198 ms·

100% of the functionality without hand movement. You can have the arrow keys directly under your fingertips at all times, same with numbers and special symbols.

100% of the functionality without hand movement. You can have the arrow keys directly under your fingertips at all times, same with numbers and special symbols. And while I don't like this particular layout in the link I do have a very similar 42-key keyboard and after a couple days of practice it was the most natural and smoothest typing experience I've ever had. Terrible for any one-handed use (e.g. gaming), though, and it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea.

tigeroil 3y ago
Absolutely this - I use a Corne and it's my favourite keyboard for productivity by miles. I do have another keyboard - a 61 key that I use for gaming, but for day-to-day productivity the corne is absolutely glorious.
- rcarr 3y ago
  Are you using 36 or 42 key? I’m looking to get one soon and was initially leaning to 36 but I’ve heard reports that 42 is the better way to go because the shift buttons can be frustrating as a home row mod on 36 key?
  - lawn 3y ago
    In my humble opinion, having a one-shot shift on your secondary thumb is something everyone should try. I personally use auto-shift (long press for shift) on my 34 key layout, but I think most would prefer the one-shot shift.
    - rgoulter 3y ago
      One-shot shift = after tapping, the next key you press is shifted? That does seem useful. I also liked QMK's "caps word" feature. It's like CapsLock, but only for UNDERSCORED_WORDS. (i.e. the keyboard returns to non-CapsLock after typing a non-word letter, like space/esc/tab/etc.).
      - rcarr 3y ago
        Interesting! I wondered why I’d see layouts with just one shift key on the right thumb cluster, it all makes sense now.
      - lawn 3y ago
        Exactly. I also use capsword to capitalize more than a single character (autoshift gets old very quickly otherwise). I also have one-shot combos for ctrl on the home-row, so to do Ctrl-N for instance I can just tap ring + middle finger on the home-row followed by N. Super convenient. (You can hold one-shot modifiers to act like a regular one too.)
    - breckenedge 3y ago
      Do you have a link to your layout?
      - lawn 3y ago
        Sure do: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2022/09/06/the_current_t-34_keyboard_layout/ https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2022/09/06/the_current_t-34...
  - breckenedge 3y ago
    I have a 42 key. When I switched to Miryoku, I just removed the extra keys.
    - rcarr 3y ago
      Did it take a while to dial in home row shift?
      - breckenedge 3y ago
        I am still dialing in my home row shift
- lolive 3y ago
  Is there a vidéo giving détails about how to type a { or a Alt-F4 ?
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    It’s all programmable! On my Corne, I hold the S key and then hit H to type { Both on the home row along with my other “surrounds” I use while programming a lot. Holding S + … H = { J = ( K = [ L = < Obviously there’s a learning curve but it feels much better. Would be silly to lose sections of my career to injured hands from poorly designed keyboards!
    - lolive 3y ago
      Can you program such a behaviour on a VIA-compatible keyboard?
      - kvdveer 3y ago
        You can program that kind of behaviour onto any keyboard using kmonad. I'm using it on my laptop keyboard.
  - tortilla 3y ago
    This video is pretty informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTMcH7u-vu0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTMcH7u-vu0
rgoulter 3y ago
> > that's masochistic! ... I honestly doubt that these make your life easier. > 100% of the functionality without hand movement. Yeah, this is the key point. These keyboards ultimately trade-off "benefit of reduced hand movement, at the expense of a more complex layout". A standard keyboard has some bad design flaws that these keyboards fix: the spacebar is impractically large, asymmetric row-stagger is bad. -- On a standard keyboard, you'll end up using your (weak) pinky fingers much more than your (strong) thumb. Ideally, it would be the other way around! With these keyboards, the thumbs get to reach 2-3 keys each. This allows bringing all the keys on a standard keyboard to within reach of the hand, without having to move the hands. e.g. Without having to move my hands, my thumbs can press space, esc, tab, backspace, and enter. With 'tap-hold functionality' (key acts as normal when tapped, acts as a different key when held), I can put Shift/Ctrl/Gui/Alt underneath asdf (and mirrored on the right hand side), so that I can use the modifiers without having to use my pinkies as much. -- And the other complexity is putting all the other keys (like numbers and symbols) on layers. Overall, I think it's the same power-user trade-off as vim/emacs make: more complex to use, but allows for more concise usage.
Fellshard 3y ago
With customization through Oryx, I've been able to make Ergodox / Moonlander quite amenable to many games that use MKB, especially those that make use of number keys, such as MMOs, by overlaying 1-5+macro with various combinations of double taps, holds, and tap-holds to represent 1-0-= and C-_ variants. So while it takes some customization, you can make such keyboards quite tractable for single-handed modes for individual pieces of software or for general use, with practice.
norswap 3y ago
What keyboard / layout do you use to get the arrow keys? I have a Ultimate Hacking Keyboard (https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/ https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/) and while the arrow keys are easily accessible, they require pressing a modifier. This is fine and dandy for simple usage, but I happen to do do a bunch of more complicated stuff: ctrl + arrow to go to start/end of line, ctrl + alt for words, all of this + shift for selection. ctrl+shift+mod+arrow gets really tricky to operate for me, I haven't been able to reach a level of proficiency that was anywhere near equivalent to what I had without the modifier key.
- tsuujin 3y ago
  I use the miryoku layout for this. There are other options that do this in similar ways, but I’ve found this one to meet all my needs. It was kind of designed around emacs, so modifier keys are well supported. https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku

tigeroil 3y ago

Absolutely this - I use a Corne and it's my favourite keyboard for productivity by miles. I do have another keyboard - a 61 key that I use for gaming, but for day-to-day productivity the corne is absolutely glorious.

