Previous topic - https://tildes.net/~comp/1jsx/my_even_smaller_keyboard_upgrade

I'm making this a new topic because this keyboard once again got me to think about a couple of interesting things in regards to both having a smaller keyboard and how to actually make that work. Plus while niche as hell I'd like to contribute some sort of topic to tildes every now and then. For this one i'll be rambling about some of the reasons I've stuck with these things, and the sorts of design concepts it's forced me to think about and problems I ran into (like where the hell the shift key is).

1. Power users and the Nav cluster -

The nav cluster is the Home/End/PgUp/PgDwn/Delete/Insert section and maybe the arrow keys below it on a standard fullsize keyboard. These keys are SUPER useful for text and other sorts of navigation, to the point that it seems most "power user" systems(IDE's or even things like vim, or vimum for browsers) just remap the functionality to somewhere that can be easily reached.

In fact moving the nav cluster and numpad to be somewhere easier to access, so i wasn't constantly moving my hand back and forth, was one of the main reasons I started looking into custom keymaps and eventually smaller keyboards. Being able to trivially hit Home/End without lifting my hands is just so much nicer.

I mention all this to show you the kind of thinking that originally went into me going down this rabbit hole.
In essence:
I wanted to type/navigate faster, oh you can use these keys to be faster, but wait, i'm only a little bit faster and it's MUCH more annoying because I constantly have to move my right hand back and forth, how do I stop that?

Thus i'm always somewhat surprised at how vehemently people can get about remapping keys. Having Up/Down/Left/Right on I/K/J/L with Home/End/PgUp/PgDwn on U/O/Y/H is super intuitive(right handed WASD, with home/end/pgup/pgdwn in line with their corresponding movement) and makes flying around the screen so much easier, and can also open up keybindings that were otherwise used with just porting all this functionality to keys you can easily hit.

2. Chords, and the first major problem -

I'm sure there's a more technical definition but for the purposes of this topic chords are anytime you're hitting one or more keys at once. Shift + a is a chord for A. Ctrl+Shift+Esc is a chord for opening the task manager on windows.

One of the things you don't instantly think about when you get into smaller boards is what chords are popular, and how adding layers to your workflow will affect them. You really want your modifier keys to be accessible at all times, and in a way that makes sense. I don't have a problem that since my Esc key is not on the base layer, the Ctrl+Shift+Esc becomes Ctrl+Shift+Space+Tab for me. To break that down, Ctrl+Shift are on all layers, Space, when held, is the modifier to go to one of my other layers, and on that layer tab becomes esc.

In short, I've added one extra key to the chord, and it doesn't bug me.

What DID bug me, was that with this smaller keyboard, I no longer had room on the left side to put all of those modifier keys. You'll notice that the chord can be easily hit with your left hand alone, and with my previous map, I had shift on the right side. So now I need two hands to hit this chord instead of one. Oh well, right? It's just one chord and I need to use both hands...., whatever?

3. Oh yeah, the mouse......oh shit -
While I do think that more software should be written to allow mostly keyboard interaction, the mouse still serves a useful purpose in my ideal world. Being right handed, I use my right hand for the mouse. Sure I have some mouse functionality bound on one of my layers, but that's not going to replace the speed and precision of the mouse.

And that brings me to Win+Shift+S on windows for taking screenshots. Or more precisely, for selecting an area to take this screenshot....using the mouse.

First off, if you didn't know about this chord and you're on windows, please use it, it's fantastic for those quick "no i mean this" moments where you're trying to send someone a picture of a problem.

Second, this chord SUCKED on my new keyboard layout. On any of my previous keyboards including a normal one, I could hit this chord with just my left hand alone, while I moved my right hand to the mouse to quickly select the area I wanted and then edit it (often drawing red lines around the buttons I needed someone to click on...again....as mentioned in the documentation......).

My new layout had shift on my right hand, and oh dear god did I quickly realize how many other little workflows suck when you need to use both hands to hit the chord and THEN lift up and move it over to the mouse. Most importantly, multiple line/file selection, now required me to move my right hand to the mouse, and my left hand to the right keyboard, so I could hold shift and select things.

Or in overly dramatic terms, lo i had flown too close to the sun and was falling!

4. Wandering in the dark -

For those that for some reason don't have the 5x3 Chiri CE physical layout memorized, here it is (bottom one).

First try:
Move shift to the top button of the left thumb cluster. This was currently tab, but clearly I needed shift on my left hand more. Tab cold go on the right middle, where shift had been, and shift can go where tab was. Problem solved.

No good. That key is often hit with my index finger instead of my thumb, making something like shift+t/g/b super annoying. Hitting that key with your thumb actually requires a shifting of your hands position, and thus feels unnatural.

Worse, the key below it is my space/layer button, so something like shift+ctrl+left, to select previous words(left in this case being space + j), was super uncomfortable to hit. Just moving my thumb up to hit both keys at once did not feel good as I couldn't properly apply pressure and it just felt weird, but I wouldn't be shocked if some people out there are comfortable with that.

Second try:
Ok, we'll just move one of the other 3 thumb keys on the left to the right and put shift there, probably the win key.

No good. Ctrl and Win (or gui/super/meta/whatever) are just as important as shift. That small cluster being close to each other on normal keyboards, so they're left hand control only, means that almost ALL programs assume as much and have built their default hotkeys around it.

Windows window movement and terminal navigation being two of the bigger ones that affected me. Further this still wouldn't solve my win+shift+S screenshot issue, as now i'm just moving the windows key over there. There's no way in hell i'm putting ctrl on the right side because that's also constantly used in assuming its on the left side for various hotkeys, shortcuts, and other behaviors.

Third try:
It was at this point I was entertaining finally looking into homerow modifiers and setting up tap/double tap modifiers instead of hold. I'm still skeptical of how useful any of that is (but being open minded because of course I was skeptical of all of this and now I preach it), and realllly didn't want to go down that road for all sorts of little workflow reasons I was worried it'd collide with.

5. The solution. Pinkies and two shifts -

This stumped for for about two days after I'd decided I just couldn't live with right shift (there were plenty of other awkward workflow things due to having the number layer key be the leftmost thumb on the right pad). I'd really been trying to practice getting used to hitting both thumb keys with my thumb, as I assumed that might be the solution, and unlike basically every other adjustment I've ever had to make for a keyboard, this just felt rough.

So I took a break and just thought about my previous and normal keyboards. Well, again, in those cases, all these chords assume you're using your thumb for one modifier, and your pinky for the other. Sooooo why not just do that?

Thus the solution was born:
MT(MOD_LSFT, KC_X)
MT(MOD_RSFT, KC_SLSH)

For the few of you who don't have your Via/QMK mappings memorized, this just says that if I tap the key in question, type z (or / for the second one), and if I hold the key in question, treat it as if I'm holding the shift key.

So my shift keys are now used by my pinky, just like normally. I have them on Z and /, so I can easily hold either for whatever chord. If I need something like ctrl+shift+z I can just use the right shift, and ditto for ctrl+shift+/.

Even better, this was already my natural inclination. It only took a bit for me to find out just how much faster and easier this was making things, as I already was used to the idea of moving my left pinky downwards to hit shift. In fact, it was even easier than normal. Every now and then I'll get zi instead of I because I didn't hold the key long enough for it to trigger the "shift" function, and I could get really messy and start screwing with how long the keyboard takes to recognize the difference between a press and a tap, but I'm super happy with it.

6. Conclusion -
My wife is right to judge me and I don't care from my superior position in typing valhalla.

TL;DR: recommendations for a small or folding keyboard that in addition to Bluetooth, also connects directly by USB C.

Hello all. I'm a contractor who does a bunch of different stuff, and one of the areas I occasionally do is on-site IT work.

I'm always looking for better tools, and while I can and do keep a standard full-size USB keyboard in my van, I'd like something more space efficient that I can fit in a small toolbag. There are tons of mini and/or folding Bluetooth keyboards out there, and some of them have USB-C or mini-USB ports, but so many of them are either only for charging, or just don't tell you if you can connect to a computer by USB. Since most rack servers aren't going to have Bluetooth and I want an option that involves the least number of steps (trying to avoid a bluetooth keyboard and having to use a USB bluetooth adapter), I'd really like a mini or folding keyboard that, while it can do Bluetooth, also can connect to a computer by standard USB. I specifically want a USB C port since I'm trying to standardize my gear on that.

Thank you everyone!

Intro

Whenever smaller keyboards come up online, I often see a lot of the same reactions/dismissals. I've found many of these to be foolish, but also that the community around such devices has its own barriers. It sometimes is represented from its most extreme aspects rather than someone with a more normal approach and use case.

So here is yet another pitch on why you might want to consider trying out some of the smaller keyboards out there, and the various advantages it can bring. This will probably be quite long, but I hope it at least is interesting.

Daily Drivers

Skills Required

I think the only real "skill" you must have to consider downsizing your keyboard is the ability to decently touch type without looking. If you're the sort of person who still hunts and pecks, no judgement, but this is not for you.

If you're someone who has to code, do data/numerical entry, or type a lot for work, then I encourage you to read on. Those are common barriers I hear thrown out, but in my experience are actually easier with a smaller keyboard.

Why?

The normal keyboard for most machines has a lot of dead/wasted space that could just be used better, and has some keys that are important or have grown more important in really poor positions.

Some main offenders

1. Capslock - How often do you use capslock? How often do you NEED capslock? If I can convince you of one thing to try out right now it's this, remap capslock (check out powertoys on windows) to left control. As it stands capslock is one of the easiest buttons to hit, and yet it if you moved it over next to Scroll lock you'd probably never mind. A large portion of my job is coding SQL and I never use it because that's what modern formatters are for. Please try remapping it(throw capslock on left control or some combo if you want).
2. Spacebar- Hear me out, as this might vary depending on how you type. Do you use one or both thumbs to hit your spacebar? If you're anything like me, you use one, and in my case it's the left thumb. This means that I've got a massive portion of my keyboard dedicated to one button, even though I'll never touch more than half of it (you'd be surprised how small you can make the space key and still hit it reliably). Now you might think that you don't need that space, but I'll dive into that more later.
3. The number row- More on this later, but my brief take on this is that humans are actually pretty bad at knowing exactly where the numbers are when they get away from the home row, and as anyone who's ever had to do lots of number entries know, the 10key/numpad is the way to go.
4. PgUp/PgDwn/Home/End/Delete- These 5 keys (and control and shift) are great for navigating/editing text/code/spreadsheets/webpages quickly, and could not be farther away from where you really need them to actually do that easily.
5. Arrow keys- A lot of people think it's fine that they're waaaaaay out there away from everything. I will be proposing an alternative given these are also critical to quick navigation.

How is smaller better then?

The core idea is simple. You can find the home row easily with the homing keys (j/f generally have a bump or some defining feature). You're probably excellent at hitting the keys in relation to that if they're 1 step away from the home row. The farther you are from that, the more likely you'll need to look, and the longer it'll take you to press the key even if you don't. So where possible, it's ideal to try and use space more efficiently to keep the keys you actually need to use near this position.

But how are you going to fit all those keys anywhere near the home row?

My Keymap

As an example, to help explain moving forward, here is the keymap for my mercutio 40.

You'll want to save that json, and then upload it at qmk configurator, which will make it much easier to explore. If you've never looked at this before it can seem insane, but I promise you it's pretty tame ignoring some edge case stuff.

If you don't feel like going through the hassle here's screenshots from the site with descriptions of each layer.

Mostly the same as below but i did fix some missing info below so sorry about that. I'm also leaving the descriptions of my "gaming" layers 4/5/6 in the imgur only because I think that's out of scope for this).

The magic of programable layers and context.

Space is an interesting key. It's a key only ever really tap, never hold (outside of games, more on that later). So, why not double it up, and make it do something different when you hold it?

Well in this case, tapping any of my 3 space buttons gives you a space like anyone would expect, but if you hold either of the left 2, it "shifts" you to layer 1 (base layer is 0), and holding the right one, shifts you to layer 2.

I put shifts in quotes because it's just like the shift key. If you hit 7 on your keyboard, you get a 7. If you hold shift and hit 7, you get &. This is the same concept, and just keep the layers organized in a way that makes sense, keeps it very easy to know what layer what key you want is on.

The Detailed Layers

The shorter version

If you don't want to read all of that, the basic idea is that your average person can type on the keyboard with minimal explanation. If they forget where a key is, the other 3 layers all follow rules to help guide them. One layer for navigation and keys that don't actually output characters (home/end/delete/esc/et) and one layer for the rest of the keys that output characters, namely the numbers, which are then also your numpad and ALWAYS under your right hand, centered and ready to go. The final layer is, mainly, for the function keys, still following the numpad from the previous so you can again easily figure out where the button you want is.

What does this gain you?

In the end the main benefits i've found are easier navigation, as I essentially now have a navigation layer with every key i could want on it, and much faster access to numbers. I still do data entry and lots of numbers, and having the numpad always one keyhold away is awesome.

On top of that it's just nice to not have to move my hands so much to type, and to get so much of my desk space back.

I type just as fast as I do on a normal keyboard for basic text, as there's almost no difference, and I type faster doing code/editing text because my numbers, brackets, and navigation keys are all closer at hand and in such a way I don't need to look or even move my hand from the home row to hit them.

So is it just all upsides?

On the typing side, honestly yeah. I've seen a lot of excuses like "well i prefer a numpad" or "how do you type numbers" which I've tried to address in this post.

The only issue i've run into is gaming, where I already really solved most of my problems as shown in the extra layers in the imgur gallery, and think it might even be better for gaming vs the normal layouts.

The only remaining hassle is roguelike games such as stone soup or caves of qud, which LOVE to assign every fucking key a use so there's no easy way to remap things and I have to actually add another layer JUST so i can hit the numpad numbers because I need them to navigate....

BUT unfortunately, you might actually want to acquire one of these keyboards, and that's where stuff gets a little tricky.

Programmability

All the upsides I just mentioned assume you can actually program the keyboard. Thankfully this has gotten much much easier with both Via and ZMK making the process very simple. QMK is doable, but difficulty wise it shared a lot of similarities with trying to get the perfect modded run of Fallout New Vegas going with about 20-40 mods. If you are not more comfortable in the tech world, I recommend ONLY boards that support via software. I believe these days anything that supports QMK supports VIA, but it's worth checking on the via website to make sure the board you're about to get works.

Some assembly required

The mercutio and the discipline I built myself after ordering the parts. They're through hole soldering and were some of the first soldering I'd ever done on my own outside of a quick kit I bought off amazon to practice. It is actually not that hard BUT you need the equipment. It's not horribly expensive to get but it's not cheap either. I do really enjoy just throwing on music and putting these together, but I totally understand that you might just want to, you know, buy the fucking thing already built.

Thankfully many sites offer build services (or you can find them on etsey) which charge a fee to assemble it for you. This is what i've done with every corne i've ordered because it is NOT through hole soldering and I don't have the guts for it, and even still they've all had some eventual issues (although again, i carry mine with me in a very unprotected state because i'm insane so some of that is on me).

Made of money

Especially if you're paying for the aforementioned build services, these things can get into the 200-400 range FAST, which is a lot for a keyboard. There are some cheaper options out there, and the Mercutio was only $70ish before switches(not bad) and keycaps (range from dirt cheap to ungodly expensive).

Still I would not recommend ANY of these for a first time buyer. My first smaller board was a 60% mechanical and those range from $70-100 these days from what i'm seeing.

Take my money....please?

Sometimes you just won't be able to find or buy the board you want in the way you want. There are lots of interesting boards i've seen over the years, but they're either very expensive or only open for a limited time. I had a working cornish zen that died on me. I'd love to replace it. I cannot as they currently don't sell them. Will they make more? Dunno. I hope they do.

Recommendations

I DO NOT recommend diving in head first and suggest starting with something simple like a 60 or 65, probably keychron, as they're a decent budget brand. You might want to go even cheaper with just a 60% off of amazon that isn't even programmable just to see if you outright hate it, but I do think that getting something you can start to tweak as you begin to understand what you want helps adoption.

Final Thoughts

I hope this gave some of you the push to look into all this. I'm glad I dipped my toe in it, less glad about the absurd amount of money i've spent on it (dear god keycaps), and really glad about the moment where I thought "huh i really just don't need all these keys" and pulled some out. I hope I can convince a few others give it a shot and hopefully see the same results. No dvorak or home row modifiers and weird triple tap macros. Just some layers and common sense.

I do still, if nothing else, highly recommend switching left control to caps lock.

In the DC canon, The Mobius Chair is a time-space/dimensional vehicle operated by the New God Metron. It allows him to travel and observe the universe, but the one I'm making is nowhere near as functional.

I've come into a recliner chair with a cupholder on each armrest, and I already had a split keyboard. My plan is to use the cupholders as a mount for both ends of the split keyboard, so that I could use the entire run of armrest and have my hands lay naturally on the keys. Goals are to minimize weird stretching and be able to comfortably type for long stretches of time, to put off stuff building this that I planned to work on this weekend, and to look super boss, though not necessarily in that order.

If I want ultimate angulation and the best range of motion, I was thinking about something like a cupholder with a phone or a tablet mount, like this one, but if anyone has recommendations for what would be best to work with, or have done something like this before, I'm all ears.

I'm looking for a cheap small factor mechanical keyboard. I love the looks of XD64 or a JJ50. How do i go about it? I Don't want the numpad, don't care about leds and prefer more retro/sober styles than the ones with wings and dragons and lasers blazing across the keys.

I live in Brazil, so i'll have to import everything. I'm looking to buy everything from one place if possible.

I was looking at KPrepublic. What do i need for the xd64?

1. Plastic case
2. Key caps
3. XD64 PCB with gateron switchs (Kit 10)

Do i need plate and stabilizers? It's already $91 without it. If it's necessary, i think it would be a better idea to just buy a Durgod Taurus k320 since it's cheaper.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: Got a Magicforce 68 for $47. Thanks for the help!

I know there are at least fifteen threads on ~comp alone about mechanical keyboards, but, this one is mine.

I recently had a run in with tendinitis, which taught me the importance of ergonomics, but I still wanted the clickety clack of a mechanical keyboard, so I decided to consider buying an ergonomic mechanical keyboard.

The first one that I looked at was the ErgoDox EZ (it was the first one I saw). It had a split layout, open source firmware, and a positive review from Linus Tech Tips.

The second one was the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard (I saw the Hacker News thread). I was interested in it for the Trackball Module.

These two keyboards are different enough from each other, so it's hard to compare them.

In conclusion, why should I choose one over the other?

The ErgoDox has been out for a few years now and spawned many, many new designs based off it. My question is how would you improve it? I've been trying to answer this question for a few weeks now and would like to know what the community thinks. What is important in a keyboard for you?

I've thrown my hat into the ring with Gergo which I think comes close. It uses SMD components, reducing the overall size and cost of the board, Removes the ProMicro for a TQFP Atmega32u4, moves the paddles in a tiny bit and removes the extra keys from the thumb cluster. It's meant to be used without a case (using rubbered standoffs to keep it off the desk/surface) and the back has some pretty designs. The hardest part for me to justify was loping off the number row, but seeing as many layouts use a modifier and the right hand pad as a ortho numpad I went with it. Worst case the default layout will have paddle + top row give numbers. In addition, for occasional mouse users, I designed a trackball that fits inside of a 1u key and can be mounted on the right hand side of the board (or a regular key if wanted). The idea being for small movements you have something other then QMKs mouse keys to work with. I've gone into a bit more detail on my blog on the design considerations

The main thing I tried to optimize with Gergo was cost. Ergo keyboards need not be expensive and I think the price point on this board drives it home. With a cheap set of caps off Amazon and some Cherry clones, this board can be put together for under 100$ shipping included. Compared to a ErgoDox EZ with a starting price of 250$ before keys or shipping, I think I've done a decent job.

As keyboards are highly personal devices, what do you look for in a keyboard?