although it did take getting used to.

It's the only keyboard I've ever been able to touch type on.

So yeah. I'd like to find something similar that is portable. It has to have quiet switches, as it's a shared office. Any suggestions?

So far I've looked at:

• zsa moonlander
• zsa voyager
• moeergo glove 80

Those all look nice, but are too expensive.

How does the ergodox ez hold up these days?