And surprisingly it’s going pretty well. I’m late to the fad I think, but only a few weeks ago I thought it was bananas to not have arrow keys. Then I learned about the whole tiny-keyboard world, and decided to go for it.
The keyboard I’m using is a Ferris Sweep, which as free and open hardware you may produce yourself.
At the moment I have 9 layers, 7 of them in frequent use. The learning process has been surprisingly not bad. And using QMK I have tweaked the key map a lot already.
If you use a computer a lot, say for your job, it’s worth optimizing how you interact with it.
Keyboards like these are why I had to carry my own keyboard around when I worked in IT support for a techie company. Once we had to do BIOS updates for each and every desktop machine and at least 50% of them had weird ass keyboards that only the person who owned it knew how to use.
That said I don’t have the time nor energy to relearn how to type.
Lmao I have a colleague who brings in like a new flavour of keyboard in every month that somehow has even less keys than the last one and when he asks for my help he’s like “oh sorry i bound the windows key to my buttplug” as a struggle to write literally anything. Nobody can psyop me down from a full size keyboard with numpad. Anyway bringing your own keeb is good from a hygiene standpoint aint catching ur keyboard boogers.
Also I don’t trust the clean desk aesthetic if ur desk isnt a mess of post-it notes, random PC parts, a bunch of pens and notebooks and 3 missmatched monitors I don’t trust you
same… i refuse to buy a 10-keyless keyboard and it’s getting harder and harder to find full sized keyboards
I’m using a mountain Everest keeb atm nice for being able to switch the numpad to different sides. I also made the little screen attachment permanently show this
I really need to clean my keyboard… It’s a full-sized Keychron I got on sale for $20. Desk is full of diagrams of different networks and algorithms on legal pads.
Need to use a mouse for drafting stuff, and most of those programs also heavily use key bindings so I’m never getting rid of my full sized.
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lol!
I just looked up a picture of a Ferris Sweep and how do you manage without digit keys? I enter numeric digits, like, all the time.
I designed my own keyboard but the keymap is modified from this one: https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku/tree/master/docs/reference (my symbol layer is better and I have slightly more keys)
Basically hold with thumb -> other keyboard changes layout. Like how when you hold shift keys become their “capitals” I have layers for shift, symbols, numbers, arrows, functions, systemkeys, macros and so on.
There are 2 ways you can do this using QMK. I hold down one of my right thumb keys and my left half turns into a 10-key cluster. Another way is that you can switch to another layer and leave it there for like if you need number entry plus mouse movement, then switch back to default layer. I do this for my gaming layer since it’s easier to have a gaming layer that is QWERTY since I use Colemak.
The nice thing, if you can deal with layers, is that it’s easier to type numbers because your numpad is positioned right under your home row instead of requiring you to move your hand to a separate part of a full size keyboard. Rinse and repeat for things like function keys, which is nice for things like debugging code.
My keymap is a modified version of the default keymap for my keyboard. You can get a sense for how they work here. Basically you just hold down certain of the home row keys to access different layers. For example, holding D accesses Layer 1, but tapping D just keys D.
I think when it comes to this topic the 80/20 rule really applies around 60% keyboards. You get the majority of the benefits of having a smaller keyboard on your desk, not moving your fingers far from the home row, etc. without having to resort to tons of layers, convoluted setups, and drastic tradeoffs of 40% keyboards. On a 60% keyboard I only have 2 layers.
Some people like the smaller ones, I don’t knock it, but I find it very hard to justify for myself or as a recommendation.
Fair enough. For me I’m figuring out if the keys I don’t use are actually not useful, or if I don’t use them because they’re hard to reach. For example if I want to use the volume up button, or maybe press F9, I usually would need to look down. Using layers brings all the keys closer and therefore makes them relevant. Macros are also a powerful avenue, but that’s available on any size kb.
Yes, that definitely makes sense. I would just add that for both in the case of F9 and Volume Up they’d be on the second layer on a 60% board because it doesn’t include the F keys row. So it probably wouldn’t make a difference in those cases, but I get the point.
I think in the case of a 60% the furthest keys to reach might be the right Control and maybe the 6 and 7 keys depending on how long your fingers are. In my case I would say I almost never use the right control and right super keys. I think they’re bound to some layer that changes the lighting on the keyboard or something.
How are ergo keyboards? I just have the old tenkeyless and it serves me well enough, but I do wonder if later on in life I’m going to fuck my hands up even with a wrist pad.
One of the first things I noticed when I switched to a split ergo is that my shoulder tension went away almost immediately. Also column stagger boards should be the norm. I love keeping my fingers mostly on homerow instead of moving all over like people have to on a row stagger QWERTY board. I switched to Colemak-dh a few years back.
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My Sweep is almost endgame for me. I’d like something with the same thumb cluster but with pinky and ring finger splay. I love choc keycaps but they can feel a bit squished at times during longer typing sessions.
Curious abut your layers too. I use my own layout and have 4 layers plus base alpha layer because it just made sense per thumb key.
How long have you been using yours? That’s great that it’s almost endgame. It’s still all new to me.
My keymap is a heavily modified form of the default keymap, but essentially the same in spirit.
I been using it as my daily driver for 2 years. But I also have 3 other boards with 36 keys so all said and done I’ve been on 35% split boards for maybe three years.
If you have looked into it, check out the miryoku layout: https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku
He designed it for 36 keys but it can be adapted to 34. The mouse emulation layer really isn’t needed. I have a few other layouts saved somewhere I can send you too, Including mine of course lol.
Thanks! I’ll keep those layouts in mind. I did a fair amount of research into what layouts are popular for these 35% boards, and I did see the miryoku layout. At the moment I’m taking inspiration from all the ideas and basically coming up with my own map that makes sense for myself and my workflow.
The miryoku one looks really well considered and maybe I’ll go in that direction eventually. My current opinion is that modifiers make most sense on the thumb keys, and layers under the home row. There are two reasons for this. First and most obvious is that an accidental modifier keypress is more destructive than an accidental layer activation. Second, there are a fixed number of modifier keys (4 if I’m counting right) and they map cleanly to the fixed number of thumb keys I have available (also 4). With the miryoku layout I am vertically constrained; the number of layers I can have is determined by the number of thumb keys. I expect in the future I will add more layers for macros, and it’s more complicated to do that if I’m already at capacity for my thumb keys where I toggle my layers.
Totally forgot to reply last night. I was dead tired when I got home.
Keymap db: https://keymapdb.com/?keyCount=1-36&stagger=columnar
roux-34(mine): https://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/66f1904eee126cbfe17ad4e6011db06b
Most people go with homerow mods with these boards but because of misfires, some do bottom row mods. What I did was set the time to trigger long press for my weaker fingers a bit longer so I get way fewer misfires that way. My only concern with using homerow for layer keys is that you have to use twice as many layers but most micro controllers can handle that these days. If that works for you then keep doing it. The beauty of QMK is that you can make it however you want. In fact, QMK is imo one of the most remarkable examples of open source software.
Something else I might suggest is look at flashing the Vial version of QMK. It’s has a GUI that let’s you change keys on the fly and without having to reflash the firmware each time. It’s an amazing addition to QMk for this very reason.
I looked into vial a little bit, looks very convenient, although the Mac version is in beta and it doesn’t recognize my device for some reason. I’ll try it again in a few months.
I’ve been pondering the miryoku layout all day. I can see benefits of doing home row mods instead of thumb row. The main benefit is the simplicity of a mod key always being on the same finger of either hand e.g. ring finger always alt. That makes it more predictable and less idiosyncratic than the setup I have right now. Though, it still has limitations on the number of layers like I mentioned before, but maybe I can make it work. If I switch to that approach I’ll let you know.
So homerow mods are gonna be hard to really get down if you aren’t a very precise typer. That is why my ring and pinky finger keys are set to a longer trigger time than my middle and index. I still get some misfires occasionaly(mainly Ctri+H for some reason) but it’s so little that it’s pretty manageable. My number layer, function layer, and my nav layer all have Super,Alt,Shift,Ctrl on the opposite side to allow for for stuff like shifting a number key(so like 7 becomes $ on the fly). I might also suggest looking into “sticky mods”. I believe callum uses this.
So I just installed callum after a week using my default map… good improvement in accuracy in the first five or so minutes. Don’t have much time to practice since it’s very late, but I will give it the paces tomorrow at work. Thanks for the recommendation!
Also I’m very happy about it because I managed to get my LCD module to work with the callum keymap, and I got callum to work from that new qmk userspace feature. Still a little surprised I got it to work lol.
I have a nyquist kb myself, and it’s actually really nice for my general computer use. I dont program though, but every once in a while i go hunting for the right layers for something like [ ] or _±= mostly because the layer switch is on one half or the other
Oh, and i have to turn off the win key/alt swap button because what the hell is that?
that one looks cool!
I have a CharaChorder One and have 9 keys/switches
My mind is blown. First time hearing of that device! How do you like it?
Love it, but I’ve used chorded keyboards for a while now, there’s a bit of a learning curve with them but once you get the hang your WPM can increase significantly
Smallest I went was the Planck in a diy form. I liked it enough I bought a real preonic for the slimmer case.
Never got into split keyboards though. I move my keyboard around a lot and need to use space on my desk so it’s just easier. I find myself really missing home row layers whenever I go back to a normal keyboard.
Oh that’s cool. Looks like a minimalist ergodox which probably makes it a lot easier to actually use beside a mouse especially on little LAN party trestle tables.