rcarr 3y ago
Are you using 36 or 42 key? I’m looking to get one soon and was initially leaning to 36 but I’ve heard reports that 42 is the better way to go because the shift buttons can be frustrating as a home row mod on 36 key?
- lawn 3y ago
  In my humble opinion, having a one-shot shift on your secondary thumb is something everyone should try. I personally use auto-shift (long press for shift) on my 34 key layout, but I think most would prefer the one-shot shift.
  - rgoulter 3y ago
    One-shot shift = after tapping, the next key you press is shifted? That does seem useful. I also liked QMK's "caps word" feature. It's like CapsLock, but only for UNDERSCORED_WORDS. (i.e. the keyboard returns to non-CapsLock after typing a non-word letter, like space/esc/tab/etc.).
    - rcarr 3y ago
      Interesting! I wondered why I’d see layouts with just one shift key on the right thumb cluster, it all makes sense now.
    - lawn 3y ago
      Exactly. I also use capsword to capitalize more than a single character (autoshift gets old very quickly otherwise). I also have one-shot combos for ctrl on the home-row, so to do Ctrl-N for instance I can just tap ring + middle finger on the home-row followed by N. Super convenient. (You can hold one-shot modifiers to act like a regular one too.)
  - breckenedge 3y ago
    Do you have a link to your layout?
    - lawn 3y ago
      Sure do: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2022/09/06/the_current_t-34_keyboard_layout/ https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2022/09/06/the_current_t-34...
- breckenedge 3y ago
  I have a 42 key. When I switched to Miryoku, I just removed the extra keys.
  - rcarr 3y ago
    Did it take a while to dial in home row shift?
    - breckenedge 3y ago
      I am still dialing in my home row shift
lolive 3y ago
Is there a vidéo giving détails about how to type a { or a Alt-F4 ?
- ethanbond 3y ago
  It’s all programmable! On my Corne, I hold the S key and then hit H to type { Both on the home row along with my other “surrounds” I use while programming a lot. Holding S + … H = { J = ( K = [ L = < Obviously there’s a learning curve but it feels much better. Would be silly to lose sections of my career to injured hands from poorly designed keyboards!
  - lolive 3y ago
    Can you program such a behaviour on a VIA-compatible keyboard?
    - kvdveer 3y ago
      You can program that kind of behaviour onto any keyboard using kmonad. I'm using it on my laptop keyboard.
- tortilla 3y ago
  This video is pretty informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTMcH7u-vu0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTMcH7u-vu0

rgoulter 3y ago

> > that's masochistic! ... I honestly doubt that these make your life easier. > 100% of the functionality without hand movement. Yeah, this is the key point. These keyboards ultimately trade-off "benefit of reduced hand movement, at the expense of a more complex layout". A standard keyboard has some bad design flaws that these keyboards fix: the spacebar is impractically large, asymmetric row-stagger is bad. -- On a standard keyboard, you'll end up using your (weak) pinky fingers much more than your (strong) thumb. Ideally, it would be the other way around! With these keyboards, the thumbs get to reach 2-3 keys each. This allows bringing all the keys on a standard keyboard to within reach of the hand, without having to move the hands. e.g. Without having to move my hands, my thumbs can press space, esc, tab, backspace, and enter. With 'tap-hold functionality' (key acts as normal when tapped, acts as a different key when held), I can put Shift/Ctrl/Gui/Alt underneath asdf (and mirrored on the right hand side), so that I can use the modifiers without having to use my pinkies as much. -- And the other complexity is putting all the other keys (like numbers and symbols) on layers. Overall, I think it's the same power-user trade-off as vim/emacs make: more complex to use, but allows for more concise usage.

Fellshard 3y ago

With customization through Oryx, I've been able to make Ergodox / Moonlander quite amenable to many games that use MKB, especially those that make use of number keys, such as MMOs, by overlaying 1-5+macro with various combinations of double taps, holds, and tap-holds to represent 1-0-= and C-_ variants. So while it takes some customization, you can make such keyboards quite tractable for single-handed modes for individual pieces of software or for general use, with practice.

norswap 3y ago

What keyboard / layout do you use to get the arrow keys? I have a Ultimate Hacking Keyboard (https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/ https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/) and while the arrow keys are easily accessible, they require pressing a modifier. This is fine and dandy for simple usage, but I happen to do do a bunch of more complicated stuff: ctrl + arrow to go to start/end of line, ctrl + alt for words, all of this + shift for selection. ctrl+shift+mod+arrow gets really tricky to operate for me, I haven't been able to reach a level of proficiency that was anywhere near equivalent to what I had without the modifier key.

tsuujin 3y ago
I use the miryoku layout for this. There are other options that do this in similar ways, but I’ve found this one to meet all my needs. It was kind of designed around emacs, so modifier keys are well supported. https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku