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Ask HN: Did you remap the Kinesis Advantage2 keyboard?
I just recently picked up the Kinesis Advantage2 and was surprised at the placement of the arrow and {} keys. I searched already and it looks like some have remapped [] & {} so that shift doesn't need to be used for {}. And some vim users remapped caps lock to esc. Just curious what worked for other people before I get too far along with regard to muscle memory. Right now I'm leaning toward sticking with the QWERTY layout but only because I can't be unproductive for forever.
- thomastjeffery 9y ago> Right now I'm leaning toward sticking with the QWERTY layout but only because I can't be unproductive for forever. As opposed to what? If you don't have strong QWERTY muscle memory using this keyboard yet, it may be a great opportunity to learn something else. Really, any thoughtfully designed layout will do. Dvorak, Colemak, Norman, Workman, anything. Typing well with QWERTY means constantly contorting your hands, which I assume is something you would like to avoid.
- akor 9y agoI don't have QWERTY muscle memory with this keyboard but I do have muscle memory. I guess I was thinking individual keys being remapped. I've never given any serious thought to switching to Dvorak / Colemak etc maybe I should. I agree now would be better than later but I concerned about being productive at work. What is best from an ergonomics standpoint?
- thomastjeffery 9y ago> What is best from an ergonomics standpoint? That's hard to say. I use Workman, because the focus on digraphs really meshed with me, and I like the feel of it. It definitely took a solid effort to learn another layout, especially since I spent the time choosing a favorite. I feel like it's absolutely worth it, though. > but I'm concerned about being productive at work. I'm honestly not sure what to say to that, considering you will be very slow at the beginning. You may be able to keep using QWERTY at work, and practice a new layout in your free time, though.
- akor 9y agoThanks Thomas. I really appreciate hearing your experience. I looked up Colemak / Dvorak last night and it seemed from the articles / discussion I found like it was a mixed bag [1][2]. I think you've inspired me to at least dip my toes in so we'll see how it goes. As far as productivity I guess it is what it is but I've been struggling with Carpal Tunnel for a bit so was already at reduced productivity and now with the keyboard switch and possibly completely layout change it will be reduced even further. I think at least initially I'll do QWERTY layout and as you suggest do an hour or so a day of some other layout. Again thanks for your input.
- thomastjeffery 9y ago> I really appreciate hearing your experience. You're very welcome. As a last note, I would like to mention that I am not any faster (maybe a bit if I focus on speed) with Workman than I was using QWERTY. I am, however, much more comfortable. I don't have to contort my hands at all (except to accommodate the popular staggered physical layout, which your new keyboard explicitly fixes). So far, thankfully, I don't have any carpel tunnel, so I don't really know what that is like, but I can imagine a better layout helping about as much as a better keyboard. > I think at least initially I'll do QWERTY layout and as you suggest do an hour or so a day of some other layout. Good luck! I hope things go well for you.
- SamReidHughes 9y agoYes. Some of my remappings have to do with my use of Dvorak, for which certain choices of the Kinesis Advantage's punctuation keys didn't make sense. Other remappings would make sense for anybody. Let's start by pretending I use QWERTY. The first remapping is to make Ctrl and Alt modifier keys more accessible. I put Back Space on Caps Lock and hit it with my pinky. Then Ctrl goes on the Back Space key, Alt on the Delete key. Delete goes on left Ctrl. The second remapping is to swap Home with Page Up and End with Page Down. The reason for this is, if you want to scroll down a web page with your keyboard, you can hit Space or hit Page Down. This lets you do that with either hand. The third remapping is to swap right Ctrl with the Windows key. The Windows key is useful in Linux for some keyboard shortcuts, and this makes it more reachable. The fourth remapping is in software, with xmodmap (or whatever) because it doesn't swap entire keys. It's to switch parentheses with square brackets. So now you press Shift+9 to insert '['. The reason here is that typing ") {" is so common in C++, and moving from the top to the sub-bottom row of the keyboard is really hard. Making parentheses the primary function of a key is also useful in general. The remapping is in software because at least on the 1st generation Kinesis, using the remap functionality to map something to Shift+9 was glitchy. Because I'm a Dvorak user there's a few other remappings of punctuation. You'd want to put [{ and ]} back on their labeled keys at the bottom, and then you'd want to put /? back to the right of P and the best location for =+ is to the right of 0. Then `~ goes left of 1. The bottom left backslash key remains backslash. The bottom left `~ key goes unused. I don't think this is a good opportunity for you to switch keyboard layouts. The muscle memory will map over after a brief adjustment period. I just plugged in this Advantage into the Mac I'm writing this post on to double-check what my mappings were -- I'm used to using it on Linux. If you're on a Mac I'd recommend putting Delete on the left Alt key (instead left Ctrl as described above) and finding whatever way suits you to make left Ctrl behave as the option key.
- akor 9y agoThanks Sam this is the sort of feedback I was thinking of when I posted the original question. Do you find the switch (to Dvorak) was worth it in the end? Were there any surprising issues?
- 9y ago