This site [1] has a quick gallery, and this[2] Github page a lot more (including many niche or kit ones). The Kinesis Freestyle <whatever> looked like a good option, but I decided to try one of the nerdy ones, so I've ordered a VE.A clone from AliExpress.

I found both of these pages through the /r/MechanicalKeyboards wiki [3]. That community has a lot of posts and comments of people showing off gamer/geek/nerd stuff, but also seems to give reasonable advice to "normal" people wanting advice.

[1] http://xahlee.info/kbd/ergonomic_keyboards_index.html

[2] https://github.com/diimdeep/awesome-split-keyboards/blob/mas...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki/buying_gui...

- No caps lock indicator - Fn keys are a bit small, and I prefer a Fn button as opposed to a switch - Uses a proprietary dongle instead of Bluetooth

Maybe one day I'll get an ErgoDox, but I need to figure out what switches I like first...

Perhaps you could use a tiny widget that shows the caps lock status next to the clock?

I ordered Cherry MX Browns, which seemed like a fairly standard choice — red for gamers, brown for typists. I just hope they're not too loud.

[1] http://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/8/d/logitech-cor...

For anyone else looking to reduce the distance between mousepad and keyboard, this size is usually called 84-key, 75%, or 80%. They have all of the keys that a tenkeyless has but laid out in such a way that the keyboard is significantly less wide.

this one is relatively cheap (they used to sell an even cheaper one that I currently own, which has off brand switched instead of cherry mx)

https://www.amazon.com/DREVO-Excalibur-Mechanical-Keyboard-S...

Nomenclature was the big hurdle I had to clear when searching for a keyboard. I didn't know what these boards were called until a fellow engineer introduced me.

I'm sure "84-key" will be a helpful keyword to someone else reading this thread.

http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/ergoguide.html

http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/AHTutorials/typingposture.html

In my opionion, it's worth a good read-through. I also switched to an Evoluent vertical mouse and a Goldtouch split/angled keyboard w/o the numeric pad to minimize back-and-forth. Now I use lapdesk+apple magic keyboard+Evoluent vertical mouse, and don't really have any problems.

You'll also need to map your escape key to Caps Lock. You can use AutoHotkey for this with this script:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c6t9sj3fygtre6h/AutoHotKey.ahk

Vim basically allows you to trade mental effort for hand movement. Over time, the mental effort goes away, but the saved movement lasts forever.

But VS has so many shortcut "chords" that depend on HJKL that I can't juggle both paradigms at once. When my brain is in "vim-mode", I'm constant hitting ESC -> ':' to trigger commands.

I had the same issue with Atom, Sublime, and VSCode extensions that mimic vim too.

http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/mechanical-k...

Red switches are quiet.

https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_lis...