this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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ErgoMechKeyboards

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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards

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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

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38
Planning my ~~Piantor~~Ferris Sweep* (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by hannadryad to c/ergomechkeyboards
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So I should be getting a ~~Piantor~~Ferris Sweep* from Beekeeb in a number of weeks and I thought I would get a head start and plan my layout - or at least one version of it, influenced heavily by Ben Vallack's video about avoiding press-and-hold mechanics.

Still plenty of fiddling to do. I want to move the WASD-style cursor keys in L3 onto my first three fingers for sure. In fact I've already changed it and made room for insert and added shift as a home key mod on the right. God this is addictive.

*ETA: I am, of course, talking about a Ferris Sweep with two thumb keys as depicted in the drawings not a Piantor, which I was also considering. I guess I was swayed by the alliteration.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What software are you using to plan it out?

[–] hannadryad 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Google Sheets with lots of cell merges. I'll share the template doc when I'm at my computer later. 👍

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Perhaps not exactly what you're looking for, but I'd check out keymap-drawer. I've been using this to draw out my keymaps and it's been great!

[–] hannadryad 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh no that looks gorgeous and very handy (even if I'm more of a Ruby gal).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is not my tool by the way. Just one I've found. Wanted to make sure I wasn't being given credit when all I did was stumble upon it 😉

[–] hannadryad 2 points 1 year ago

Oh no I got what you meant. I appreciate you mentioning it.

[–] luckybipedal 1 points 1 year ago

I've used QMK configurator to sketch out keymaps before. You can download your keymap as JSON file and later upload it again to make more changes, or save a few different versions. It can even compile your firmware, but I've not used that feature. No programming required if you only use basic QMK features. It supports Piantor with a 3x5 layout: https://config.qmk.fm/#/beekeeb/piantor/LAYOUT_split_3x5_3

[–] michalvankodev 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey, cool design, I'm curious what do you mean by avoiting press & hold. What is the reason for putting shift on the 4th row?? I'm rocking miryoku layout for the past half of the year and I love it very much. Also what is this layout? I don't recognize it. I don't know what's your profession but I would nitpick the different positions of braces curly braces and brackets.

[–] hannadryad 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oops I just managed to reply to the post itself rather than your comment 🙄 see above/below 😁

The layout should be Colemak DH but I may have transcribed it incorrectly. It will end up being Colemak DH regardless.

[–] michalvankodev 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I am using Colemak but thinking of switching to workman. I'm seeing the issues with plain Colemak so DH version seems to be better.. it's just that workman feels like a next step

[–] hannadryad 3 points 1 year ago

I can see the merit in colemak dh, workman and rsthd, and I know there are others. In the end I figured "just pick one" ...

[–] hannadryad 2 points 1 year ago

Further to this I was reading some things at the weekend about how Colemak DH kind of sorts out the issues with Colemak that prompted Workman. Have a look for discussions around Colemak DHm (what became the "new" Colemak DH) and Colemak DHk. 👍

[–] hannadryad 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I may tackle the symmetry of the braces. I work in IT so I use curly braces a lot followed by square brackets a fair amount. I'm left handed so that has influenced e.g. where the WASD cursor keys have added up and it gives the braces and brackets a bit more prominence, and also I'm UK ISO. But yeah I might end up choosing to be influenced by the right side of the QWERTY keyboard where the symbols are bunched up.

What I mean by avoiding press-and-hold is tapping L2 to get into layer 2 then staying in there until I tap L1 again. Athough, L2 might be instant return after one keypress and L3 might be "sticky" and require an L1 key press to return - I need to actually compile some alternatives and actually try it out in hand.

So basically I am avoiding chording unless I need to do the rare Ctrl-Win-RightArrow (which will require an instant return to L1 .. boy the coding in QMK is going to be a doozy and I don't even know if QMK is capable of it yet)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@hannadryad serious keyboard customization! You seem to be going really deep into the weeds of keyboard ergonomics, layout, and usage. It's impressive to see how much thought you're putting into the functionality and efficiency of your keyboard.
You're definitely a power user when it comes to keyboards, and it's cool to see how QMK and other keyboard customization tools can really make a difference for people who use them heavily

[–] hannadryad 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, I still have to see how well all of this translates into QMK. Steep learning curve ahead.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

At a glance, this seems very doable in QMK. It has a whole heck of a lot of functionality built in, and there are user forks that do some stuff differently too. I wouldn't be too worried about it. Plus the documentation is excellent so if you have questions they can often get answered there

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I use tab for auto completionior move through menus a lot and ESC for vim. Having those in a different layer will duplicate a lot of key presses. Not for me, I rather use a 3 thumbs.

[–] hannadryad 1 points 1 year ago

Yes that is a big factor that would sway me towards six columns. But I figured there is a difference between asking my index finger to do an extra bit of work to reach for column one and asking my pinky - my smallest and weakest finger - to reach for column six.

I do have doubts about having ESC and TAB on column five for that same reason. My pinky should be doing as little work as possible. I like the consistency of having SPACE and ENTER across all layers but maybe there is an argument for having ESC on a thumb key on layer 2, so at least it's just a kind of rat-a-tat-tat (well more of a ba-dap) of two thumb keys to get into normal mode in Vim? That would allow me to put backtick in layer one where ESC is too...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I use tab on a thumb key and ESC as a combo of QW on qwerty. I use both Vim and tab a lot and find this to work quite well for me. This is with 2 thumbs.

Just wanted to share my setup since we seem to have some similar uses

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is a lot more thought than went into my first layout lol. It looks really good so far though!

I'm not sure if you've checked then out, but combos in QMK are huge for me when using a more compact form factor. It's made a big difference when trying to access keys that don't fit in the base layer but belong there imo (dash, slash, esc, etc...)

[–] hannadryad 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm trying to figure out what the tap dances and combos can give me but ... at the same time ... I feel like if I make it complicated I have failed.

I get the need for the home row mods in the first layer but I have set myself the challenge of not adding any more fancy stuff.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's fair. To me it's more about ease of use than lack of complexity. And since it's qmk and so customizable, I can configure it all in whatever way makes the most sense in my brain.

I wasn't super interested in combos until I gave it a shot and now I love them. I can send you my keymap if you're interested in how I'm using combos.

That said, of course do whatever works best for you, that's the point of fully customizing your own software. What works for me wont necessarily work for me

[–] hannadryad 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh totally that's the best thing about this level of customisability - you can take it to the exact level you need. For me ease of use is the same thing as bring blindingly simple. I may compromise a little when it comes to merging firmware combos with Vim commands, though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I understand the appeal of a simple layout. As I said, since I put stuff where it works for my brain, it's not much of a problem and only takes a sec to get used to. That said, if it's not your cup of tea then you obviously don't need to add any extra fancy stuff :P.

That said, a different feature to explore: leader key. It's kind of like a sticky combo. I use it for all my macros, most notably: Leader + ; is esc then save in vim Leader + q is esc then save and quit in vim

Keeps your keymap free of macros, which I'm à big fan of, personally. Again not trying to push you into something more complex, just making sure you know what's out there :)

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