Building my first mechanical keyboard

Re:Building my first mechanical keyboard by michaelbrave on Saturday May 21, 2022 @12:08PM (#31459084)

I'm also curious why there arne't more expiramental key layouts, for example having programming related keys like "()~!" on the number keys is kind of annoying, would love a redesign where they are on the left instead of say caps lock or a longer shift key.

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Re:Building my first mechanical keyboard by ProZsolt on Saturday May 21, 2022 @01:57PM (#31460217)

I went with a 36 key Corne keyboard[0] with a modified Miryoku[1] layout. In this way every symbol is near the home row

[0]: https://github.com/foostan/crkbd

[1]: https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku

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Re:Building my first mechanical keyboard by CTDOCodebases on Monday May 23, 2022 @10:57AM (#31479836)

Using the open source firmware (QMK) that comes with most custom keyboard PCBs you can set keys to act as modifier keys when held or tapped. I set my capslock up like this so that when I hold it down h,j,k,l become my arrow keys and y and o become my home and end keys respectively.

Some PCBs support a split space bar too so if you tend to hit space with one hand the other can be used for a modifier and the home row can house all your commonly typed symbols which are normally out of reach.

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Re:Building my first mechanical keyboard by kixiQu on Saturday May 21, 2022 @01:35PM (#31459981)

There are tons of people who tweak their layouts a bunch -- but because it's free to switch that up and do your own experimentation, writing about your layout isn't as useful to other people as reviewing things they are considering paying for.

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